Mr. Speaker, people like Lou Sekora in Port Moody—Coquitlam understand the meaning of effective representation. Leadership means working for policies that help people in their everyday lives: eliminating the deficit, lowering the tax burden, reducing the debt.
It also means making direct connections with people, as with the millennium scholarship program and student loans where the federal government has provided an annual grant of up to $400 to parents who are saving for their children's education through RESPs.
Our last budget provided tax relief to over 1.8 million British Columbians. That is 92.5% of all B.C. taxpayers. After getting the nation's fiscal house in order, we reinvested in quality health care by increasing the cash floor in transfers to the provinces by $1.5 billion. We have direct contacts between the federal government and municipalities in infrastructure programs that develop new and more cohesive community relations.
That is the new federalism emerging under federal government leadership.