Debates of March 24th, 1998

Budget Implementation Act, 1998

[Gar Knutson, Liberal, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think Canadians really care whether the $2.5 billion is booked this year or a couple of years hence.

All members should realize that if we did not book it this year the numbers would look even better. The surging rate of popularity of the Liberal government would probably go up even higher. I do not think we are doing anybody a disservice by trying to be conservative and booking the number in advance. We are committed to the $2.5 billion, so what is the harm in booking it now?

[Randy White, Reform, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk to the amendment to the motion this morning. Specifically I want to talk about the millennium fund and some of the misunderstanding of Liberals about post-secondary education, which I am reasonably well qualified to discuss in the House.

I get a bit disturbed, as I usually do, when I listen to members opposite talk about their own legislation. Virtually each time they do so, they talk about the other parties rather than their own legislation.

Before I get into that aspect of it, I am splitting my time with the hon. member for South Surrey—White Rock—Langley. That gives the folks over there a little less time to talk to me.

It is no longer enough for the government to table legislation in the House and then defend the legislation by talking about the opposition parties. It is more appropriate to defend the legislation. I might add that the sooner some members realize this, the sooner they will become better debaters in the House.

I want to talk a bit about values when it comes to the amendment to the motion which actually criticizes the government for failing to follow generally accepted accounting principles from which it declares deficits, surpluses or a zero balance as it is called.

The values in that come from many places. I remember some of the values my mother gave me. They were such things as do not lie, pay as you go, and live within your means. Those are values in my case that came from the maritimes. Those are values that should exist throughout the House. I find them sadly lacking when it comes to some of the submissions made by the other side, the Liberal government in particular.

We can look at the values that come from Rotary International, of which I am a member. Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? There are other significant tests of values. One has to wonder, when the government does what it did with this millennium fund, where those values come from.

Throughout discussions about the budget in the House I go back to the people at home who have certain expectations. They have children in school, in post-secondary education, for which they are paying a considerable amount of money. These young people are taking out student loans. I have two children in post-secondary institutions, one with a significant student loan.

When we look at those kind of issues and the people back home, issues like getting jobs for these young people, we really have to wonder where this government comes from.

We have the millennium fund. I will describe some of the flaws in it in a moment, but I have to ask whether it was just one huge PR exercise or really an attempt to help the vast majority of students in this country.

For those people who do not know, there is a difference in this land between a scholarship and a bursary. I actually had the pleasure in my community of establishing a scholarship bursary foundation fund which carries in it well over a $1 million today. The difference is this. A scholarship in this land is basically an award given to a young person on the basis of their GPA, their grade point average, or their academic credentials. It has little regard for the financial need of the student. Whereas a bursary is based on financial need.

The government is about to award students with a scholarship based on their grade point average. There is nothing wrong with that, in totality, at times. However, the government has totally ignored the needs of financially impaired students. I can assure members, having been in an educational organization at one time in my life, that those with the highest GPA in school districts end up getting awards, basically from their communities. They do rather well at that. It would have been much better if the government had helped the students who do not have the financial capability to even get into university, much less proceed through university.

This government announced that there was a $2 billion to $3 billion scholarship millennium fund. At the same time it suggested that it had balanced the books. We are going to go through this academic exercise of balancing the books for the next three years. The government will say “Look folks, we balanced the books”. But there is a big difference that the folks back home do not seem to understand about this government. Balancing the books means zero. If this government ends up toward the end of the year with a $3 billion, $5 billion or $7 billion surplus, all it has to do is spend that $3 billion or $5 billion or $7 billion on whatever exercise it wants and stand up at the end of the year and say “We balanced the books”.

[An hon. member]

Get real.

[Randy White, Reform, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

A member over there, who obviously does not understand what I a talking about, says “Get real”. The facts are this. That is 100% accurate. As an accountant I have seen it time and time again.

What this government is doing is saying “We will bring all this down to zero, but we are not going to tell you that we could have had a $10 billion or $15 billion surplus. We are going to blow it”.

This year it said that it would create a millennium fund, make the Liberals look real good, make the Prime Minister look real good, and at the same time stand up in the House of Commons and say “Look, we have balanced the books”.

