The member across the floor says “you have to be kidding”. Well of course he is not well known for his ability to do math.
The fact is we had a $42 billion deficit. We are on the verge of no deficit. We are on the verge of a balanced budget. For the first time in more than two decades we are going to benefit from that. For the first time we are going to see an increase, an ability to put some strength back into our health care system and put it on a firmer foundation. That is a direct result of the actions of this government which was prepared to make the tough decisions.
The government will have to be very careful, very cautious and very judicious in the decisions that need to be made in this coming budget. Everybody in this House has a list of the things they would like to see the government spend on. My personal advice to the minister is to be cautious. We have not seen that surplus yet. We have not seen a balanced budget yet. We do not know how long it is going to be balanced for. We want to make sure that we have made that change absolutely solid. Then let us make some judicious investments in our collective future.
The member for Rivière-du-Loup and I worked on a committee that produced a report for the Minister of Finance on education financing, particularly on the support for students. We have a problem in this country that faces every student who attends university now. It has reached the point that the costs and the debt load students are having to take on in order to attend university have simply become so large that many of them have to contemplate postponing or not going ahead with post-secondary education. That situation certainly is not in our best interests. There are a number of programs like that.
I have concerns about research and development and the need to strengthen the councils that fund the essential research that builds the quality of life 20 years out. It is the core research that is done today which our quality of life is built on, as we reach the age of retirement in my case, or my children reach the age of majority. I would like to see some more investment in that. However they all have to be done in the context of fiscal responsibility, something that this government knows about better than any other party in this House.
I would simply like to close by thanking the Prime Minister and the finance minister after four years of very hard work for this first reinvestment in health and social programs.