Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend opposite for his speech. I want to point to a statement he made when he praised the finance minister for his leadership, as he phrased it, in battling the deficit.
I want to point out to my friend that in 1995 when the finance minister brought in his budget he did make a commitment to reduce spending by $5 for every dollar in new revenue that he brought in. Imagine the surprise of Canadians when three years later they found out what actually happened was that the government brought in $2.10 in new revenue for every dollar it cut. In fact the government actually reversed completely the promise it made in 1995.
I think that is a betrayal. I think Canadians believe in a small limited government, a government that lives within its means and understands its limitations, understands that it can only do a certain amount of things.
It was taxpayers through revenues who really beat this deficit down. If we look at the numbers, we will find that 69.1% of the improvement in the government's fiscal position was due to new revenues. A very, very minor portion, about .6% of the improvement in the government's fiscal position was due to departmental spending cuts and the rest was cuts in transfers to the provinces.
Would my friend agree that the rewards of the surplus should be distributed to people on the basis of that formula? In other words, two-thirds of the surplus should go to taxpayers, .6% back to bureaucrats for increases in government spending and the remainder back to the provinces to fix the health care and higher education that this government helped destroy.