Mr. Speaker, this weekend I travelled to three provinces talking to Canadians about building a better future and overcoming the threats to our collective prosperity. We also discussed the cost of Canada's most important social programs. For example, it costs 37 billion federal dollars to keep
our health care and education systems going and to provide benefits for senior citizens.
This year interest payments on the massive federal debt dwarfed the cost of all these vital programs combined. Interest payments are at $48 billion and rising. This is a scandal and the federal government bears full responsibility. The current government has added $100 billion to our children's debt and this has increased our annual interest payments by $10 billion per year since the Liberals took power.
Canadians I talked to realize the biggest threat to our future prosperity is the interest payments being racked up by the current government. This government has set no date to balance the books and is driving Canada into bankruptcy. Shame on the government.