Mr. Speaker, members opposite have been talking about universal child care, accessibility, infrastructure, environmental protection, and all those things we all talk about in this country, the big stuff. I want to talk about what is important in my area in the Fraser Valley and Abbotsford in particular. We have ridings next to each other, Mr. Speaker, and there are things that affect your area that I have not heard about in this budget.
The government has been throwing out billions of dollars, making deals here and there, and I guess that is politics. What really rankles me are the things that it still ignores, the things that affect people in my riding, for instance, clean air.
We have been fighting the issue of SE2 in my riding of Abbotsford and surrounding areas for about four or five years, and yet members on the other side have been talking about putting money into the environment. That does not resonate in my community where we are fighting tooth and nail to keep American corporations from polluting our air, which is already polluted.
We only have to look at a few harbours in this country to see how polluted they are. I was fighting for the Sydney tar ponds project in Sydney some 11 years ago and it is still in bad shape. Yet, in every budget the government says it is going to do something for the environment. It does not resonate in areas where we live.
I would like to tell the government that if it is going to do something for the environment, for goodness sake, do it where it affects people most and that is in their own communities. I do not know how many bureaucrats the government has been hiring, but they are not getting the job done. My area of the Fraser Valley has the third worst air pollution in the country and it is getting worse not better. There is not a darn thing being done about it.
Let me talk a bit about drugs which are a cancer in our society. I brought George Chuvalo into my riding in 1999 and since then George and I have been raising significant awareness of the drug problem, particularly heroin and cocaine in those days. George continues to work on this issue. Many people across this country are now focusing on drugs like crystal meth which has become a big issue. Yet, I have not heard any significant mention about it here in the House of Commons. The government had ample opportunity to deal with the drug issue after a committee was established to look at the problem.
The government came out with a solution to decriminalize marijuana. In my area, which is big on marijuana grow ops and usage, that is so insignificant to the drug issue. People are wondering why on earth the government has bothered with such a minuscule issue as compared to people's addiction to heroin, cocaine, crystal meth, pills, angel dust, and so on.
This is the second item that was supposed to be in the budget to help with education, advertising, rehabilitation. It is not there and we have brought it up many times in the House. I have headed this issue for many years here and I am totally dissatisfied with the rhetoric that I hear in the House on who did what, who said what, and who joined who.
Meanwhile, in my community there are hundreds of young people addicted to drugs. It is all over the place. One of the answers that the government foolishly bought into was supporting millions of dollars in an injection site, the very opposite of what we are trying to do in Abbotsford, British Columbia. Millions were put into an injection site when we have children of all ages trying to get off of drugs with no place to go.
When was the last time anyone in this country saw a decent ad on television or in the newspaper or heard on a radio that drugs are bad? When is the last time someone went into a school from the House of Commons and told kids that drugs are bad? When is the last time the government put one red cent into that? Yet, the Liberals say we have universality, accessibility, infrastructure, health care and all these things that are just globally supposed to attract people into voting for them, when in fact our problems are much deeper than the government understands. It is disappointing that in my community we have so many young people on drugs and so little being done for them other than the generosity of private industry and private individuals.
We are going to throw multi-millions into child care. We are going to fix everything that ails us and that will attract people to vote for us. I just came back from Guatemala where for 10 days my wife and I volunteered at our own expense to help people who cannot help themselves, people who are starving, people who are handicapped, and AIDS victims who are left on their own for survival.
There was not one red Canadian cent from the government in that place. However, the Liberals throw out the message that they are so kind, gentle and caring for people. I would think that the budget might have even mentioned the places where I have been helping young people and seniors who are basically left to die on their own.
I talked many times about avian flu in the House, a serious situation that affected my area in Abbotsford, British Columbia. There are many people still waiting for justifiable compensation. There was no mention of that in the budget. There are farmers in Abbotsford. Maybe the Liberals do not get votes there because I win the election pretty handily, but people in my area listen to all the rhetoric that is flying around this place. They are wondering where in the name of blue blazes is the government anyway? Why do Liberals not deal with the issues that affect them?
I said the other day that it was my last speech in the House of Commons. I guess it was my second last because today I am back again. I have said for 12 long years that the prison system has run amok. It is poorly managed. There was nothing in the budget for a study of the prison system that does not work. Rehabilitation is much more like warehousing criminals today. We let them out too early, unprepared to be back out on the street. In many cases they undertake more crimes and go back into prison. It is a vicious circle. We have left that idea of justice on the table somewhere. That did not make it in the budget. My area has seven federal penitentiaries around it and residents wonder where is the government today? Why do Liberals not pay attention to that?
I am being nice. What I am portraying today is that we stand in the House to debate, fight and name call: “You did it”, “He did it”, “She did it”, “This person went there”, “We put millions there”, and “We made a deal for billions there”. People in my riding are asking, “What is it with you people? You do not understand a damn thing you are doing”. They are saying that nothing we are doing is affecting them. They have dirty air. They have far too many drugs. There are too many people getting out of prison everyday ruining their communities. They have the avian flu. They have more hit and run cases than most other countries.
We are not dealing with those things, so is it any wonder why people in communities say that politicians are really kind of useless? That is my opinion. I do not think the government has served us well. I do not think it has addressed the issues in this budget. It certainly has not addressed the issues in this budget that affect my community. It is too bad because all of the people in the community of Abbotsford, British Columbia are good people and deserve better than what they have received.
