Madam Speaker, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle has stood in the House before and talked about this very negative option as he sees it, and that is paying down the debt is not a realistic option.
We still have over $550 billion of debt. In 1995-96 the debt to GDP ratio, that is the debt in relation to the size of the economy, was about 71.2%. It is now around 55%. The norm would be somewhere around 40% or thereabouts.
When we look at investing in social programs, the government last September at the premiers conference invested some $21.4 billion in health care, post-secondary education and other social programs, which was the largest single investment the government ever made.
The $15 billion that automatically went toward paying down the debt at the end of the last fiscal year was the surplus. The member for Regina—Qu'Appelle is a member of the finance committee. I am sure he knows the procedure that whatever the surplus is it goes to paying down the debt. That will save taxpayers $2 billion a year in debt service charges. That will mean more resources are freed up to invest in health care and post-secondary education, to cut taxes and to invest in innovation, training and skills development.
Why has the member such an aversion to paying down the debt? We still have a debt in Canada of about $550 billion which is far too high? Why is he so negative on paying it down?