Mr. Chair, the minister is so unconcerned about the level of debt he is piling up that he did not even know how much interest we are paying this year and had to resort to help from his officials. He did not know how much we will be spending at the end of his planning horizon and now does not even seem concerned that we are going to be spending more on debt interest in that year than we now spend on health care as a government.
That higher debt interest means higher taxes for Canadians. The finance minister has already raised taxes on middle-class Canadians, 80% of whom pay more income tax than they did when he took office. How much extra tax will he have to impose to finance interest on the national debt over the course of his plan?