The question is: What happens next year if we are headed for a $10 billion or $15 billion surplus?

Is there going to be money paid to Bombardier in grants like we have seen before, only in bigger dollars? Are we going to see the friends of the friends rewarded with yet more money and at the same time, after they blow this money, will they come into this House and sanctimoniously talk about balancing the books?

We are in for a lot of discussion on this very issue. It is fact, according to the generally accepted accounting principles, that the millennium fund should not have been charged to prior year accounting balance sheets.

[An hon. member]

The auditor general agrees with you, Randy.

[Randy White, Reform, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

The auditor general, as my colleague says, agrees with me. It is funny. We accountants have a strange way of accounting. If we spend it, it goes on the books in the year we spend it. If we do not spend it, it does not go on the books.

This government seems to think that it can announce something which it will spend in the future, which is considered a contingent liability, but charge it to last year's books to reduce the surplus. That is exactly what it did.

Let us talk about the millennium fund for a moment. It is a scholarship, like I said before. It is given to those with the highest academic performance. It is not given to those who have financial need.

Ask any of these students who are sitting around in this place. They know what I am talking about. There is not a student in a school district in this country with the very highest of GPA upon graduation who does not get a scholarship.

I question what this government is really looking for. If this government is truly interested in helping young people, perhaps it should consider putting more money into the pockets of their parents who can then give it to their children, just like I would do and just like I have done. It would be much more appreciated.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was interested in the member's comments about the accounting treatment of the millennium scholarship fund. It certainly has been an issue which has captured the attention of the House, as well as the auditor general and the public accounts committee.

It appears to me that there is a technical problem that is being addressed with regard to the proposed treatment of the millennium scholarship fund.

In fact, as I understand it, if the government were to distribute the scholarships out of the innovation fund of the foundation, it could have, and still could today, disbursed the funds directly to the innovation foundation and charged them to the operations of the current fiscal year because the innovation foundation is a not for profit corporation, a separate legal entity.

The reason I understand that the moneys have not been given to the millennium scholarship foundation, which is the proposal, is that the foundation cannot be legally established and incorporated until after the budget is passed by this House.

I think the member will probably also know, with regard to the auditor general, provided that an action is dealt with and passed in the budget prior to the closing of the books and the issuance of the statements, that will satisfy his requirements.

Given that extra bit of information and the fact that if it were paid through the innovation foundation as opposed to the millennium scholarship foundation, would the member not agree that what we are really talking about is simply timing and has nothing to do with the substance of the legal liability which the government has declared in its budget?

[Randy White, Reform, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I guess with accrual accounting or even cash based accounting timing is everything.

The way the fund should have been established would have been to take the money and declare it a surplus or take the money and identify it in a fund. Yes, that could have been done.

But I think the member is missing another point. The point is that this government had a surplus of approximately $3 billion. I truly believe that this government made every attempt to bury it.

The problem is, as I have described it, what are we going to do next year? If we know now that we do not have deficits to get rid of, then surely the surplus should be even more next year.

Are my colleagues in the Reform Party going to have to sit here daily investigating the books, trying to find out where this government is burying funds or promoting their friends or providing patronage pots rather than at the year end declaring a surplus? Once a surplus is declared, of course, then comes accountability time.

The public is going to want to say “We don't think you should spend it this way or reserve it. We think you should pay down the debt. We think you should start giving tax breaks”. These are the very issues that this government has a problem with. That is why the government is trying to use any kind of surplus dollars.

The answer is clear to me. The appropriate accounting method, the morally appropriate method, to deal with this would have been to have declared a surplus and then manage and spend the money.

[Val Meredith, Reform, South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the chance to comment on the budget and the supplementary estimates and to bring a dose of reality to the debate.

Liberals deserve the credit for bringing in the first balanced budget in 30 years. It just goes to show how incompetent the Mulroney Tories were when they failed to balance the budget in similar circumstances during the mid-1980s.

It reinforces the incompetence of both the former Liberal government and the Tory government when we have a national debt that is over $583 billion. It is because of the incompetence and the negligence of these governments that we are in this situation.

