Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from the hon. member for Crowfoot.
Today we have a debt of $583.2 billion and as I mentioned in my address it is one of the largest debts in the entire world today in terms of per capita indebtedness, second only to Italy among industrialized countries.
The result is that we do not have the money often necessary to put toward programs that are vitally important. A third of every tax dollar today goes to pay just the interest on the debt.
Imagine if we did not have to pay the debt. We would be able to lower personal income taxes by 71%. Or could dedicate the money to things that are vitally important like helping people who, through no fault of their own, have been victimized by a federally regulated blood system.
We need $4 billion to help out all those people who have been victimized. We could do that today if the government would take the approach that the priorities are to start to pay down debt, focus spending on things that are most important and start the process of lowering taxes. That is the approach that will help all Canadians.