I never claimed to be a brain surgeon. That coming from the Reform Party, I am not sure that a surgeon would even be needed. One might have trouble finding it. The hon. whip can rest assured that I have some points I wish to make about the Reform Party's position and on the fact that it just flips and flops depending on what happens to be in the newspaper.
I believe the entire research department of the Reform Party consists of the Globe and Mail , the Toronto Star and maybe one or two papers from out west from where Reform members all hail. They read the paper in the morning, find out what the issues are and then stand up in question period and say to spend more money and cut taxes. That is all they want to do.
The reality is that this government in being a responsible federal government understands the dynamics of a working relationship with the provinces. I will not deny for a minute the fact that the transfer payment floor was reduced from $12.5 billion to $11 billion. It has since been put back to $12.5 billion. I will not deny that, no question. Why did that happen?
The solution from opposition members is simple: spend more money. Where do we get the money when we are running an overdraft of $42 billion? I know they are tired of hearing about it but the reality is that something had to be done. This government along with the people of Canada had the courage to suck it up and do it. We had to make changes.
I find it astounding that a government like the Tory government in Ontario would not simply applaud the moves of this government. Even though that government has yet to eliminate its deficit, it is still running a deficit in handing back a tax cut to the taxpayers. How does that work? It is the same as saying to our kids that we are going to run a family overdraft but we are going to increase their allowance. At a certain point in time it is not possible to do that.
The message finally came from this government under this Prime Minister and this finance minister that we just simply had to cut the suit, we had to cut the cloth to fit the body. We had to start living within our means. That is exactly what this government has done. We have clearly stated what our priorities are. Debt reduction.
I believe that the vast majority of Canadians agree that debt reduction should be the number one priority of this government and any future government. We are saddling our children with a debt that is simply too large. We are all to blame for it, even those in this place who have never been in government and who have constantly pushed, prodded, lobbied and demonstrated—and I refer mostly to the NDP—for governments to spend more and more without any sense of responsibility.
All of us, the past Liberal governments, past Conservative governments and the opposition have a fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayer to be more responsible with what we spend their money on. We are all culpable, liable and responsible for the size of the debt. It cannot continue.
If members opposite really want $2 billion—and I do not know why they are putting a limit on it by the way. It is entirely possible by the time the budget comes down that there could be more than that spent in health care. I do not know why they would do that, but I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time. Time will tell.
Should we do it in midstream? Sure we have a surplus and we acknowledge that it appears the surplus is in the neighbourhood of $10 billion. And we should be blamed for that is what I hear members opposite saying. Okay, fine, we will accept the blame for running a $10 billion surplus. Bad, bad Liberal Party. It is terrible. How did we get there? Of course we made adjustments in transfer payments. Of course we worked with our partners in the provinces, including the province of Quebec to see how to restructure the financial status of the country.