Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Liberal member's point of view. However, I think he is missing two relevant points. First, it is not the government's money. There is a fundamental difference in how we view this money. I heard one of my colleague's say while the member was speaking that it was not the government's money. This is taxpayer money. That is a fundamental issue. It is supposed to be viewed as a sacred trust.
That is why I said in my speech that a surplus that Liberals dream to spend is overtaxation to a Conservative. We have this strong philosophical difference on how we look at a surplus. The Liberals call it a surplus and they dream up different ways to spend it. We look at it as, despite the wildest spending the government could dream up over the last year or two, it still has not spent everything that it took away from Canadians. It still has not managed to blow it out the door.
We say that money belongs to the taxpayers. It should be returned to them. Yes, we understand very clearly that even a small tax cut, a small amount of tax relief, amounts to a billions of dollars when we spread it over every working Canadian. However, we have to start from the fact that it was their money.
Second, ten minutes is just simply not enough to address every issue that we would like to raise. However, the member mentioned military spending, and I want to talk about that. I used to be the defence critic for our party, and it is an issue that is near and dear to me.
One thing I looked for in the budget was an issue that I have raised for over a year now, with petition after petition from across the country. It deals with on base military housing, how it is deplorable and how it is substandard. These people put their lives on the line for our nation. These people today are serving in Afghanistan and other trouble spots around the globe. These people we house in some of the worst housing in the nation. I would have hoped that it would have been addressed in the budget and that the government could have at least indicated it would freeze the rents of our on base housing. However, no, it keeps raising the rents on deplorable housing that in many cases is absolutely substandard.
Another thing I wish to note is this. The government has bragged about how much money it will put into our military over the next five years. When we look at page 222 of the budget plan, the reality is that it does not start to kick in until 2008 and 2009. For the last couple of years of the government's five year plan, $10 billion of the $12.8 billion will be spent in the last two years. The next three years will be about $2 billion in all its programs.
It is a shell game. We all understand that. We can all see through it. Every Canadian can get a copy of the budget plan 2005. They can read it for themselves. They know that it is a shell game. It is a fantasy of the government and Canadians will not fall for it.