Mr. Speaker, I can assure the hon. member that none of this is intended to be entertainment for members on the Liberal side. We take these views very seriously and the process very seriously. We speak for Canadians who are devastated by the government's disregard for the kinds of crises and difficult situations they are dealing with and living with on a day to day basis.
I want to try to graphically present the concerns we have, not with my own words, since the member does not like to listen to my words, but by quoting a member of our esteemed media who wrote an article in the Winnipeg Free Press today. It reads:
Imagine that Federal Finance Minister...is an emergency room doctor, and a patient comes in requiring 100 stitches to close a vicious wound. "Well, closing this wound is a real priority," [the Minister of Finance] says. "Without stitches you'll die. So, we'll do 10 stitches this year, 25 next year, and by year five of this treatment, we'll have that wound totally closed up”.
No one would tolerate this kind of behaviour in an emergency room. Why should Canadians tolerate this when it comes to something as important as child care, a clean environment, stopping pollution, basic affordable housing and access to a university where tuition is reasonable enough so that all people could pay for it?
We are not exaggerating. Those are the realities. They are so real that the hon. member's government made promises to address the issues in the last election. The only problem is that the Liberals have totally ignored those promises. When push comes to shove, all that matters is crass political opportunism, getting through the budget and not having an election. We have two parties in the House that are prepared to put political opportunism ahead of any kind of ideals and principles.
We do not want an election any more than they do but we are not prepared to say that at all costs. We are not prepared to support the budget if it means more pollution. We are not prepared to support the budget if it means more children going hungry. We are not prepared to support the budget if it means more congestion in our urban centres. We are not prepared to support the budget if it means more people dying on the streets because they cannot get access to shelters.
It is our obligation to speak up for those Canadians because they need and deserve the support of government. They do not want or deserve the kind of betrayal that we have seen from the Liberals in the House or the collusion that has been offered by the Conservatives at this critical juncture in the history of this country.