Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In reading the Finance Minister’s budget speech I think he has a lot to be proud of, but I fear, like several other of my colleagues, there are many issues that have been miss-highlighted or completely skipped over.

The concern I want to highlight in a similar manner is the fiscal management; quite simply, the cost of government. Under the Minister of Finance’s Fiscal Strategy section, the Minister was very fiscally prudent when coming to his words when talking about the cost of government and how to bring the cost of government down. Perhaps he was too little on the descriptive side as to the details of what we are doing to reduce the cost in government or even controlling it, reining it in, or eliminating it through programs that do not work anymore. He was very clear, to his credit, of exercising the expenditure cap at 3 percent but very unclear as to where else he’s managing government budgets to ensure that every stone is turned when it comes to saving our money.

It is true that the Finance Minister does provide a blushing drive-by and mentions the Program Review Office, but in all fairness we’ve heard very little, as my colleagues have mentioned, from that group. Everything that they have proposed has been so high level or so divisive that it has been difficult to get behind in this House.

In essence, what have we done as a government to really control the cost of government? In the budget on page 4 the Finance Minister clearly states in writing: “It will mean continuing to seek creative new ways of doing things, being open to new ideas and being willing to challenge the status quo.” Well, here is certainly one: what about hiring an efficiency expert? Large industries such as diamond mines or other corporate giants all do the same thing. They look at every dollar and ask themselves if they really need to do this. This would be very effective on our programming as well as just day-to-day business operations. Yes, government is a

business, and we tend to forget about that sometimes.

There are other ways. What about value audits for programs? Again, asking ourselves if certain programs exist simply because they exist, or if we ask ourselves why they exist. I don’t think we do that, either.

Red-tape review I’ve raised, as well as other colleagues here. What about the paperwork and regulations that we needlessly put on our taxpayer businesses?

We can give credit where credit is due. On page 11 the Finance Minister talked about the biomass heating energy efficiency that will reduce the cost of heating at $775,000 of our $1.3 billion budget.

I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted