Madam Speaker, first I want to thank the hon. member for giving me the opportunity to express my thoughts on this matter.
I understand the member. I have the same frustration. I have been in this House for 10 years. Every year we would see the Minister of Finance get up and promise to reduce the deficit, but he never did. Last year, for the first time in 10 or 11 years, a Minister of Finance stood in this House and predicted a deficit.
The government fiscal year end is March 31 and we are now at February 28. We are one month away from the end of the fiscal year and we are predicting, after accounting for everything, that the deficit will be reduced by more than what we predicted, $4 billion more. That was the commitment we made to Canadians in the last election. It was the commitment we made to Canadians when the Prime Minister took office. We said that what we say is what is going to happen because we made that commitment and we want to make sure that Canadians know.
That is why this morning financial markets and all the economic and financial analysts were very satisfied with the budget. They finally realize that we are going to have a deficit of $24 billion next year, which is our commitment in the red book we campaigned on, of 3 per cent of the GDP. It is important to our financial markets, our financial and economic system that we make the assurance that when we predict something, when we estimate and make assumptions that we know what we are assuming and we reach those targets.
That is the first thing the Minister of Finance did in his first budget. He has continued to do it in the second budget. He has kept our commitment of 3 per cent and also has reached beyond that.
There will be a day when we will have no deficit and we can start tackling the national debt. There will be that day with this government and with this Minister of Finance.
Also, the member should not forget that besides having a financial deficit there is a human deficit. The government is not a business that can just close the door and say: "Well, too bad". This is a government. We are running a country. Besides the financial deficit there are human beings who have to be considered.
That is what the Minister of Finance and this government are doing. We are making sure we keep our commitment to reduce the deficit so that we will be able to tackle the debt and have economic prosperity in order to assist those in need. We will be able to create jobs for the youth of this country so they will have a future.
The way the Reform Party sees things, everything is black and tomorrow is the end of the world.