Mr. Speaker, I am going to stand here and do exactly what the hon. member asked us to do, which is to congratulate him. I am going to congratulate him and the Minister of Finance. Why am I doing that? Because they finally opened their ears and heard the Canadian people.
I do not think that if he were truly honest he would exclude the Reform Party's influence in this. We are the ones who came here and for the first time in over 30 years it became respectable to talk about governments becoming smaller, spending less and getting the fiscal house in order.
The thing I take exception to is that the Liberals try to pass it off as if we are already out of the woods. The fact of the matter is, now that we are in tax time, for every $1,000 taxpayers send to Ottawa, $300 is for interest. There is a lot of urgency to reducing and paying off the debt so that we can start cutting those interest payments, so that we can reduce taxes and have money to spend on the programs we value.
The finance minister keeps setting these loosey goosey targets. The present target is to pay off the debt in 200 years. That is $600 billion at the present target of $3 billion a year and 200 years is not good enough.