Mr. Speaker, while we appreciate that the finance minister pointed out the gaping holes in the Tory platform yesterday and that their numbers do not add up, out of fairness I think he should point out that his own numbers do not add up.
Somehow he missed the fact that in 1995 he said in his budget speech that he was going to cut departmental spending by 19 per cent. He said these are not going to be phoney cuts, they are going to be real cuts. That is in the budget speech. Today departmental spending has fallen only 8.3 per cent. That is a $5 billion difference.
Why is the minister failing to meet his spending reduction targets in departmental spending just like Michael Wilson?