As we continue our series on star candidates', we speak with McCallum about whether or not he's a fiscal conservative, why he fears the Canadian Alliance, and what his former colleagues think of his new career. Fundamentally, I think that this election is fought between two extremely different visions of Canada - that of the Liberals and that of the Alliance. Well, some other party asked me earlier this year. I don't want to get into that, but this was certainly the first time the Liberals had ever asked me. Just take a few points.
Health care is the number one preoccupation in Canada.
We've put a record amount of money back in there, and to think that the Alliance would defend the health care program is kind of like assigning a fox to guard the chick coop. That's the last party you'd expect to defend effectively national standards in health. So that's point number one. And the budget recognizes that, and the platform recognizes that, with capital gains tax, eliminating the surtax, and other measures to encourage research and innovation and the networking of the country. The U.S. has been booming for some years, fueled by the new economy, and we just more recently in the last year have been getting fueled by the new economy.