Mr. Speaker, that is the unfortunate part of some of the debate that takes place in this Chamber. We have to face ridiculous allegations like that.
The hon. member knows full well that this party, the official opposition, has been constant in our demand to reduce taxation. For him to suggest in any way, shape or form that we are suggesting Canadians are prepared or that we are prepared to advocate an increase in taxes in any form is absolutely ridiculous.
I think what my hon. colleague from Calgary—Nose Hill, our critic on those issues, was referring to was that there would be perhaps some support from the Canadian people for allocating some of the surplus, as we move past the balanced budget, toward bringing down the roughly $485 billion unfunded liability that is currently in the Canada pension plan.
We are not saying we have to raise taxes. What we are saying is that we should spend our money more wisely. We have been advocating this ever since Reformers in substantial numbers came to this place following the 1993 election. We have been saying we have to set some clear priorities. Instead of spending $1.1 billion annually on regional development programs, which in many cases are just payoffs to political friends, we have to allocate our limited resources in a very prudent manner. We do not see that from this government. We saw that very case leading up to this budget. All of a sudden magically this government says it has $2.5 billion to spend on a millennium fund.
Where did that money come from? We have through our constant questioning during question period been able to get the Prime Minister to admit that the auditor general is right, that the $2.5 billion would have been a surplus.
In reality we as a nation collectively could have made a decision as to what the best way was to spend that $2.5 billion. In defence of the government perhaps the official opposition would have been wrong. The wisdom of the Canadian people would have been to take 100,000 students out of 1.7 million post-secondary students and develop a fund for them, a millennium fund for scholarships for them. I do not think it would have. Perhaps they would have said that $2.5 billion should have gone to paying down some of the Canada pension plan unfunded liability. I think that is the type of thing my hon. colleague is suggesting.