Mr. Speaker, my simple question is why does the government continue to maintain the facade that program spending rather than tax cuts is the way to go.
Chapter 19 of the auditor general's report which was tabled in September 1996 dealt with the child tax credit in detail. He pointed out that in many cases the program appears to be spending money on child tax credits for children who, quite simply, do not exist. The department does not have the programs and the checks and balances in place to find out how many dollars are being paid to families that do not have children and that are not entitled to those moneys. That is the type of waste and abuse that we find in program spending, which tax cuts would prevent.
I would like the parliamentary secretary to tell us why program spending, his vision, is so much better than what we are talking about, which is tax cuts.