The member from the New Democratic Party said that leaders in this country who achieve and who accomplish pay lower taxes.
I personally have no problem. He has just made the very point that I want to make. I believe we should reward our achievers. I have never believed, as the NDP do, that we should punish people because they work hard and they achieve. I just never bought that philosophy and I have been elected four times over NDPers who tried every election to knock me because I said I wanted to reward achievers.
We will go at it one more time with Mr. Layton, and I can use his name because he is not in the House. I have watched Jack Layton day in and day out, year after year. He gets this big thrill in trying to punish achievers. The country needs all the achievers that we can find. I will never be caught talking about punishing achievers.
I want to make the point that the real essence of why we come to the House, and it is a great trust and honour to be here, is to speak for those people who do not have a voice and those people who are in real pain.
The budget deals with people in pain from nearly every part of the community. This is what drives me nuts about NDP members, that even though it is written here, and there is $150 billion worth of program spending, they just do not want to admit what goes on in terms of things that are done in the whole area of health.
It was an amazing thing the other day. The acting leader of the NDP stood up and asked the minister, how come he did not do anything in the budget for health care? The Minister of Finance stood up in response and said that, in fact, Mr. Romanow said very fine and positive things about the budget.