That is right. The same thing in Manitoba.
On the basis of inflated opinion polls that have no depth and when the rubber hits the road as it did in Ontario and Manitoba, the real poll comes out and the voters respond to politicians who are not listening to them. I am proud to say I opted out of the pension plan and all my Reform colleagues have opted out of it. I am looking forward to the next federal election. I am looking forward to a debate on MPs pension plans, anytime, anywhere, anyplace. I would relish it.
I have mixed emotions when I deal with the matter. While I want change on the one hand, I am absolutely convinced the Liberals are digging a hole they will never get out of. They are ensuring a Reform victory in 1997. There is no question about it. They do not understand. They are not listening.
They think they won the election. They did not win the election. The Conservatives lost it. The Conservatives were thrown out. The Liberals just happened to be there. Canadian voters were very sure of what they did not want. They were not too sure who they should vote for but the message was that Canadian voters were voting on the issues. They are watching the politicians. They are watching the promises being made and for integrity. Not following through on the promises made will cost them very dearly in the next election. So many of the promises in the red book have been broken at this point that I cannot see how the Liberals can possibly survive.
We just had an indication of how good the red book is because the daughter of red book that was used in Ontario did them absolutely no good at all. It destroyed them.
So much for pensions. I dealt with pensions because even though it is not a whole lot of dollars it is a major issue with the Canadian voter. It was in 1993 and it will be even bigger in 1997. There is no question about it because our financial position will have worsened, absolutely. There is no doubt about that. With the road the government is taking us down our debt situation will be far worse than it is today. We will be $600 billion in debt. We will still be overspending by $25 billion and we will have interest payments of $50 billion a year. When we try to balance the books to accommodate $50 billion in interest payments it is a real challenge for any government. The Liberals are not meeting their target.
Let us talk about the gun control bill, one of the three being rammed through the House so that we do not have quality debate and we as the opposition do not get an opportunity to fully air all concerns. The gun control bill is a red herring. It is a smoke screen. It is an attempt to make the government look like a government in action. If we asked Canadian people what the 10 most important issues are in Canada today, gun control would not make 11. Here we are wasting all this time and all this discussion on a bill that will do absolutely nothing to clean up the problems it is supposed to address: unsafe homes, unsafe streets and unsafe communities. It will do absolutely nothing.