My friend here suggests there have been personal tax reductions. If we look at the total amount of taxes reduced for ordinary families, I think we end up with a small amount of money that will hardly pay for the services that are needed but have been cut back by the governments of the day.
How will a few hundred dollars in tax savings help families pay for rising tuition so that their children can receive an education tuition? How will the few hundred dollars that the Conservative government is so generously providing middle income Canadians help create child care spaces and build centres that are desperately needed by working families?
We are talking about an absolute dereliction of duty on the part of the Conservative government, exactly the direction in which the Liberals took this country. Just look at the statistics between 1997 and the present. How much money in unanticipated surpluses did we have? How much money went automatically against the debt because Conservatives and Liberals chose to hide the figures and refuse to be accountable to this place?
That is $89.9 billion. If we say that number to all of those organizations fighting for better housing or child care or health care, people seeking justice from their own government so that they can live decent and normal lives, if we tell them how it was that Liberal and Conservative governments over 10 years put $89.9 billion against the debt but only pennies toward dealing with the human deficit, the infrastructure deficit, and the reduction of the prosperity gap in this country, they cannot understand it.
Every day I talk to groups and organizations who ask: How can this government, that is awash in so much money, cut back on organizations, how can it cut back on the Canadian Health Network, how can it eliminate this research body which was providing some useful information to Canadians?
How did it choose, in the face of this kind of surplus, to decide to cut back on organizations working to prevent HIV and AIDS? How is it possible for a government today, just like the previous government, to cut back in those community efforts to prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS?
How is it possible for the government to betray Canadians and take money from one pot, which is helping deal with a serious problem at the community level, and put it into another pot, the Gates Foundation, to help find a cure for HIV and AIDS when that was contrary to the agreement to begin with?
How is it possible to cut Ontario organizations involved in HIV and AIDS by 30% when this government just put $14 billion against the debt and chose not to actually put a balanced approach before Canadians. Yes, the debt is important and we will put some of that money against the debt, but, goodness gracious, there are programs here that are worth saving and fighting for because they are important to the health and well-being of Canadians.
How is it possible that these Conservatives chose to do exactly what the Liberals did for 10 years and take all of the fiscal capacity and put it against the debt or give it to corporations in the form of tax cuts?
How is that possible that they did not learn their lessons from the Liberals and act in the best interests of Canadians?
Not only that--