I want to continue the discussion which my colleague just ended on the surplus. This budget should have shown a $3.2 billion surplus, but the Liberals chose to use it for new spending. They chose to put $2.5 billion into the millennium fund. While Canadians support funding of essential programs like health and education, the Liberals have used the millennium fund to hide their deviousness.

The accounting has been brought into challenge by my colleague. I would suggest that it is very plainly a manipulation of taxpayers' money. The government has taken $2.5 billion out of the current budget even though this money is designated to be spent two years down the road.

The auditor general has criticized this imaginative bookkeeping and the government has defended its action. What a surprise. If the government truly believes that this is good accounting practice, then I challenge it to allow all Canadians and Canadian businesses to use the same accounting practices in the real world, that is, to write off expenditures before they occur on their income taxes. Regular Canadians would go to jail if they tried to do the same thing.

Let us look at the amount of support the Liberals are talking about. The millennium scholarship fund will offer up to 100,000 post-secondary students grants averaging $3,000 a year. I had not realized the difference between a scholarship and bursary and that causes even more concern because these grants were supposed to help low and middle income students. Now that is under question.

When one considers that there are 1.7 million full time or part time students in post-secondary education across the country, the millennium scholarship fund will only support 6%. Does this government honestly feel that 94% of post-secondary students are in the high income bracket? When this system is implemented there will be a lot of disappointed and financially strapped students who were given the understanding that help would be there.

Why did the government choose this particular avenue? Why did it choose to only help 6% of the students? I can only imagine it is because if it transferred the money to the provinces under the Canada health and social transfer, the federal government would not really get any recognition. I think the government was concerned over the photo op when handing out the cheques. If it transferred the money to the provincial governments to use for the benefit of all students, it would not get this photo-op.

Another major problem with this is the ego of the Prime Minister. He wanted to have a legacy to leave behind. This country cannot afford to pay for an individual's ego.

Another concern I have with this budget is that it does not address the very serious problem of taxes and bracket creep. This is an area where the government continues to draw more and more dollars out of the taxpayers' pockets. Bracket creep occurs when an individual's pay rises to a point where it enters a higher tax bracket.

While salaries have inched up over the past six years, tax brackets have not. By law, tax brackets are only adjusted when the consumer price index rises by 3% or more in any given year. This has not happened for the past six years. Inflation has risen 9% over the same period of time. Thus individuals whose salaries have just kept up with inflation often find themselves in a higher tax bracket.

In his budget speech the Minister of Finance made it clear that it is deliberate and that he intends to continue with this practice. He stated “Upon coming into office, the government and the Bank of Canada agreed to hold inflation inside a range of 1% to 3% to the end of 1998. That policy has worked. That is why we are announcing today that we will extend the current agreement with the Bank of Canada for a further three years”.

This government has made it clear that it intends on screwing the Canadian taxpayer in this fashion. If this is not the case then I once again challenge the Liberals to introduce legislation to eliminate the 3% threshold for indexing the tax brackets. We know they will not because they want the money.

Let me outline how much money we are talking about. This year the Liberals will have collected an additional $800 million in taxes through bracket creep. Next year it will be $1.5 billion. By fiscal year 2000-01 the amount will be $3.3 billion.

Canadians already pay enough taxes. In British Columbia the average family income is $57,949. The average tax bill in British Columbia is $28,461. That is an awful lot of tax from one family. While all Canadians need tax relief, it is nowhere needed more than in British Columbia. With the highest marginal tax rate in North America, it is driving business out of the province.

My constituency sits on the American border. I cannot begin to count the number of businesses that have moved 20 or 30 kilometres south because of taxation. Thousands of jobs have been lost. Millions of dollars in tax revenues have been lost. It is this departure of capital and jobs that has led to British Columbia's woes. Responsibility belongs to both the federal and the provincial governments which are taxing Canadians out of house and home.

The federal government is putting far too little back into that province. Last year, transfers from the federal government accounted for only 9.7% of provincial revenues, the lowest in the country. Other provinces received much higher amounts from the federal government.

