Mr. Speaker, it is fairly evident who the member will be supporting in the leadership race of the Liberal Party in the near future.
I want to say simply that my quarrel is not with the finance minister's integrity. I do not question that at all but I think members would acknowledge that the finance department did make a mistake in not following the procedures, the tradition I guess, of not putting the finance minister in a potential conflict of interest position which is sadly what happened when this legislation was introduced.
The member said the debt would be reduced in terms of the percentage of GDP. While that may look good on paper, it does nothing to help people who are paying $6,000 in taxes just for their share of the interest on the debt. Reducing the debt as a percentage of GDP will not lighten their tax burden.
The finance committee is dominated by the Liberal Party. The recommendations the Liberals made on the finance committee were to set some absolute targets in terms of debt to GDP ratios for the government, something it failed to do when it brought down the budget.
There needs to be a very aggressive program to start to pay down debt. I would simply point out that in recent days the Business Council on National Issues came forward and said it was ridiculous, we need to have a much more aggressive plan than the government currently has for paying down the debt.
If we do not, we leave all Canadians vulnerable in the event of not only international shocks like the Asian crisis but also the impact of a possible cessation crisis that we could face from Quebec.