Mr. Speaker, the member for Dewdney—Alouette is right. If we had paid more down on the debt there would be less interest costs. The number is around $40 billion a year. However one of the challenges the government has is to deal with competing priorities.
If we look at the trade-offs the government made, a lot of the trade-offs were putting money into health care and education. In fact, 80%, or thereabouts, of the new money this government spent as opposed to paying down the debt went into health care and education.
On the gas taxes, I should say that hopefully we will cede some gas taxes to municipalities. However on the gas tax burden, if we were to go anywhere else in the world we would pay perhaps 10 times more at the pump than we pay here in Canada. Although we need to deal with that, I do not think it is the burden that the member described.
On the sponsorship issue, yes, the government is dealing with it. The Prime Minister set up a special inquiry. The public accounts committee is dealing with it. We will get to the bottom of it. As I say, the Prime Minister has taken some decisive action with respect to the crown corporations that were involved.
As I said earlier, not to make excuses, it is a $180 billion a year organization. It was our government that invited the Auditor General to report quarterly. It is our government that did the internal audit on the sponsorship program and put the results on the website.
Are we taking some heat now? Absolutely. Should we? Yes we should. Are we dealing with it? Yes we are.