Mr. Speaker, chintzy, cheap and immoral are just some of the words being used to describe the Liberal government's decision not to pay school boards money owed to them on GST for school bus services. School boards are struggling with increasing transportation costs.
This attack on public education is made worse by the decision of the Liberals to only pay the province of Quebec the money it owes for transportation services and then bring in retroactive legislation to prevent all other provinces from receiving the money that is rightfully owed to them. Ontario alone is out $40 million in what is an additional tax on rural Canadians who rely heavily on school buses to send their children to school.
It is time the federal government realized that there is an importance to education and respected the federal court which ruled in favour of the school boards.