Madam Speaker, I would also like to split my 20 minutes with a colleague, but I understand that I will only have three or four minutes before I will be cut off for the vote.
First of all, I wish I could be as proud of this budget as I am to be a Canadian and as I am of our national anthem and our flag. I mean that sincerely. I would have liked to have had an opportunity to speak on this issue earlier, but I did not.
I want to talk about the positive in the budget. There is one positive. Canadians taxpayers, all across this country, can give themselves a pat on the back. They balanced the budget.
Too often we have heard that the Minister of Finance or this government or the Liberals have done it, but there is no question about it, the taxpayers have suffered in order to balance the budget.
Now I will get into the negative side of it. I will focus on three areas. I only have a couple of minutes so I will rush through this quite quickly.
They keep talking about this 50:50 plan. There is absolutely no question that the evidence before this House is that this is 100% increased spending. There is zero debt reduction. There is absolutely zero tax relief. There is no question about it.
Government members will have a few token things to say to suggest that there is tax relief, but there is not. Make no mistake about it, there is no tax relief.
I listened to the constituents of Saanich—Gulf Islands. I sent out a resumé. I am here as their voice to speak on their behalf. I got over 2,000 responses. Ninety-five per cent of those responses said the most important priorities are to pay down the debt and reduce taxes. Five per cent said that the most important priority was to increase spending.
What has this government done? It has not only increased spending in this budget, the $3 billion—and they do not seem to know where it has gone—has gone into the Prime Minister's or the finance minister's personal slush fund.
I am going to speak specifically to a couple of points because a lot of the points I was going to make have already been made.
This is a Liberal debt. Make no mistake about it. The Liberals have added $75 billion to the debt since they took office. There is $5.5 billion worth of interest each year.
This is what I find to be quite amazing. We listen in the House of Commons day after day after day to the Liberals talking about the debt. What do they do all the time? They blame the Tories.
The Minister of Finance points to the Tories and says “The Tories left us this big mess in 1993”. But the Liberals started it long before the Tories were in power. They are the ones who brought in this debt under former Prime Minister Trudeau. They started it and look where we are today. The Liberals stand up so proudly and pass the buck over to the Tories. They should be ashamed of themselves.
I want to speak to a point which I think is absolutely shameful.
The Liberals keep talking about families. This government and this budget have absolutely no respect for the stay-at-home parent who looks after their family. They are discriminated against now in this budget.