Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his question.
The hon. member says that measures contained in the latest budget violate the provisions of the Charter of Rights. That is a very serious charge. One wonders, then, why he voted for it. He then said that the measures were unjust, and he voted for it. He said that the budget took away pay equity rights, and he voted for that, too.
One has to wonder why the hon. member would vote for something he believes have done all those allegedly terrible things. For sure the member can be counted on for thing, and that is to be ferociously critical in his support of the budget.
In a sense he is really criticizing himself because he is opposing, today, something that he voted for in this place only a few weeks ago. Not only did he vote in favour of it once, but he voted in favour of it at all three readings. Then all of his Liberal colleagues did the exact same thing in the Senate.
Canadians can be forgiven if they are finding it difficult to follow the member or his leader. Given that we are talking about budget measures and given that the member will be rising in a few moments, it is appropriate to ask him to put his formidable debate skills to work in explaining what his leader meant when he said, “We will have to raise taxes”. He uttered that on April 14, in Kitchener.