Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the speech of my hon. colleague across the way. Certainly one listening to that could only take out of it that apparently there are a lot of villains on this side of the House: that we are not interested in Canada's future, we are not interested in supporting Canadian children, and we are not interested in making this country the best that it can be. Of course Canadians clearly recognize that as a lot of rhetoric and as something that they quite simply do not believe. It is the sour grapes mudslinging that party is famous for, whatever name they run under.
My question falls in two areas. First, the member talks about the number of tax increases that take place, yet it was only two years ago that the largest single tax decrease in Canadian history was announced by the former minister of finance, now our Prime Minister, to the tune of $100 billion. I heard his party comment that we actually stole their tax reduction policy, so it was quite interesting. The opposition clearly felt that we had a very aggressive tax reduction policy and they felt we had just stolen their taxation policy. I am curious to hear the member comment on that.
The second point is this. If he is so interested in helping children, how in the world is it that his former party, the Alliance, the united alternative or whatever it was, voted against the increases the government brought forward for the child tax benefit program, the increases that provided the funding for families most in need? I am curious about that, if he would comment.