Mr. Speaker, the finance minister's budget seeks essentially to reduce the deficit and succeeds in doing so through a series of measures with which I disagree. I will express this disagreement to my colleague, who may respond.
First of all, operating expenditures are being cut. But, for every $1 reduction in operating expenditures, one dollar will be cut from transfer payments to the provinces and another one taken from the UI fund. This is a strange combination. This combination requires employers and employees to pay a special tax amounting to almost 30 per cent of their UI contributions to help reduce the deficit.
By cutting transfers to the provinces the federal government has decided that it is in a better position to spend this money than the provinces themselves. Finally, when it cuts its operating expenditures by only one dollar, that is to say, by another third, it is not listening to the auditor general, who said among other things last year that the defence budget could be cut by as much as $1 billion without any noticeable effects because it was sheer waste. Well, only $600 million was cut, which leaves $400 million. Meanwhile, students are being penalized as transfer payments for post-secondary education have been cut by $150 million. And, to top it all, because the government has set aside $600 million to create summer jobs, it is expecting students to be grateful. These are the facts. This is what it says in the budget. I totally disagree and await the explanations of my colleague across the way.