Madam Speaker, it is very difficult, almost impossible, to follow my leader, the right hon. member for Kings—Hants, being the statesman that he obviously is and the passion with which he speaks to issues affecting this country and Canadians as a whole. However, I will attempt, in my fashion, to speak to the economic statement that has been put forward by the finance minister.
First, it must be said that if this were after the writ was dropped, the government would have to claim this as an election expense. This in effect is an election platform, an election ploy that was placed before the House in the Chamber. It is no more than that.
I know Canadians are becoming terribly cynical of politics and politicians. Canadians see through the transparency and the cynical politics that were played in the House yesterday by the Minister of Finance.
As was mentioned earlier, this financial statement will not be implemented before the writ is dropped by the Prime Minister to go to the next election, an election that is totally unnecessary. Should the finance minister and the Prime Minister wish, as they were meant to do, to govern the country, they can do so for another 20 months based on the economic largesse they have identified within this document.
I say to Canadians now to not go out and spend the money that has been promised. Promises that have been placed before the House and Canadians have been broken time and time again. This is a post-dated cheque, make no mistake about it. It is like the post-dated cheque of “We will scrap the GST”.
Did you spend your money, Madam Speaker, when the GST was going to be taken off? It did not materialize. It is like the post-dated cheque when the Liberals said they would scrap the NAFTA agreement. By the way, the best thing they did not do was to scrap NAFTA because today, as we stand with the surpluses that are before the House, it is because of those initiatives taken by a government prior to 1993. This government today should be thankful that it has surpluses because of what we put into place.
No one should spend that post-dated cheque because I remember the promise of pharmacare. Does anyone remember that promise, that post-dated cheque? It has not been cashed and in fact will not be cashed.
What about the post-dated cheque given to Canadians with respect to child care and day care? No one should cash that cheque because it was a promise that was again broken by the government.