Mr. Speaker, I was listening with great interest to the member's speech. He was talking about the goals the government has set. I would like to talk about those goals.
I wonder if the hon. member would agree with me that if we aim low we just might be able to succeed sometimes, if to aim low so we can succeed is not necessarily where the government is coming from. I wonder why the Liberals do not realize that you cannot get over a wide chasm in two jumps.
The situation is that with our constant overspending and our constant deficit building we are taking the future from our great-grandchildren who we do not know and we have not seen yet. This is an intergenerational transfer of taxation. With the spending we as Canadians under this Liberal government are presently doing, we are handcuffing our descendants countless years into the future with taxation. It is for money we are spending today.
Specifically the government talks frequently about this 3 per cent thing. The people of Canada should know that since the government took over, the federal debt, not the deficit which is the overspending but the federal debt, has increased $60 billion. That is just since this government has taken over.
The government's target is to get to 25 per cent of gross domestic product within four years. People like ourselves figure four years times $25 billion is $100 billion. It will be significantly more than $100 billion. Even if we stayed with $100 billion additional debt, the interest charge on that additional $100 billion that we are having our great, great, great-grandchildren responsible for with their taxation, is $9 billion a year.
The federal transfers for post-secondary education are $2.6 billion. The federal transfers for health are $6.5 billion. In other words for just health and post-secondary education, it is $9.1 billion. And this government with $100 billion more debt is going to be encumbering our great, great-grandchildren with $9 billion more.
It is going to be a lot more than $100 billion, but let us take that number. If the government in all of its wisdom is prepared to go $100 billion more into debt, the interest charges will be at least $9 billion. That then wipes out our ability to fund post-secondary education or to make federal transfers to the provinces in support of health care. Where in the world does the hon. member expect to get that from, except the bogey man which Canadians are concerned about because it is more of a tax grab, more of this government in Canadians' wallets?