Mr. Speaker, if the expenditure cuts were made for reasons of efficiency and effectiveness, then I might have some sympathy. The members on this side know about cutting. When we came into power in 1993, we inherited a $42 billion debt. It was our government that started to realign the fiscal capacity of the government.
The member cannot really give us a lesson in paying down debt. We started the process. We paid down $55 billion in debt, but we did not focus only on one aspect. We invested $41 billion in health care. We reduced taxes. We invested in research, development and training. We had the orders and the priorities right. We did not cut for ideological purposes.
The member for Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam talks about some of these little nuances of money not allocated or money frozen. That is just smoke and mirrors. They may be calling these programs frozen, but that is just a way of saying they are in limbo, and maybe permanent limbo in fact. This is a tragedy for some of those programs where we have to diversify our energy alternatives. We have to fight greenhouse gases.
The member knows full well we can do, as a government, more things than just one and we do not need to cut programs for ideological purposes.