Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member, who is a former banker and economist, for this triple-barrelled question. However, my time is short and I think he talked about the whole economy. It would probably take six hours to answer this question in detail.
However, I appreciate the hon. member's question and I appreciate his acknowledgement that the tax cuts in the Canadian Alliance plan were greater and that they were the largest tax cuts in Canadian history. I compliment the hon. member for being honest and straightforward in acknowledging that. When a Liberal member acknowledges that the tax cuts our party was proposing were the highest, I consider it a compliment.
Then he went further in talking about that $18 billion hole. However, let me remind the hon. member, who is an economist and who has a huge amount of experience in working with banks, that we would eliminate the waste in the government and cut spending by government as well. The hon. member knows that nine cents of each tax dollar is wasted by the government. That alone reduces by a significant amount what he is talking about if we take that 9% off the $142 billion revenue of the government that goes to wastage.
He talked about taxation and other things. I would remind the hon. member that it is his party that has been governing this country for quite a long time. It is his party that has contributed considerably to the debt in this country, with 42 cents of each tax dollar going toward debt payment. The Liberals are responsible for putting us at an economic disadvantage.
Look at the low dollar. The hon. member will agree with me that it is this government that is responsible for lowering our dollar, increasing our taxes and increasing our debt. In particular, our personal income taxes are the highest of the G-7 countries, even after this tax relief by the government.
The hon. member should give serious thought to recognizing that the tax relief given by the government is not enough. As he is an expert on this issue, I urge him to lobby the government and to give his advice to the government to lower taxes, not in five years and not by half of what they are telling us, but by the right amount, which Canadians deserve.