Mine and-If you have a personal problem and have to go somewhere, I think it should be respected.
The government is selling a lean, mean government but is increasing its size at a future cost to millions of taxpayers. It is sophistry, clever but misleading.
Despite the hype, the Liberal budget is not a great budget. It does not go deep enough, fast enough or is it compassionate. Liberals have not come clean with the Canadian public. They are trying to retain their popularity and are playing games with numbers.
The budget is merely acceptable compared to what we have seen in the past. It does not stop the digging fast enough. As Alberta treasurer Jim Dinning said the other day about the budget, it is like getting excited over a student that always comes home with Fs on his report card and one day brings home a C minus.
Will we consider the budget as our soft targets? Number one, soft targets. The Liberals are headed in the right direction. They have to make some cuts. They have addressed some cuts, but they have not made enough cuts.
No balanced budget is in sight. That is the target they have to set but will not set. This is why the leader of the Reform Party is going to be the next Prime Minister of Canada. Canadians are going to recognize that is where we should be and that is what will be in the best interest of saving the country.
The Canada social transfer that the government sneaked in is another example of sophistry. It is going to confuse the provinces. The Bloc Quebecois, rightly so, is screaming loudly and justifiably about how it will affect Quebec. The Liberals cannot answer. They will not answer.
The fourth problem is that the fiscal House is just not in order. The combined spending cuts in the budget and revenue increases will amount to $29 billion over the next two years. That sounds great. However, at the end of their term overall spending will have increased even higher than where they started. After four years of Liberal government overall spending will be up by about one-half billion to one billion dollars. Despite the cuts, it is not a balanced budget. Despite the cuts, the debt will grow. Despite the cuts we will be no further ahead as a nation. All that
pain just to pay the interest on the debt. Why can the Liberals not get it through their heads that we have to get to a zero deficit?
I propose that Parliament reject the budget for its failure to eliminate the deficit quickly and decisively within the life of this Parliament by asking further generations to bear the cost of our fiscal responsibilities.
I propose that the finance minister reintroduce a new budget in the fall that reflects Reform's suggestions to balance the budget over a three-year period.
We are continuing the cycle of treading water. Eventually our arms are going to get tired. We are going to sink, sink as fast as the Titanic when we hit the wall. Hit the wall we will if we do not eliminate the deficit. No country can allow its debt to continue to grow as we are in Canada and expect to survive.
That is why we presented our taxpayers' budget, a budget that gives Canadians real hope. It gives the Liberal government a plan to adopt. It shows them the vision Liberals lack.