Mr. Speaker, is this not a little ironic, considering that this is a member of the government which made the budget? Surely if they cannot explain their own budget we are in some pretty big trouble.
I would simply refer the member to his own government's budget where it states very clearly that tax revenue is going up by the amount I mentioned, $42 billion since this government took office. These are the government's own figures, not a figure I pulled out of thin air.
This member, as Liberals so often do, reels off all of these supposed wonderful tax cuts that the government brought in, even though of course, in spite of these cuts, it is still taking in more revenue than when it began. It is taking in more revenue next year than this year. Its own budget figures say that. All we have to do is look at the budget.
I ask the member to listen not just to me, although I know he has a high respect for anything I would tell him. The Business Council of British Columbia said that the tax cuts which the member speaks of will amount to 0.17% of GDP in the first year and perhaps 0.25% of GDP by the year 2000-2001. It concluded that the cuts are like “throwing a golf ball into Lake Superior”.