Mr. Speaker, in his budget, instead of proposing a real plan to cut spending, the Minister of Finance attacked the most disadvantaged people by making substantial cuts to unemployment insurance benefits in particular. With the recent instability in the markets, which seems likely to continue, given what the Canadian dollar did this morning, the federal government's interest charges have already increased by $3 billion.
How will the Prime Minister explain to the unemployed and to seniors that the sacrifices imposed on them will be pointless and that the loss of his budget's credibility in the financial markets will by itself wipe out the billions of dollars that his government wrung from the disadvantaged to reduce its deficit?