Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here in the House today to speak on the budget and Bill C-71, an act to implement provisions of the budget.
We will hear different comments over the course of the day in regard to the budget, the value of the budget, $150 billion or whatever it is, $130 billion last year. These kinds of figures are thrown around but to average Canadians sitting in their homes, in their small businesses or on their farms, we are talking about figures that they find very hard to comprehend.
Even I find it hard to comprehend some of these gigantic figures we deal with in the House. These figures are backed up by the work, sweat and toil of all Canadians who provide this parliament with the money we are budgeting and spending. It is absolutely incumbent upon us to do that wisely and to get our priorities straight when we go about spending the money we collect from taxpayers.
The question of how much in taxes we should be taking from the people is probably one of the predominant questions we are dealing with in this day and age. The consensus around the country and certainly in Manitoba and my riding of Selkirk—Interlake is that too much money is being taken away from taxpayers.