Madam Speaker, I want to start by saying how disappointed and upset I am at the comments made by the hon. member who just spoke in his reference to an hon. colleague, the finance minister, using this opportunity for his own personal image, to try to gain a spot in the history books and to increase his own popularity. He is not working for the welfare of Canadians. He is in a conflict of interest and his integrity is in question.
When I became a member of Parliament comments like this used to bother me. Some would say they were politically motivated. However, having been here before and seen this member and the way sometimes things play in this House, I believe those statements tell me more about this hon. member than they do about the finance minister.
I would like to comment and ask a question of this member with regard to the elements of his speech. He indicated that he was not interested whatsoever in the fishiness and fuzziness of numbers. However, there is no question that in 1993 when this government took office there was a deficit of some $42 billion. That deficit is now gone as a result of another balanced budget with a balanced approach.
The member may be right that the government has broken some promises, but the promises we have broken are things like the promise we made to balance the budget in five years and it has now been balanced in four. We promised to reduce the deficit to 3% of GDP and it is now down to zero. That is a broken promise. The member does not give credit where credit is due in terms of setting the priorities.
The member somehow thinks this is the only budget that will be brought down in this mandate. The undertaking of the government was to balance the budget, and the finance minister has delivered.
The member did not want to talk about the tax break for low income Canadians. He did not want to talk about the surtax cut for middle income Canadians. He did not want to talk about the child tax benefit increase for families or the child care expense deduction or the other tax measures.
The member did not give credit for those but rather decided to launch a personal attack against the Prime Minister. I think at this point I would pose a question to the member.
First of all, I ask him to rise in his place and apologize to the House and to the finance minister for his personal attack.
Second, with regard to the upcoming fiscal period, with regard to the numbers presented, exactly which numbers, which he generally referred to as fishy, is he saying he does not understand so that we can explain it to him in plain English?