Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate the right hon. member for Kings—Hants for a very compelling speech. He has proven time and time again, since his return to the House of Commons, that he is a great Canadian who understands the difficulties and hardships faced by many in this country today.
We have heard a great deal from the government in the past days and, of course, we have come to expect that most of the information that comes out in a budget has been leaked to the press prior to hearing from the Minister of Finance or any government official here in the House of Commons. That lack of respect is something, sadly, that has come to be expected by members of the opposition and further marginalizes parliament.
What this budget is not about has become quite obvious. What the budget is not about is helping farmers. What the budget is not about is focusing in on the issue of student debt and the crisis that many students face when they emerge at a time in their lives when they should be filled with optimism, with hope and with some sense of purpose. The first thing they have to face is the government knocking at their door, coming to collect on a student debt. This is the type of situation that leads our best, our brightest and our most ambitious young people to leave the country or to leave regions of the country where opportunities are not as great, as we see in Atlantic Canada.
Another issue that this budget does not deal with, in fact it is a shell game, a facade, is the issue of a rebate on the cost of heating oil. What it does is it raises expectations. It is so pathetic it is like holding a little chocolate bar out to a child and then pulling it back. The indication is that people will be given a small rebate on the cost of heating oil. Yet that cheque, if it ever does arrive, will not get to these needy people until January. There are a lot of cold months between now and January. I do not know what people in Ecum Secum or Canso will do if they need to fill their oil tanks or if they need gasoline to get into town so they can get such luxuries as food. What this government has chosen to do is to give money back. Of course there is this insidious little promise that perhaps they should vote for the government if they really want that cheque to arrive on time. This is the crass type of electioneering we have seen engineered by the government in the lead-up to this campaign.
With some of those inadequacies which members of the Progressive Conservative Party and other members in the opposition have pointed out, my question to the right hon. member for Kings—Hants is, what should we be doing?
What is the government in waiting, the Progressive Conservative Party, going to do for the poorest of the poor with respect to those who are still making as little as $10,000 annually? What should we be doing in terms of changing our tax laws to address that situation?