Mr. Speaker, the budget tabled yesterday by the Minister of Finance is a most disappointing one. If there is one underlying theme, it is the Liberal vision of a highly centralist federal government, encroaching unrestrained onto areas of provincial jurisdiction every time it has the chance.
My question is for the Minister of Finance. Yesterday, the Minister of Finance had such a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate to us his government's real belief in a decentralized federalism which respects provincial areas of jurisdiction. Why, then, did he prefer to follow his usual pattern, the usual habit of the Liberals, and to announce still more overlap, still more duplication, still more waste?