Madam Speaker, the parliamentary secretary asks if I balk, which I believe is a baseball metaphor. I suggest he just threw all of us a wild pitch.
The question about the corporate tax cuts in general, if he would like to address that and perhaps even listen to the response to his question, I am recalling back to the last federal campaign. The Conservative Party, to its credit, actually spoke about its plan for corporate tax cuts in some measures. The Liberal Party, what I remember from the debates that I engaged in with the candidates in my riding and the national debates and the literature that went about, mentioned nothing about this. When they arrived in Parliament, lo and behold, the tax cuts were there. The Leader of the Opposition felt that he did not need to hear the whole budget speech before getting out in the middle and applauding the government on the budget and the surprising corporate tax cuts.
We put a halt to that and asked for sound investments to be made on some things that I think all members in the House agree with around the environment, for which our investment is used in this bill, ironies of ironies.
The member is proposing apples and oranges when he talks about one of the most profitable sectors of our economy. We do not begrudge them this. We congratulate them on making lots of money. However I fail to see how the $1.3 billion to $4 billion given right now in subsidies to the industry, such as the Shells, Petro-Canadas and other companies making huge profits, helps Canadians.
Why subsidize this and why ask a question when he is not willing to listen to the answer?