Madam Speaker, before I get directly into answering the question, I will say that when the Conservatives were in government they did some good things. They put in place the free trade agreement. I guess that is about it, but there must have been some other good things, such as the GST and the Airbus deal. Those are pretty good things too.
Unbelievably the member began by saying that his party also beat up on the deficit. The Conservatives beat it up to $43 billion a year, a record high. I do not know how that member can stand and somehow say that his government had anything to do with the fact that we at least have a balanced budget now. It is really hard to figure out.
The Conservatives talk about how they are caring and how they are not just concerned with those who have but also with those who have not. How have they shown that when they played a big role in driving that debt up to $600 billion? Over $45 billion is spent on interest payments on the debt alone. That is money that is not available to deal with those areas of concern to Canadians. We recognize there is a need out there. Therefore this is a little hard to understand.
Dealing with student debt is important. Having three children now in university and two more in about two or three years, it is important. The Liberals dealt with it by reducing transfers to the provinces for health and education by $6 billion to $7 billion a year as of this year and next year. That is how they dealt with it.
The first private member's bill the Leader of the Official Opposition tabled before this House was on how to deal with that student financing problem. It talked about things like making sure money is available, but making sure that it was going to be repaid, having income contingent repayment and so on. That is the importance we place on this issue. Our leader in his first private member's bill dealt with it. The member should read the bill.