Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe what I have just heard coming from the government in that intervention. She talked about buying votes. She is accusing us of buying votes? I cannot believe it. Jobs, jobs, jobs, the GST, scrap and abolish NAFTA. Talk about buying votes.
We are not buying votes. We are saying we are going to offer tax relief after we get rid of the deficit. We make that very clear in our fresh start platform: after we get rid of the deficit we are going to act fiscally responsible and we are going to offer tax relief.
We also have a guarantee in our platform. We are saying to the voters: "Don't trust us, trust yourselves. If we don't do what we say we are going to do right now, we want you to have recall". That is something that the government does not believe in because it promised things it knows it cannot deliver.
Why do the Liberals oppose recall? Because they would be called to answer for the promises they have made and they do not like to be held accountable for their promises.
The government says that when it took over there was a $42 billion deficit. When the Conservatives took over from them the debt was about $200 billion thanks to annual Liberal deficits. Now the Liberals are extremely reluctant to slay the monster they created. We went down this path of insanity back in 1970 when the Liberal government started this deficit spending to the point that when they were booted out of office the debt stood at $200 million. Now it is approaching $600 billion. That is some kind of an accomplishment? I think not.
When I hear members over there say that we are being dishonest, I want to point out that we understand that cynicism. That is the fault of the Liberal government. That is why we believe in recall. That is why we believe in referendums. That is why we believe in freer votes in the House of Commons.
The Deputy Prime Minister tarnished every politician in this House and in this country when she did not do the honourable thing and resign-