Mr. Speaker, I see nothing here pre-empting the government. I prefaced my comments to the parliamentary secretary with regard to the fiscal situation the federal Liberal government found itself in through the mid-1990s. It was a financial disaster and tough cuts had to be made.
Canadians were told that once we made the cuts we should be able to balance the books, pay down some debt, and reinvest in some social programs that were important to Canadians. That strategy taken in the mid-1990s is paying off. We saw it just recently with $13 billion of surplus handed to the government, the best set of books that have been handed from an outgoing government to an incoming government. However, that money, instead of being reinvested in Canadians, in our veterans and social programs, was placed on the debt.
I am all for debt retirement, for attacking the debt and the burden that the debt places on our books, but that should not pre-empt us from investing in Canadians. The motion today talks about reinvesting in the veterans who have served the country. I do not think that pre-empts the government from stepping up and doing what it promised in the last election, immediately extending the VIP to all veterans and veterans' widows.