The hon. member from the Alliance has just asked where I would get the idea that the Progressive Conservative Party wants to pay down debt and lower taxes. I will read from a note of earlier today which in fact says that in many instances the policies of the Progressive Conservative Party and the reform alliance are almost identical. This is definitely the case when it comes to one of the most important issues for Ontarians which is fiscal policy, including taxation, debt reduction and the overall management of Canada's pocketbook. I ask the member for Brandon—Souris if he knows who actually wrote those words. It was the Canadian Alliance MP from the riding of Markham who endorsed the Progressive Conservative economic plan. That is where I get those particular ideas that he referred to.
I would like to be able to ensure that we pay down debt in a legislative way to ensure that those individuals who want to invest in the Canadian economy will do so because they are not doing that today.
That is why the Canadian dollar is at a mere 66 cents. That is why it is perhaps at its lowest levels in a modern era compared to our principle trading partner, this time being the Americans.
My concern is that it is a very clear signal that foreign investors are challenging whether investing in this country is the right thing to do in the future. We need to send out some signals that we will not threaten any provincial profits by excessive rates of taxation, both from a personal income tax perspective and from a corporate tax perspective, and that we will get our economic fundamentals in order by paying down debt.
The high dollar helps our trade ratio to some degree, but in the long term it is a signal that Canadians as global competitors are becoming poor. Our capacity to buy goods in the global market has indeed been weakened.
Obviously the government has very little vision or interest in the legislative agenda of the great nation of Canada. There are 900 pages and so far we have heard from one government speaker. I do not know whether this has ever been done to this degree in the history of the parliamentary process. It has been amazing to watch it unfold. There have been 900 pages and one government speaker.
If the government is lacking vision let individuals speak who are ahead of their time. Some people call the Right Hon. Joe Clark yesterday's man. He will be in the House to actually augment the parliamentary system in the next number of months. He is an individual who wanted to pay down debt and balance budgets in 1979 when everybody thought it was a kooky idea.
He may have been yesterday's man because he was ahead of his time yesterday. We need to be able to show the kind of fortitude and leadership that Mr. Clark demonstrated with his budget in 1979. We need to see the same kind of vision and fortitude that we saw with the free trade agreement in 1988. In both instances it was done by Progressive Conservative prime ministers. That is what we need to be able to see to augment and maintain our position in the global community, not just technical bills on banking institutions. We need to get our fiscal house in order by paying down debt, lowering taxes and investing in our priority areas of health care and post-secondary education.