Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons we have withdrawn confidence in the government is that we do not think it can govern anymore. We think we could do better. The next government is going to have to deal realistically with the fiscal mess that it is going to inherit. Something is going to have to give.
If my anticipation is correct that interest rates are going to take off, then the $33 billion that we spend every year on interest to service the national debt will go through the ceiling. We will be talking $35 billion, $40 billion, maybe $45 billion. That would inevitably constrain the fiscal capacity of any government. That is a fairly realistic scenario.
Even the governor of the Bank of Canada said that he can only hold the line until June of next year. If interest rates take off, then they take off for the government, everybody in this chamber, and everybody watching. The cost of a mortgage will go up. The cost of doing business will go up. Business will go down. The government will be in an even worse situation than it is now.
The Conservative government has not made the decisions that it could have made during the good times and we are caught in the whirlwind.