Madam Speaker, I appreciate the remarks by my friend from Edmonton. I would like to put at least some of the points from his remarks into context.
He mentioned a number of times that we failed to deal with corporate welfare. He did not define corporate welfare. I do not know what he means by corporate welfare.
The gentleman comes from Alberta. I think we all know that there are some pretty favourable tax provisions for the oil industry in Alberta. I am not opposed to that. Is he suggesting that we should pull the rug from under the oil industry in Alberta? I would doubt it but I would love to hear his remarks.
He said that we have no long term vision for employment insurance. Well, we have had 10 annual reductions since 1993. I would say that it implies vision. That is a reduction of several billion. There is one more thing. He talked about there being not one cut in the budget. I recall back in the middle 1990s that we were cutting contributions to the provinces and all we heard were howls from the Alliance.
We Liberals from the west have been fighting proposed environment department cuts to weather stations in Kelowna, in Saskatoon and in Winnipeg. I wonder, would the member from Edmonton be appreciative of cutting out the weather stations in those three cities?