Forty-three per cent of Newfoundland's provincial budget comes from the federal government. For New Brunswick that figure is 45.5%. For Quebec, 17.6% comes from federal coffers and 31.8% of Manitoba's provincial budget comes from federal revenue. The Canadian average is 16.9%. British Columbia's is 9.7%. I suggest that British Columbia is getting shafted.

The Atlantic provinces received an average of $2,000 per capita from the federal government. Quebec received $927 per citizen from the federal government. British Columbia, lo and behold, received only $524 per citizen from the federal government. Now that British Columbia is entering a recession, it deserves to be recognized as being in a situation of need by the federal government.

What do we get from the federal government? “It is the provincial government's fault. It is the fault of the Asian economy. It is everybody's fault but ours. And by the way, don't count on us for any support or help”.

The Liberal government is so very quick to take responsibility for the economic upturn and to take credit for the boon in other parts of the country, but when it comes to accepting the blame when an area of the country enters a recession, the government runs a hundred miles. Liberal hypocrisy in its purest form; they accept all the credit but they deny all the blame. The Liberals cannot have it both ways. It will not bode well for the Canadian economy if this is going to be their approach.

The government has shown that it can cruise through economic good times, that it can garner a surplus and use it for new spending. But when the economic cycle starts to go downhill, as it is doing in British Columbia, this government shows that it has no idea of how to handle it. That is very scary for all Canadians.

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member talked about the millennium fund. It was announced in the Speech from the Throne, in the budget and it is in the legislation today. It is part of the activities for 1997-98. We made it quite clear that we pay for what we announce. We pay our bills. We tend to pay as we go.

It is not really the accounting issue which the Reform Party has a problem with. The real issue it has a problem with is that we are spending $2.5 billion to improve the lives of students. The Reform Party has a problem with putting money in the hands of those students. That is really the problem.

I will ask the hon. member more of an accounting question. The books close March 31. Adjustments are essentially made in August. At the request of the auditor general those adjustments are audited and scrutinized. Any surplus that comes over and above those adjustments goes directly to the debt, just as it has gone to the deficit year after year after year. Does the hon. member know that? She is arguing about the fact that we are not being transparent. We cannot get more transparent. If our transparency goes beyond the requirements of public accounting, so be it. I will let Canadians judge that.

[Val Meredith, Reform, South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting how the Liberals can look at accounting in one way for themselves and in a different way for the average Canadian.

I have a question for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance. If as a business person I decided to buy a building in three years and I wanted to earmark money I had earned for that building, would the government allow me to use that as an expenditure? I would think not. I would think that would be part of my income, my profit as a company. I would pay taxes on it. Then I would report the spending of it in the year which I spent it.

It was very clear with this millennium fund. If the government had not planned new spending on a new millennium fund there would have been a $3 billion surplus. That is what this government does not want to address with the average Canadian, with the taxpayer. This was not a balanced budget; this was a surplus budget. This government chose to spend the surplus in a way it felt would get the government more brownie points with the Canadian taxpayers, the Canadian voters.

If the government wants transparency, it should talk with Canadians about a millennium fund and see if Canadians support a millennium fund over federal government dollars going into the provincial coffers for education. Under the Constitution education is a mandate of the provinces. If the federal government wants to transfer money to the provinces for education, then so be it. But for the federal government to be spending surplus dollars and hiding it from the taxpayers, that is not right no matter how we cut it.

[Dick Proctor, NDP, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, listening to the member's speech, I felt that she gave very little recognition to the Asian situation. Also when she referred to businesses moving south of the border, there was no attention at all to free trade and NAFTA.

Given her concern about the provinces and their fiscal plight, I assume we can expect at the Reform Party convention this spring that it will be agreeing to establish provincial sections of provincial parties from coast to coast.

[Val Meredith, Reform, South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in case the hon. member from the New Democratic Party is not aware, we have a provincial party in British Columbia, or there is a Reform provincial party. I will not say that we have it because there is no affiliation between the federal and provincial parties.

