Mr. Speaker, it is always great to hear government members comment on a budget or on a bill. They always think they hold the key to the truth. They have the knowledge and the truth, they are right. No one else in Canada or in Quebec can be right; they are the truth.
We have to look at the criticisms and comments on this budget. They did not come just from the wicked old sovereignists. They did not come only from the people of Quebec. Criticisms have been levelled across Canada. They have come from the papers and the editorialists. They have come from friends of the Liberal government, who say that this budget massacres the middle class and that the government is knowingly hiding revenues in order to play petty politics.
They say the government lacks clear vision on how to use the accumulated surplus. They say the government is taking billions of dollars from the pockets of the most disadvantaged.
The speeches I have heard here are something else. In university, I had a professor who taught about taxes and who gave me a golden rule, which I follow in politics, and the hon. member should be aware of it. He used to say “Students, there is one rule to remember in taxation: you stuff mattresses, not the springs”. The member opposite did not understand anything, because he is trying to stuff the springs. He is trying to stuff taxpayers, who fill the government coffers with their taxes.
The worst thing, and I will conclude on this point, is the millennium scholarship fund of $2.5 billion they are investing directly in provincial jurisdictions.
I ask the hon. member: is it not more important, because he seems to consider education important, to ensure that young people going to school eat well, that students in primary and secondary school have the tools they need and that universities are properly equipped? The federal government is in no position to do that, but the provinces are. If the federal government has too much money, why does it not send it directly to the provinces as transfer payments?