Mr. Speaker, even though the reason interest rates have gone up is that the Minister of Finance has not taken any deficit-fighting action for a year now, he is bragging that he will be able to reach the gigantic deficit goal of $39.7 billion.
The minister's strategy is extremely obvious. To reach the enormous deficit goal of $39.7 billion, he plays with numbers at the expense of the unemployed. In fact, he is using the surplus in the unemployment insurance fund to reduce the government's deficit.
The Minister of Finance not only is using this surplus to reduce this year's deficit, but now that 11 months have passed by, we can see that he also overestimated the 1993-94 deficit by close to $4 billion in his last budget. All that to make people believe that the situation is improving. In reality, the minister is playing all kinds of games to mask his lack of action in the fight against the deficit.