Mr. Speaker, while I have been listening to the people opposite congratulate themselves and the Minister of Finance, calling this a historic budget, there are a few things that are historic. We have historic high taxes. We have historic high unemployment rates for youth. We have a historic amount of families living on the edge of poverty.
I remind the member that the people who are to be congratulated here are the people of Canada, the long suffering taxpayers of Canada who have balanced this budget. It was not the Minister of Finance or that government, it was the people of Canada. I just want to keep reminding him of that.
They keep bringing up the fact that we would, as an opposition, destroy social programs. I would like this member to explain to me how, by not addressing the debt and the fact that some 30 some cents of every dollar that comes to Ottawa goes to service that debt, the projections in the Liberal budget for the next two years do not reduce that debt by $1. What is that doing to social programs in this country? If that were reduced could we not have more money for social programs? Could we not make it truly a historic budget? I would like to hear his comments on that.