Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her intervention. It may be jumping to a conclusion to say the Reform Party's alternative budget was not well accepted. When I read editorial comments from the Globe and Mail , when I read the Financial Post , when I read comments from other people who have looked at the substance of our alternative budget, there is widespread acceptance that we must have a balanced budget. Although we may quibble about some details or some finer points, the essence of the argument remains sound that we must have a plan to balance the budget. The Liberal budget has no such plan. In the Liberal budget the hope is to get it down to 3 per cent of GDP, twenty billion or twenty-five billion dollars.
The irony of it is although they can say this may be kinder and gentler because they will not take as many steps as the Reform Party, in essence what they are saying is that with the cuts we see now, we ain't seen nothing yet. To get it from $20 billion down to zero, they will have to make significant, serious cuts.
The interest component of their budget is going from $38 billion to $51 billion in three short years. How can that be a good thing for the Canadian economy? How can that help to preserve social programs? How can that help to preserve the core of the public service? How can they hope to meet the legitimate needs and the legitimate concerns of the needy people when they are promising them that within three years they will spend an additional $13 billion on the interest component of the budget?
There is no compassion in a budget that says there is no plan to balance. The compassion lies in having a plan to balance. When it is balanced we can offer security of social programs, tax relief and some assurance about where we heading into the future. Unless they can offer that, Moody's and the rest of the economic fiscal world will say the budget the Liberals are presenting is not good enough.