Jean Chretien

Peter Gzowski: I t is my pleasure to welcome to this studio, in Ottawa, The Right Honourable Jean Chretien, Prime Minister of Canada. Prime Minister, good morning.

Jean Chretien: Good morning.

Peter Gzowski: Can I move away from the formal structure of this interview for one second and ask you, neither of us is an economist, but it drives me nuts -

Jean Chretien: It's our quality. Peter Gzowski: it drives me nuts when I read in the papers or see on the television or try to figure out that the cost of this interest rate, the compound interest, for heaven's sake, if we weren't paying $50-billion a year on our debt, we'd be in the black. The government's not spending is taking in more money than it's spending, and you do everything you can, and the damn interest rate goes up. Why can't we have more control over it? We, Canadians. Why can't we do that? Jean Chretien: Because we need an inflow of capital. Canada is a developing -

Peter Gzowski: I don't want an economist's answer. I want a -

Jean Chretien: No, no. I'm telling you that if you want to have a CBC, you need income, and you need to collect taxes, and you need economic activities, and we need capital in our society. And now the capital is moving around the world very rapidly.

Peter Gzowski: But you just said, we're paying more for it than anybody else. Jean Chretien: Because we have two factors, as I said: that we're tackling the problem of political instability. I hope it will be resolved very quickly. We're winning that fight. The P.Q. at this moment is in a complete mess, and they will probably withdraw their question and come. But we cannot endure that forever, and I hope they will ask the question - and a clear question - about separation, and we'll get over it, with this problem, and that will bring some stability. That will reduce the interest rate. And we have to show to the markets that we are in control of our debt. You just said that. You know, we have reduced the expenditures from the previous year, despite the fact that we have to spend almost a billion dollar more because we have more people who are 65, despite to the fact that we have to spend more money on the natives because their population is growing, and they are going longer to school, but we have to do that. And despite of the elements like that, we have reduced the expenditures. It's tough but I'm not discouraged. I think that we have all the elements to move forward in a very positive way.