Madam Speaker, I want to question the competence of the government. I just heard a ridiculous speech from the member. He made a number of erroneous and misleading statements. There were so many I hardly know where to begin.
I want to address the issue of the Human Resources Development scandal where the government did lose a billion dollars. Does the member across the way deny that when the audit became public the audit revealed that grant money was handed out without applications, through verbal agreements and that money just disappeared somewhere into the atmosphere?. That is what the audit revealed.
What we see every time the government gets up to deliver some kind of new program is that it has no way of keeping track of the money. The same is true of the firearms registry. The same will be true for Kyoto. It has no plan for Kyoto.
We on this side of the House are arguing that instead of going into deficit the government has another option. It can be responsible with the money that it already has. If it were it would not have to worry about constantly raising taxes or, in this case, not lowering taxes to where they should be.
The member was wrong again when he said that the actuary was not recommending that EI premiums come down much more than he is arguing. The actuary is recommending that they be as low as $1.75 a hundred, 50ยข lower than they are today.
I challenge the member on a number of things that he said and I ask him to respond to what I just commented on.