Mr. Speaker, the interesting thing about this debate is it concerns the demographics of the baby boom. The baby boom in Canada did not sneak up on us. We have seen it coming for decades. Knowing that the population is aging and will peak with people who were born in 1964, one of the first things the Conservative government did when it took office is it cut the GST by two percentage points. Each point took $6 billion of revenue out of the federal coffers. That is $12 billion of federal revenue gone. It then cut corporate income tax, which took another $10 billion a year at least. There were approximately $22 billion taken out of the $280 billion annual budget. The Conservatives did this knowing that we have, according to them, a looming demographic challenge.
In addition, last fall I challenged the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism to increase the number of people we let into Canada every year from the current 250,000 to approximately 300,000 to deal with the demographics that we are facing, in that we will need more people to support older people. The government said no.
Knowing that there is a demographic challenge coming, why would the government refuse to increase the number of immigrants coming to our country to support retirees? Why would it cut federal revenues at a time when we need that money to support old age security? I would ask my hon. colleague to comment on whether he thinks that is an example of prudent fiscal management and sound government planning.