Mr. Speaker, millions of Canadians have been frozen out of the Liberal government's energy rebate program. There is something wrong with a program that gives nothing to millions of people struggling with skyrocketing home heating costs but sends cheques to prisoners in jail. It is time for the Liberal government to admit that the program is flawed and to fix it.
One would think the finance minister would have taken a look at who was paying for heat and who was not before he started signing the cheques. Why does he not admit that the program was nothing but a cynical vote buying scheme announced just before the election and that it has misspent over a billion taxpayer dollars?
Worse yet, the Liberal government has done nothing to address the root causes of skyrocketing energy prices. Even if it had not mismanaged the winter's rebate program, it would only have been a short term solution.
On behalf of my New Democratic Party colleagues, I call on the Liberal government to work with the provinces in establishing a national energy strategy to bring energy prices under control.
We call on the government to stop sending cheques to prisoners and start sending them to the people who need them. Let us get to work on a national energy strategy.