Mr. Speaker, my colleague identifies debt reduction as an important long term priority. In the fall economic political statement, there was no outline of a long term debt reduction strategy. The government's attitude is that maybe if we are lucky, maybe if we run a surplus and do not use the contingency fund, if the minister for heritage and her big spending colleagues like the minister for HRD do not get their hands on it, we might allocate it to debt reduction.
We need a legislated debt reduction strategy, which some of the provinces have successfully implemented, and major tax relief, which we can afford and which will keep us competitive even after the Bush tax cuts are passed by congress this spring.