Mr. Speaker, the hon. parliamentary secretary commented on copies of our budget not being available. Of course they were. We announced that our budget would be unveiled in West Block, Room 200, at nine o'clock this morning. Liberal members of Parliament were more than welcome. I was pleased to see that one attended the unveiling. Copies have been readily available. They are certainly available in the lobbies now, as the member knows.
The parliamentary secretary of all people should know that when debate is on a certain topic we should try to stick to the debate as much as possible. The debate today is on the Liberal government's very weak deficit reduction target of 3 per cent of GDP in three years.
We will talk about our budget as we have been today. We have presented some important information regarding the budget. However we have to make sure it fits in with the topic for discussion today, the motion that has been presented rejecting the 3 per cent of GDP in three years as a target.
In terms of specifics, if the hon. member has read this document which is available and which he acknowledges he now has, he would know that we presented a lot of specifics. We presented detailed numbers in terms of reductions in the social program spending area and in areas outside social programs.
We cannot only look at spending when we talk about this budget. We also have to look at the empowerment measures that Reform has presented along with the numbers. The numbers are important in the budget but they are there for anyone to see. It is important to balance that. If we are talking about spending cuts in the area of social programs and other areas, it is really important to show the empowering measures to help people deal with the coming cuts.
This approach is far more valid than the Liberal approach of pretending that we do not have a serious problem and therefore not bring forward a budget to deal with the serious problem we in fact have.