Mr. Speaker, as always, I listened intently to the member for Calgary Centre. He started his speech, which really set the tone of everything he said, with saying that Canada is a corporation.
Everybody knows that Canada is not a corporation. The Government of Canada is not run like a corporation. The bottom line is that the Government of Canada is about dealing with people's problems.
He went on to talk about the so-called downloading. He used the word downloading when talking about reducing transfer payments to the provinces. As has been said in this House time and time again, we reduced those transfers far less than we reduce our own spending.
The member is inconsistent. He talks about improving the efficiencies of government. Why would we not also want the provinces to become more efficient? Should we keep the provincial government transfer payments intact while reducing our own spending? This does not make sense. Everybody knows in this country that we have to add the federal government debt plus the provincial government debt to get a total quantum of public sector debt in this country.
It is only reasonable that we reduce provincial government transfer payments. The thing is technology has taken over our society to such a great degree. What we are asking governments to do is the thing that the business sector did maybe 10 years ago. It embraced the concept of newer technology to reduce the cost of government. That is what we are asking the provinces to do and that is what we are asking the federal government to do.
I am surprised that the member from the Reform Party, who spent such a great deal of time talking about the importance of balancing budgets, has not taken that into realization. We want the province of Ontario, the province of Quebec and indeed the province of Alberta to each take part in the process of reducing government spending and making government more affordable to people.
He went on and on about the ratio of debt to GDP. I dispute some of his figures. As I understand, for the 1996-97 fiscal year he is right, it is around 75 per cent of the total debt to GDP ratio. But that is projected for the next fiscal year to go down to 74 per cent.
In spite of his great long dissertation about the importance of using debt to GDP ratio, the bottom line is that we have turned the corner on that very important figure. I agree with him, we should be focusing on how to reduce government debt.
It seems most of his discussion surrounds why we cannot do it tomorrow. We are in a big hurry. The bottom line is the ship of state takes a long time to move. I have come to that realization.
This government has done the very important things to move that ship of state, whatever it is, 10 or 15 degrees from the course it was on.
Within the first two or three years it does not look like it is much different. As the program continues to impact on government spending and debt reduction, that becomes greater and greater. That is the course that we are on.
That is what everybody in this country says to us, stay the course, keep on that 15 degrees. They do not tell us to go 30 degrees or 40 degrees one way or 70 degrees back the other way. They tell us to stay the course. It is the Reform Party that wants to get off course. This all has to do with timing and how we put our plan into place.
The bottom line is the reduction in interest rates is related to fiscal responsibility. The international and domestic financial communities have looked at what governments are doing and said yes. What is an interest rate but a risk factor: "I am going to loan you x dollars and you are going to pay me back 10 years from now. I think you will inflate the economy. You will print money by increasing the deficit. Therefore I want a higher risk factor''.
In reality that interest rate component has been continually reduced in Canada over the past three years. This tells us that not only the domestic financial community but also the international financial community believe that Canada has its debt and deficit situation under control. Take credit for it? Why would we not? We have lived under an administration that did just the reverse. It drove interest rates through the ceiling. It is very much a check mark, an A+ average by the international financial community.
I heard this member talk about across the board tax cuts. The same member stood in this House about a year ago and talked about the flat tax. Remember the flat tax? We were going to take money from the middle class and give it to the wealthy. Now he has a different formula. I guess by reform he means reforming his own party.
In the final analysis most federal government spending is to people. The member has not been honest. The member has not said what people spending he is going to cut to get off that course another 10 degrees or 15 degrees. He did not talk about how much he is going to cut the old age pension, et cetera.