Not her Canada pension payments, it is for the little programs she wants, the CBC, $10 million; flags for everybody, another few million dollars; the information office, $20 million. She gets what she wants and everybody else has to do with less.
She is on the left side of the party and she thinks government exists to spend money, government exists to manage the economy and manage people's money properly. She does not even know what that means. That is why these estimates fall in hard behind the budget. It tells us that Canadians are being duped by the government.
The other thing I want to point out is the smoke and mirrors. The Minister of Finance said that program spending is coming down and we are finally getting a handle on this. But let us take a look at the numbers. CRTC's budget in the main estimates is down by $18 million, from $22 million to $3 million. Wow, what is going on here? I checked into it and I found that the revenues that were collected have been netted against the expenditures for the depart-
ment. Therefore rather than showing the $22 million which is normally spent, the revenues have now been netted out and they are down to $3 million. But it is still going to spend $22 million.
So what has changed other than the numbers on the piece of paper? The facts are that the way the numbers are presented would lead one to believe that major progress is being made. But when we ask the questions behind it, we find that is not the case. That is the story of the government. That is the story everywhere.
It does not matter if the department of heritage states at the last minute that it wants another $10 million out of taxpayers to get their favourite programs on TV. It does not matter if it is the President of the Treasury Board who stands and says that civil servant numbers are coming down. He is just moving them off the balance sheet. It does not matter if the Minister of Finance stands up and says that interest rates are coming down because of his great management. That is also wrong.
I could go on and on. The point is that the election is coming up and Canadians will have a real choice between the fiscal responsibility and management by the Reform Party and the fiscal irresponsibility by this government.