Mr. Speaker, I have been listening closely to the minister and I am flabbergasted when he says that this motion is not worthy of this Parliament; that it is mean, ill-advised and misdirected and constitutes a personal attack on the Governor General.
I would like to ask him a question. What is mean or ill-advised? Is it to grab money from the employment insurance surplus, for example, or to cut $400,000 from the Governor General's overblown budget? What is ill-advised: to cut $38 billion from social programs over the past eight years, or to cut $400,000 from the Governor General's budget? What is more ill-advised or mean: having the Prime Minister, previously the minister of finance, table a bill to enrich himself with his shipping company in Barbados, or cutting the Governor General's budget?
Would it not be wiser to cut into the “fat“, as we say, to help the 1.2 million poor children that this government has helped to push into poverty, especially in terms of employment insurance, where 60% of parents of poor children are excluded? What is mean, ill-advised and what constitutes a collective attack on these people?