Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the member for Medicine Hat, who was obviously very agitated and very frustrated and emotional. We heard a lot about what he did not like about the throne speech, but we did not hear a lot about what the new Conservative Party's approach would be to stimulating economic growth.
If we look at the Canadian economy, we will see that in fact it has been a miracle of economic growth compared to the G-7. This year, admittedly, we have a little bit of a bump because of a whole range of issues--SARS, mad cow disease, forest fires in British Columbia, the hurricane, and a whole number of factors beyond our control--but I am sure our economy will start to regenerate as these problems are dealt with.
I know that the former Alliance Party or Reform Party talked about the flat tax. It is interesting, because Russia recently introduced a flat tax. My understanding is that it is planning to flatten the tax. Then, when everyone is on the database, it will increase the flat tax to a higher rate of tax. Maybe that flat tax is something that the new Conservative Party would espouse in terms of economic development. I know that in Russia it is being implemented as we speak.
Perhaps the policies of the Conservative Party are under development and it is a bit unfair to ask the member what the policies of a Conservative government would be.
Before they merged, we also heard from the parties on their attitudes toward regional economic development. There are some who would espouse scrapping all the regional economic development programs and agencies, like Western Economic Diversification, which I am sure has done some good work in Alberta, but the member probably would not acknowledge that, and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, FedNor, and a number of these agencies. Would the new Conservative Party scrap those programs? What would it put in their place? Perhaps nothing. I am not sure.
I wonder if the member for Medicine Hat would comment on the new Conservative Party approach to the flat tax and also to regional economic development.