Mr. Speaker, over the last several days I have been listening to the budget presentations and particularly to government members who are getting their speeches from the PMO. This is pretty well the mantra of the Liberal Party.
The Prime Minister told Canadians that this would be a budget for all Canadians. He also told Canadians that the alienation of different parts of the country would end under his rule.
This budget is absolutely discriminatory to the province of British Columbia. Nowhere in the budget is there mention of the pine beetle crisis that is in B.C. right now and which is devastating the forests and threatening the forest industry in British Columbia. There is not one cent in that budget. It is almost like the government does not care.
In 2002 the Prime Minister, who was then the finance minister, was in Prince George at a Liberal fundraising event and he told the world that the pine beetle crisis had to be considered a national issue and that the federal government would be there to do its share. He said that it would be a priority for his government.
I guess one gets altitude amnesia when one flies back over the Rockies because that was all we heard about it.
I have to tell the members opposite that I honestly expected the Liberal government would have at least recognized in the budget, first, that there is a province called British Columbia, and second, that a huge natural disaster is going on called the pine beetle crisis. If it had been recognized I would have expected the government to commit a realistic amount of funding to help out in the fight against the disaster and help mitigate the damage.
How can the member stand there and talk about how great the budget is when the Prime Minister made promises regarding British Columbia and did not keep them?