Mr. Speaker, it is rather clear that the hon. member did not bother to listen to my speech because we singled out the child care investment as an important first step. The member chose to ignore that reference and I guess we have to treat his commentary on my observations in that light.
I take considerable offence, as I think most Canadians would, to the wave of the hand definition of crises that we are facing in this country as so-called crises. Let him say that to the people who are living on the streets because they cannot afford any housing, because the government has not built any houses.
Let the member stand before homeless individuals and ask them about their so-called crisis. That is shameful. Let him say that to people who have to go to an emergency ward, as they do by the thousands, because they cannot breath the air. Let the member say to those people that they have a so-called crisis. Let him talk to the families of those who have died as a result of the pollution that has been produced by the lack of action of the government. Let him tell them that their crisis is so-called as he stands beside them.
This is the kind of callous arrogance that drove Canadians to send the Liberal Party into minority status in the election and yet it comes right back with that callous approach.
On the so-called crisis of children living in poverty, I ask the member to go to a food bank and greet people by saying that their crisis is a so-called crisis.
What about students who cannot afford to go to school? It is all well and good for the children of those families who can afford it. Maybe that is all the member and the government care about. The government is going to give a break for a student who dies and still owes some debt. Who does that help out? It helps out the banks because they are the ones that need to collect the debt, so they do not have to collect it from the families.
Why do students have this kind of debt? It is because the government cut funding to post-secondary education in unprecedented ways and levels. As a result, students are having to work extra jobs, take part time courses and are graduating with massive debts.
Instead of having an investment strategy to create jobs and a focused strategy on training, we see once again no action and no plan.
For the member to suggest that Kyoto and climate change is a so-called crisis is to ignore all of the evidence. Let me name just one. The Arctic climate change assessment put together by the circumpolar Innu people and agreed to by Canada said that it was a crisis and yet the government and its representatives want to simply diminish the issue with a wave of the hand.
We were very specific about the choices that we wanted the government to make but it is very clear what choice it has made. Indeed, it was a stampede from the Conservatives to come out and celebrate the budget that they had helped to create. It was an absolute stampede.
When the Prime Minister became the leader of his party we said that the Liberal Party had taken a turn toward conservatism. Who could have predicted in the last week of the election that we would have a budget with huge corporate tax cuts and massive debt reduction proposals that will leave us with deficits in all of the other important areas, and that the Conservatives would be the first ones supporting it, the very ones the Prime Minister campaigned against in the election. It is a betrayal.