Mr. Speaker, first I will make a comment and then I will ask a question. The hon. member who just made his speech took an awful lot of credit for the recent statistics he quoted on how much the interest rates have gone down, on how employment is higher and on recent changes as if the government caused all of them and should take credit for them.
I am glad he is taking the credit. When the economic fundamentals change, when interest rates go up as they will and as they are already starting to do, when unemployment does not get solved by cash injections from governments, and when the Liberals get tired of trying to blame the private sector for the jobs they promised to create but cannot create, I wonder whom he will blame.
The member said that the government has the fundamentals right. A few members over there have accounting and tax backgrounds. I wish they had a little more influence over the finance minister. They stand to tell Canadians that the back of the deficit has been broken and that the balance sheet of the nation is in order. They are distorting some facts to a degree that the elastic band will almost snap.
Does he understand the difference between a government coming in with a huge debt and adding $112 billion to the debt when exiting? Is that getting it right? Does he understand leaving a $17 billion deficit and committing the country to spending more than what it brings in as it did when it first started? Does he understand
when a government has a balanced budget over its mandate? Does he understand the difference between what this party represents in terms of a balanced budget and what the government side represents in its continued support of deficit spending?
The difference is the size of the debt and how much the government adds to the debt. According to the finance minister's own numbers, the government will have added close to $113 billion to the debt when it leaves. With our numbers it would have been half of that; it would have been $60 billion. The difference is $61 billion. The interest cost to service that additional debt is what it is all about. Those are the fundamentals. Does the member understand that difference in the fundamentals?