Mr. Speaker, the member for Okanagan—Coquihalla talked about some innocent people being returned to the House, himself, perhaps, being one of them.
After one has been through a number of throne speeches they become somewhat repetitive and tend to be very general in their orientation. However maybe the member opposite did not read or did not listen to the throne speech. I noticed a number of things that he probably missed. I just thought I would mention some of them.
The first one has to do with the debt. He talked about how the government was not committed to paying down the debt. I will read out one sentence from the throne speech. It says that it will continue to pay down debt. Its objective is to reduce the debt to GDP ratio to 25% within 10 years. In fact the Government of Canada is well ahead of many of the other G-8 countries and one of the few to have surpluses on a sustained basis.
He talked about the deal for the cities. Our government has been very clear about the deal for the cities. We have already eliminated the GST for municipalities. In a city like Toronto, where I come from, that is about $50 million a year that can be devoted to fighting crime and to put into public infrastructure. That is only the start.
Our government has been absolutely crystal clear that we will devote some of the gas tax back to the municipalities. When it is fully ramped up, that will equate to about $2 billion a year. That is laid out in all the government policies and pronouncements that have been made to date.
Softwood lumber is another issue that the member raised. I know it is a very important issue in the Okanagan and indeed across Canada, but because of the great efforts of the government and the industry, we have been winning all the debates in the WTO and NAFTA and we will prevail. I am hoping we do not cut a deal. I am hoping that we stay on track with the legal fight and we get all that money returned to the lumber companies in Canada.