Madam Speaker, I rarely heard such grandstanding. The hon. member opposite would have us believe that we are not cutting deep enough and cutting too much at the same time, that we are cutting in the wrong places, and so on. Yet, the vast majority of the population told us again yesterday in a poll that the government's budget was just right, like just about everything else this government does.
The hon. member told us that the budget was next year's budget, suggesting that we did not cut deep enough this year. He then said that we cut too much this year, right after he accused us of postponing the cuts until next year instead of cutting this year.
He says that the government does not create jobs. Yet, 432,000 jobs have been created since the beginning of last year. According to the news we heard this morning, where was the highest rate of economic growth among all G-7 countries? As you may have guessed, Madam Speaker, right here in Canada. That says a lot about the comments made by the hon. member opposite.
As this is a question and comment period, I would ask the hon. member-I must say that I disagree with his comments and that I do not want to use unparliamentary language-if he knew what he was talking about when he alleged that Quebec dairy producers were being treated unfairly compared with Western grain farmers?
Does he know that Western grain farmers will lose 100 per cent of their subsidies, which represent a large part of their income, while dairy producers-1,000 of whom live in my riding-will lose 15 per cent of their subsidies, which account for 9 per cent of their income? Fifteen per cent of 9 per cent, all of which can be recovered under the production cost formula within the Canadian dairy plan. Does he know this already? And if he does, why did he say the things he just said, when he knows better?