Mr. Speaker, I do not think I have ever heard such a strange argument. As I understand it, the argument is that the Liberal Party has done so well, and we are accepting that the Liberal Party has done so well over the last three years in its governance, that we are somehow responsible.
All I have heard over the last three years from the party opposite is what a disaster the government has undertaken against the people of Canada. Therefore it is very interesting that today the Reform Party seems to be turning the course in recognizing that the Liberal Party has done the things it said it would do.
In the red book we stated we would bring the deficit down to 3 per cent of GDP. That was months before we even heard about the Reform Party in the House. The reality is the government is on track with that.
It may be that all of the things the member is applauding would have happened even if those seats over there were not occupied. The reality is we are on our agenda. Six hundred thousand new jobs have been created in this period of time. The debt to GDP ratio, which everybody seems to be ignoring, for the 1996-97 period will be 75 per cent. It is nothing to be proud of but in the 1997-98 fiscal period it will be 94 per cent. That is the turning of the course of this deficit which the government has basically brought all by itself, not by the urging of Reform members.
I see that Mr. Forbes in the United States has fallen out of favour on his flat tax but it seems to me Reformers are continuing on in this vein. One of the speakers mentioned his concern for small business. Would the member acknowledge that a flat tax would do away with the current low rate of tax for small and medium size business?
Would it not also tax interest of the banks, the very interest transfer payments he talked about being the money the poor taxpayer was paying for interest on the national debt where the recipient of that would not pay tax on it under the Reform Party's flat tax agenda?