Mr. Speaker, I found it quite astonishing to hear the member suggest that $750 million was not a lot of money. It really is astounding. It is important to Canadians that we have a responsible attitude toward taxpayers' money.
The member started by talking about seven surplus budgets in a row, balanced budgets, and said that the existence of surpluses meant that we were taxing too much. If we follow that to its logical conclusion, what the member is basically saying is that we should only have balanced budgets and we should never pay down any debt.
If the member would like to spend some time with me, I will explain to him that when there are surpluses for a fiscal year the surpluses are applied 100% against the debt. Over the past number of years, the government has paid down $52 billion worth of the national debt. It saves us about $3 billion a year in interest, which is then available to invest in Canadians.
The member had better answer the question. Is he saying that there should not ever be a surplus in Canada, i.e. that we should not pay down debt in Canada? Is that his position?