Mr. Speaker, with the budget cuts that we have announced, it is important to put everything in perspective. Some of the language we have heard from the Liberals, during the course of this debate and over the past couple of weeks, has been hyperbolic at best. We are talking about cutting less than one-half of 1% of the federal budget. That is it.
My colleague and some members of other parties in the House have mentioned programs. There is no question they are sincere in the concern about what these cuts will mean to some specific programs. However, to describe this as somehow meanspirited and draconian, as the Liberals describe, is insincere and wrong. This is a very small cut. We are cutting, for example, a number of programs where money was allocated but never spent. For example, $20 million was set aside for fish farms, polluting dirty fish farms, in Nova Scotia. That money was allocated but never spent. It is hardly draconian cutting spending that was never in fact done; it was just allocated.
The most important aspect of the Conservative fiscal plan is that we are paying down the debt by over $13 billion. When I was first elected to this place six years ago, I was 24 years of age. The big issue in that campaign, and it continues to be for young Canadians, is that the federal government has to pay down the federal debt so future generations of young Canadians are not hammered economically because of the broken and failed promises of politicians they have never met.
We have made the largest debt paydown in Canadian history, over $13 billion. It is to the benefit of young Canadians. We have done this with small cuts to programs, which are reasonable cuts. It is less than one-half of 1% of the federal budget. If we cannot do that, then the Liberals are saying there is no way we can possibly pay down the debt if we cannot even get that done.
What we are doing is entirely fiscally responsible. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business says so. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce says so. My constituents are saying so. They applaud the fiscal measures. Just because the federal government has a surplus, it does not mean the money is being spent well. There is no better expenditure for young Canadians than to pay down the debt and give them a better future.