The member asks whether they said that. How else would we interpret the fact that I have heard members of the official opposition say that the surplus moneys should be left in surplus and simply allowed to grow?
Somewhere the NDP talks about the potential growth going to $100 billion. Let us turn around and extrapolate it. We leave the $30 billion in the account as members opposite are suggesting. That account then grows to $100 billion as a result of a contribution agreement that is 70:30. Benefits are being paid out. Obligations are being made. Pensioners are secure. We should leave $100 billion in some kind of surplus savings account while taxpayers on the other side of the argument struggle with the burden of carrying a $550 billion or $560 billion debt? It makes no sense whatsoever.
It is time all of us in this place, regardless of political stripe, agreed with the taxpayers who say to me that we should pay down the debt. Yes, they want tax relief, but they want debt reduction. The reason they want debt reduction is that they know that debt will fall on the shoulders and come out of the wallets of their kids and their grand kids. There is absolutely no doubt about that.
They can point fingers if they want and say that the reason the debt is so high is this or that government. We could blame all kinds of people and parties, most of them not in this place, for the size of that debt.
The reality is that society has changed. Our country has matured. It is my view that we have matured to the point where we recognize something which I think was recognized in many municipalities around the country in the late seventies, that we cannot simply continue to borrow and mortgage the future.
That is what this is all about. I find it a rather incongruous position for the opposition party to stand in this place and say we should leave it alone, ignore it, pretend it is not there and save it for a rainy day.
This brings me to another point. Whether it be an employment insurance fund or a superannuation fund for the RCMP or for anybody involved in the public service, who ultimately is responsible to ensure that the pension commitments are made?