Mr. Speaker, when I hear the hon. member for Lethbridge say that his party is dedicated to helping the most vulnerable, I find that hard to believe, considering what was said on the finance committee by him and his colleagues about the Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario or western Canada. It is nonsense. It makes no sense at all to say that we should cut $16 billion in our social programs in the next three years, to help the most vulnerable. This is a complete distortion of reality.
They are not describing reality. They are distorting reality. When they say to the government that the only way to clean up our public finances is to cut unemployment insurance even more than the government has already done, and that it should do the same with the Canada Assistance Plan, post-secondary education and programs for senior citizens, is that what helping the most vulnerable means? Is that concern for social justice? On the other hand, when we talk about inequities in the tax system, they will not listen.
That is the extent of their real concern for the most vulnerable members of our society. Their only concern is that the privileges of very rich Canadians and very big corporations, despite the tax inequities applying to both groups of taxpayers are concerned, should be maintained. That is the only issue of interest to them in this debate.