Oh, my friend says that it has gone down. It has gone down $6 billion. At that rate, in another 190 years it will be paid off. It is going really well. The fact is, Canadians see the debt as an impediment. They see it as something which holds the country back. When there is debt there are interest payments. In Canada today we pay about $42 billion a year in interest payments. This government has absolutely no serious plan to address the issue of debt.
We argue that the government should take some of the boondoggle spending from human resources development, put it into health care and education, and put it toward reducing the debt. That is what we want to see. Why does it not do that? I think Canadians are onside with us when we say that.
I will talk for a moment about what the Reform Party would do. It is only fair that we lay out our plan. We argue that the very first thing we should do is reallocate the wasteful spending that has become a symbol of the Liberal Party over the years. We would take that money from its political friends and we would put it into things which Canadians care about. I mentioned health care and higher education a minute ago.
We also believe that we should take that $13.5 billion, which over the next five years would be about $65 billion, which is a lot of money, and put it into things people care about. We think that we need to start to fund lower taxes in a way that really does put money into people's pockets.