I find it amazing that a member of the New Democratic Party would even stand up and comment on the economic situation in British Columbia. The responsibility of that has to be shared with the New Democratic government that is there.

Trying to blame free trade and NAFTA for the downturn in B.C.'s economy is ludicrous. The economy in this country is on a positive swing because of NAFTA and the free trade agreement. The reasons companies are going south, and I have talked to many of them and I have talked to many individuals who are taking their money south, are high taxes and the economic climate that has been created by an NDP government. High taxes are driving our businesses and our jobs south of the border. For individuals from the New Democratic Party to say it is free trade and NAFTA is absolutely ludicrous.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Scarborough Centre.

I rise in this House today for two reasons. First, because it is important that I do so as a government member to show that, however imperfect it may be, this remains a historic budget, which will have an extraordinary impact on the future.

I had just come out of a meeting of the agriculture committee and was sitting at my desk when I heard someone viciously attacking the integrity of the members of this House. This person was literally shouting. I thought to myself “My goodness, it's Howard Stern”. No, it was the Bloc member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.

I think a twelfth Oscar should be awarded to Titanic , the movie, because looking at the line the Bloc is taking on the budget, one can almost see the last scene of the movie, where the ship is slowly sinking to the bottom of the sea. They cannot think of anything to say.

I will be calling the airlines to ask who supplies them with the little bags, because the symptoms of parliamentary sickness are similar to those of air sickness.

I can hear Bloc members continually spilling their venom and making all sorts of disparaging remarks about the government, especially by attacking the integrity of one of its most eminent members: the Minister of Finance. It would certainly be a good idea to attach one of these bags to each seat as a precaution, to be on the safe side. They may come handy every time Bloc members stand up to speak.

One thing is for sure, every time I hear—

[The Deputy Speaker]

The hon. member for Lévis, on a point of order.

[Antoine Dubé, Bloc, Lévis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the member for Bourassa and I think he has gone too far. Props are not allowed on members' desks and he is talking about unparliamentary props.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The hon. member did refer to such things but did not use a prop in the House, which is against the rules, as the hon. member rightly pointed out. The member used unusual language, but I do not think his remarks were unparliamentary.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, sometimes the truth hurts. The member for Chambly said I had no manners whatsoever, so I say to him that I will save that. I will not forget it.

What really upsets me is that each time the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot rises to speak, he speaks about members' lack of integrity. He spoke of almost falsifying and almost lying. Not only is he uttering nonsense, but he said that ethics counsellor Howard Wilson was being paid by the Prime Minister's office to save the Minister of Finance's neck.

This is a mistake, because he should know he reports to the deputy minister for industry. Those who have nothing to say keep attacking members' integrity. He is undermining not only his own cause, but this institution as well. When it suits the members of the Bloc Quebecois, they pull out their hair and question this institution's integrity. When it does not, they get upset and raise points of order.

I am going to speak about the budget, unlike the members opposite. There are some important things in the budget. It is an excellent budget, as the member for Frontenac—Mégantic has said. It is true. Why? Because it is historic. We paid off the $42 billion in deficit that was there when we formed the government in 1993. Canadians have made sacrifices. The result is a zero deficit budget.

[An hon. member]

Delivered on the backs of the unemployed and the provinces.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, one thing is sure. This is the start. I was in France at the beginning of March. What were they talking about there? The Canadian miracle. French senators and members of the Assemblée nationale asked us “But how did you achieve this?” People complimented us. They said “What a brilliant way to manage the budget”.

If the Quebec government, the Bloc's head office, listened a little better and was on the same wavelength as the public—but things will soon improve, because Quebec will have a Liberal government after the upcoming provincial election—we would definitely not have any problems in the health and education sectors.

Unlike sovereignists, who hold referendums, who continually talk about the Constitution, and who say it is the federal government's fault, we have taken our responsibilities and we have the figures to prove it.

The issue of fairness was raised, but it is a start. Nothing is perfect in this world. We had to pay $42 billion and find fair and—

[Jean-Guy Chrétien, Bloc, Frontenac—Mégantic, QC]

At the expense of the unemployed.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

—equitable solutions to achieve a zero deficit.

