Mr. Speaker, at the risk of being yelled at, I would like to remind the member of a couple of different things. Ultimately, what this government is intending on doing, and I think it is reasonable to expect of any government, just like any business, is to periodically review the massive expenditures that it goes through.
The previous Liberal government had an opportunity to pay down $40 billion more on the deficit, which would have left us with $5 billion to $8 billion extra to provide for services.
Unlike the previous government that was attempting to be everything to all people, this government is taking a reasonable approach. We need to provide money to those programs that actually work.
We are asking that of our health care community. We ask that of our educational institutes. We look for areas where there is wasted money. Indeed, most of the programs that the gentleman is referring to were not cut at all.
No matter how loud we want to get in the House of Commons does not make it accurate. The fact is that in 1999 government spending was $119 billion. In 2003 government spending had risen to $178 billion. That is so far above any standard in this country. It was out of control.
We have not cut programs dealing with literacy. We do not need to pay folks to fly around the country and do more studies to tell us that literacy rates in 1994 compared to 2004 have not changed.
Canadian taxpayers expect value for their dollar. This government is committed to putting $80 million into literacy programs to help Canadians in programs that will work, not just spend money for the sake of spending money. The member should know that.
I appreciate that it is his first time rising as the critic for financial stuff, but my goodness--