Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Reform Party, as a party we want to be fair. When a government makes progress in a certain direction we should applaud it.
The government member wants to deny the idea came from the Reform Party. I think he would have to admit that the Reform Party is the group that put pressure on the Minister of Finance in terms of balancing the budget.
During our first term here our leader asked time after time in question period when the government would balance the budget. I asked it as the finance critic. Across Canada the public and the business community asked the question of the finance minister. The financial houses which look at Canada's credit rating asked it of the finance minister. There was tremendous pressure from a lot of sources to be fiscally conservative and deal with the deficit.
In the last fiscal budget the finance minister responded and went much further. He said his Liberal caucus members took some two or three months to move over and finally thought they would take the risk on more deficit and expenditure reduction. What was the big result? The Minister of Finance set up a bank of telephones expecting Canadians to jump all over them and tromp them with their boots because they had reduced expenditures and tried to deal with the deficit. The telephones were dead. Nobody phoned because it was the right policy. It was what the Reform Party had been saying for months, even two or three years before we came here; cut expenditures, reduce the deficit and there will be all the results I mentioned in my speech.
Now with regard to the question of flat tax, the Reform Party wants a tax that is fair for all Canadians. I think we all want that. There are three or four models of flat tax. One model is the pure flat tax, the one model the hon. member was referencing, which deals with interest, charitable donations in a variety of ways. The Reform Party is taking those models to Canadians and asking: "Which option would work for you as a Canadian? Which one would help small and large businesses and the individual taxpayer in the best way?" That is how we are handling it, by taking it to the people of Canada.