But we also did something that hurt sovereignists even more. We talked directly to young people. We decided to invest in knowledge and to make sure young people can reduce their debt load and also—thanks to this government's vision—have their place in the sun, like the baby boomers before them.

Of course they are going to come up with examples. They are always going to come up with an editorial. They will tell us that the president of such and such a union opposed it. But those of us from Quebec know how it works: some plant, some little pequiste, some little separatist expresses his opinion. They are good at it. There is no denying it.

When we watched the news, what was the first thing we saw about the millennium fund? Three students from no particular party were interviewed at random. Members opposite will say that journalists are federalists. The young people were asked “What do you think of the millennium fund?” What was their unanimous response? They replied “What we want is not to get involved in these squabbles. The important thing is that, if we can benefit, then, yes, we will”. The moral of the story is that the government has understood that sometimes it is preferable to speak directly to students, to speak directly to young people, because they understand how it works.

Members opposite are also going to tell us we are interfering in education. We are not. Access to education and reducing student indebtedness are shared responsibilities. I would like to remind the House that the loans and scholarships program was created with assistance from the federal government, and each year we pay a percentage. They have decided to run things their way. We have no objection to that. We will sit down with them and use the same parameters.

The important thing—and I represent this generation—is that young people be given an opportunity to have access to education. When young people graduate from universities, CEGEPs and high schools, they are in debt. Young people want to enjoy equal opportunities and to be part of society. They want to join the workforce as soon as they graduate.

The debt reduction strategy includes seven components. There are, of course, the Canadian scholarships. The millennium fund is great. About 100,000 young Canadians will receive scholarships. The government also wants to increase support for advanced research and for graduate students, by increasing the budget of the three granting councils. We will help graduate students to better manage their debt, through a tax break for the interest paid on student loans, and through improvements to the Canada Student Loans Program. How can anyone be opposed to these initiatives?

We heard what the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot had to say. He said they had been energized. Does this mean they had no energy before? It is their problem. He said they had been energized, that they would keep a watchful eye and not let anything go through. The sovereignists can go ahead and tear their shirts. We can give them the addresses of some stores that sell shirts at a good price. Given the number of shirts they tear these days, it will still cost them a bundle, but it will probably benefit the shirt industry.

What is certain is that young people will realize the importance of the government's action.

We are also being accused of not caring about the elderly and the handicapped, and of not providing tax relief for the poor. What is extraordinary in this budget—and I will give you an example because they will surely have questions or criticisms for me—is that we are the first government to eliminate a tax. We said “We will remove the 3% surtax that was put in place by the Conservative government”.

If this is not a sign of credibility, a clear demonstration that this government is listening to the people, then I do not know what is.

I rely on the public's judgment. Many of my constituents phoned me. I spend a great deal of time in my riding. My constituents did not criticize the budget. Quite the contrary. They said it was a good budget, a good start, and that the priority was to eliminate the deficit. Then, we should preserve and strengthen existing social benefits—which is what we did in this budget—and tackle the debt. The facts speak for themselves.

[Jake Hoeppner, Reform, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy hearing the hon. member across the way do a bit of bragging because he is pretty good at that.

I happened to look at one of the World Bank ratings of income per person. It shows very clearly that since 1990 we have slipped from number three to number twelve. The income per person has gone down just about 10 rating points.

That just does not take the cake as far as I am concerned but in today's Quorum we see that even the people, including some of the bureaucrats, are saying this is no place for brains in this country, that we had better find jobs somewhere else.

I would like to see where all the gravy is coming from that this member is talking about. I am sure the ordinary people have not experienced it except the guys with the MP pension plan.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will tell my hon. colleague that this budget clearly contains tax relief measures.

Not only are we investing in knowledge, but a decision has also been made to make a substantial increase in development, in research councils. These are things that will have an impact.

I will also remind the House that lightening the debt load will also have a psychological effect on motivating young people. It is hard for a young person not to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We have a saying in my part of the country “If you're not a revolutionary at 20, you'll end up a pastry cook by the time you're 40”.

[An hon. member]

And you are how old?