Madam Speaker, the previous speaker is right to curb his enthusiasm. Rarely have I heard a more arrogant, dishonest and insulting speech. It does not make any sense.
I will raise only the issue of seniors. Over the past 12 years, this government has taken $3.2 billion from the poorest seniors. Today, many of them have passed away. We are asking for seniors to get retroactive payments of the money they are owed, but the government is refusing.
Now, it is boasting about the allocation in this budget of $2.7 billion over five years for seniors, when $3.2 billion was taken from them over the past 12 years. Is there anything more arrogant and more insulting to seniors than that? In 2007, the government will start repaying not the people from whom it took this money, since they will be gone, but rather seniors newly entitled to the guaranteed income supplement. Payment of this $2.7 billion will be completed within five years. There is no way the previous speaker could have more deliberately misled our seniors.
I could talk about the unemployed, but I will stop here, to give him the opportunity to respond. This makes absolutely no sense. Some $45 billion was taken from the workers and the unemployed, and this is what they are getting back. Yet, the government is boasting about a budget full of good news. It is, instead, an arrogant and insulting budget for Quebec.