Madam Speaker, there was a lot said by the member for Ottawa Centre.
I would like to begin by saying it is very difficult to find anything but negatives when we are responding to this government's agenda. I could not believe it when I heard the member say that it is not governments that create jobs but the private sector. That is not the message that has been coming across the
floor. They have spent $6 billion on an infrastructure program because governments were going to create jobs, arenas, boccie courts.
That is government creating false jobs, not real jobs. It still fails to get the connection between high taxes and job creation. High taxes kill job creation. If we want to create jobs we have to lower taxes. One of the provinces is doing that right now. It is lowering taxes and cutting spending. What is happening? It is increasing employment. It is getting more jobs for its people.
This budget is not a job creator, it is a job killer. The government does not create jobs, the private sector does, and the private sector is looking for tax reductions. Anybody in the private sector will say: "Get out of our lives. Get off our backs. Get out of our pockets. We will create the jobs, but we do not need you on our backs. Get off our backs and we will do it".
The hon. member spoke about the myth of taxes. I am sure that Canadians who were listening to "we do it with more taxes" are responding to that, because they are eagerly waiting to give the government more tax dollars. They have been giving the government all of these tax dollars and they have been receiving fewer services. Does the government not think they are getting the message?
The reason for the tax increases over the years has been supposedly to do something about our deficit and debt, but they have been getting deeper and deeper. It has not happened. There is no proof that the answer is to go after more taxes. In fact, the opposite has been happening for 25 years.
Where is the justification for standing up and talking about the myth of taxes? The myth is that we are taxing too much. We have to cut our spending. When we have been overspending for the number of years we have been, to suggest that we can continue to overspend and that the Canadian people will be prepared to support us with more tax dollars is to dream in the extreme.
The government has not yet received the message. It will get it in the next election. When the government addresses the next budget let it find how it will accommodate $52 billion in interest payments that are going out the window without increasing taxes and again hurting the creation of jobs.
It is nice to hear hon. members opposite talking about free trade. When they were in opposition they were vehemently opposed to free trade. Yet in fact free trade today is the salvation of this government. If it were not for free trade it would be in far worse shape than it is right now.