Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member's speech. His views are diametrically opposed to those of the Reform Party.
However, some of the issues raised by the Reform Party are not totally erroneous. I do not agree with the hon. member when he says that the Reform Party's views are irresponsible. I do think that, unfortunately, our debt ratio will force us to make some hard choices, as is already the case with the UI program, for example.
We learned today that the number of welfare recipients in Quebec climbed to 808,000, with a more or less corresponding decrease in the number of UI beneficiaries. It is pretty easy to figure out that those are UI exhaustees who have now joined the welfare rolls. If the Liberals continue to close their eyes, as they have a tendency to do, instead of tackling the issue of the national debt, we will have to make even harder choices in the future. We will have to cut our social programs, including medicare.
This Liberal government set aside a tidy sum for things such as the purchase, by the Department of National Defence, of four secondhand submarines, which will of course have to be upgraded with state-of-the-art detection systems, the very best enemy detection systems. Given what is happening with the frigates that have to be refitted, we can expect this government to once again spend billions of dollars. If the government stopped spending uselessly, it might be able to delay cutting into social programs.
But this is not what the government does. Consequently, I do not agree with the hon. member's comments on the Reform Party vision. I am not a Reform member either, but I do think that our debt ratio is dangerously high. This is the real threat for our society and, without going as far as the Reform Party, I do believe that the provinces, which are closer to the taxpayers, are in the best position to assess their needs, and should therefore be the only ones to decide which medical services to provide.
The other day, in Quebec, we had-