Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend's question while well-intended is sadly misinformed.
First, what was most notable was how he prefaced his question on the area related to debt by saying what the Liberal approach would be. He said “if we did nothing”. That is the suggested Liberal approach to debt reduction. He said that if we did nothing, we would see the ratio of debt to GDP, GDP is the overall income, all the revenues that come into a nation, go down by the year 2014 and everything would be fine.
If we leave the debt unattended, but the economy continues to grow, which it will under our sound fiscal policies, we will see the revenues come in and it will look, on a ratio, that the debt has been reduced. However, by leaving it alone, the payments are staying there. As a matter of fact, the debt payments would increase. For years, the policy of the Liberals has been to leave the debt alone as much as possible. That policy will not reduce the debt payments.
In alarm, he said that we had reduced the revenue bases, which is code for we do not like reducing people's taxes. The Liberal philosophy is, “Give us all of your money. We know how to spend it much better than you do”. I am delighted we have reduced some revenue bases, like income taxes, taxes to seniors, taxes to low income people and the GST.
This past weekend my wife and I were able to help my son and my daughter-in-law move. They just purchased a new house. They bought that home for close to $400,000. We reduced the GST from 7% to 5%. This means that young couple, like thousands of couples across the country buying new houses, saved $8,000. That is $8,000 in their pockets. If the Liberal government were in place, the Liberals would have that money. I am much happier that my son and daughter-in-law have it rather than the Liberals.