Mr. Speaker, I would like to explain that I spent 12 years on the board of directors of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. One of our colleagues was the president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. I had an opportunity to talk to the president very briefly when he was here and he was very optimistic with respect to what the budget would hold.
In 1977, when we had our Federation of Canadian Municipalities annual meeting in Winnipeg, I believe there were about 350 members and we had no federal representatives coming to that particular meeting. It was the same at subsequent meetings for a number of years. The FCM has become a model for municipal co-operation and in fact is recognized by the government in terms of the green fund that is administered by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
When I was on the board, we could only dream of working toward those kinds of programs. This budget increases that. I think that is far from being a joke. People who characterize it that way obviously do not have the history to know that we have been working consistently to increase the role.
The member talked about Stephen Lewis and Africa. We can do more in Africa, but the Prime Minister is recognized as having taken on the Africa agenda. We have made a commitment to increase our commitments under our aid programs in Africa, so I do not see that any apologies are required there.
Finally, with respect to day care and working with respect to our housing interests for more vulnerable people, as I said, we have not finished the job, but in this budget one can find commitments where we have listened to those communities, and we will continue to work with them.