Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question. Indeed it is a legitimate question.
I do not believe that in the past opposition parties have been as courageous and open as the Reform Party has been in presenting alternative budgets, even though the job to propose methods is the responsibility of the government, not the opposition. The opposition's task is to criticize, and this is our main task. As I suggested, we have done so.
I will send the member the taxpayers budget as prepared last year. In there all of the cuts are presented. I did some calculations. It would take 5 per cent out of program spending this year and next year and the sun would shine on Canadians again. We would be out of the tunnel.
From what I hear from my constituents, this is what they would like to have more than anything else. They have continued pain and uncertainty of having to take bitter pills of continuously hearing cuts already on the books and which are still coming, and yet there is no hope.
This is a budget without hope. Everything is more cuts. More cuts have been announced for 1998-99, outside of the range of the government. That is all it is. There is no hope, nothing but pain. I believe it is a strategic error to do that, on top of the fact that the government has on its books an increase in the debt of $112 billion, if all goes well, which many are questioning.
It will be over $600 billion that we are handing to future generations. I want to know how the member opposite will face his grandchildren and tell them he has left them as a permanent gift the interest costs and amortization on $600 billion, and that he was in the House of Commons while it went from $300 billion to $600 billion.