Mr. Speaker, I must have known that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance was going to ask the question about what programs we would cut because I brought a list of them with me this morning which I would like to present to the House.
The Canadian Institute of Technology and Economic Commerce received about $3.5 million. We are going to cut that program. This group was established in the Prime Minister's own riding and incidentally, its two principals were charged with fraud and theft in August 2000.
Wiarton, Ontario where groundhog day is held every year just received $50,000 from HRDC to help with its groundhog day program. We are going to cut that program. Incidentally, the people of Wiarton are going to receive that money in the form of funding for health care and post-secondary education rather than for their groundhog day. We think those two things are more of a priority to them contrary to what the Liberals are talking about.
American based RMH Teleservices was enticed to the HRDC minister's riding with a $1.6 million HRDC grant over the protests of one of the neighbouring Liberal MPs. The principal of RMH Teleservices said that one way or another it would have been in Brantford anyway, with or without the $1.6 million from the Minister of Human Resources Development. I just realized that is the riding of the HRDC minister.
For the Liberal government's interest, there is another program we are going to cut. Canadian Aerospace Group in Nipissing, Ontario received $917,000 of a $1.3 million transitional jobs fund grant before going bankrupt without building any aircraft. There is a bright side. This bankrupt company then moved to Saint-Hubert, Quebec and was approved for another $1.6 million from the Canadian economic development for Quebec regions. There was a little vote gathering going on there.
To answer the Parliamentary Secretary to the Finance Minister, those are the programs we will be cutting. That is how an Alliance government would be able to fund important things like health care and post-secondary education, programs that keep our best and brightest here in Canada instead of seeing them go south. I think Canadians would agree that those other programs are far less important than health care and education.
Let us get to the election plan of the Liberal government that was brought down yesterday. It is important to first establish a real truth about the government. The real truth about the government is that it cannot give to the people that which it has not first taken from them.
The Minister of Finance stood in the House and brought down this mini-budget. He has, in a magnanimous jester, which just happens to coincide with the calling of an election, tried to out do the tax relief of the Canadian Alliance Party. I am pretty flattered that I have been part of a political party sitting in opposition in the House that has been so effective in our calls for tax relief in the last seven years that we have been able to influence a Liberal government that throughout history tax relief has been the furthest thing from any of its policies or philosophies.
Just show me a book on Liberal governments going back to 1867 where a Liberal government came up with an idea all on its own, where it would give Canadian taxpayers some tax relief. I would love to see that book but it is not there.
Let us be clear. The finance minister and this government came to this mini-budget last night kicking and screaming. They were in fact dragged, drugged to that point over the last seven years by the Canadian Alliance Party and the Reform Party before that.