Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today to talk about this most serious topic, the most serious thing to threaten Canada as we know it, our debt and deficit.
I can state in no uncertain terms that this is the number one problem facing our country and that the citizens of Canada are demanding action. As I speak our federal debt alone is over $550 billion. It is increasing at almost $40 billion per year.
This is a financial crisis. We have to stop kidding ourselves and we have to start facing reality. The sheer size of these numbers is so gigantic that most Canadians, myself included, have a tough time really understanding what they mean to us. When we bring things down to an every day level, we see just how dramatic this problem really is.
The interest on our debt is a staggering $80,000 a minute. All of that money goes up in smoke, most of it to foreign investors. If the government were allowed to spend that money more productively on necessary services, on all of the jobs that are being threatened, on the social programs now threatened by this loss, if we could just put that money toward those things, how much more productive this country could become.
To put that in common terms, if we were to give away 288,000 colour television sets every day, after a month every home and apartment in this country would have one of those colour television sets. If the month has 31 days instead of 30 days the money for that one extra day of government could buy 4.431 million cases of beer, even more if it does not have alcohol content in it. That poor suffering taxpayer could have a few cold ones while watching "Hockey Night in Canada" on his new colour television set.
The numbers are simply astounding. By the time I finish my 10-minute speech the money shelled out in interest on our debt could have paid a year's worth of university tuition for 270 Canadian students.
What is the government going to do about this ridiculous situation? What is its plan? According to the red book the government is aiming to reduce the deficit to 3 per cent of GDP by the end of its term. The finance minister says with pride that he will meet his targets come hell or high water. What does it really mean to Canadians?
It means an unspeakable high debt of over $600 billion. It means we will still be overspending by $25 billion per year. It dooms Canadians to higher taxes and it begs for a financial crisis of epic proportions. I think it is safe to say that the government was not elected to do any of these things. If it wants to prevent a crisis, it had better start setting some realistic targets.
I have no doubt that the government will claim that it has inherited a legacy of the past, the accumulated mismanagement of nine years worth of Tory rule. Not only is this an unacceptable case of passing buck, it is also completely irrelevant. The government must play the hand that it has been dealt and do it to the very best of its ability. The citizens of Canada are demanding that the government take action.
It is a disgrace that on election day we had a debt of approximately $489 billion and today we have over $550 billion, $61 billion higher than it was the day we started this Parliament. That is a disgrace.
How should the government deal with the deficit? Because the Reform Party cares we have asked the people of Canada through electronic national town hall meetings, many town hall meetings across the country, in curling rinks, service clubs, chambers of commerce and people on the streets. They have told us clearly what should happen. The people of Canada are willing to bite the bullet and take their medicine. They are willing to do this because they know the price today, though painful, will be much less than if they slide and go deeper and deeper into the hole.
If only the finance minister had that message a year ago. Since his disastrously weak budget last year our dollar has dropped steadily, our interest rates have soared and now our credit rating is being reviewed.
Last year the finance minister refused to take on a role of leadership and it has now cost all Canadians dearly. I hope that this will never happen again. The budget must make the tough decisions and it must make them now.
Throughout the prebudgetary process the Reform Party has not only emphasized that the government targets were ridiculous, but that they were ridiculously low and inadequate. We have come up with our own suggestions as to where the cuts should be allocated. That is because we wanted to be constructive and not just adopt the traditional opposition role of criticizing the government after the fact.
Therefore this morning we have released the taxpayers' budget-