Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to join my colleagues in this third reading debate on the budget. The government has to put its budget in play to start paying the bills for this fiscal year. However it has already done that, so it is kind of a moot point to debate what it should and should not do when the race has already begun. The spending is out of control already.
I read an article in the newspaper this morning saying that the Rolling Stones may consider coming to Toronto. They will not charge their regular rate, but for a small $10 million fee they will put on a concert. What a bargain. I guess I would be all for it as long as they start and finish their presentation with the Canadian taxpayers' lament, that good old song they wrote, “I can't get no satisfaction”. That would be worth the $10 million, if they dedicated that to the taxpayers of this great country. It would be well worth the price of admission and well worth the $10 million. We foolishly spend a lot more than that on any given day here in this place. I am sure the Liberals will take that into account when they invite them to come, and ensure that they play that particular tune.
We are talking about budget 2003. We had a rookie minister who gave it his best shot and he came up short. No one across the country felt or saw that this was a good budget. It did not please anyone. My colleague from Brandon--Souris talked about the shotgun approach. I do not disagree with that. Of course the parliamentary secretary talked about a machine gun approach. I guess that is why the registry for firearms has gone so far off the rails; the parliamentary secretary does not know a shotgun from a machine gun. It really was.