He was double-crossed. He was betrayed. I could use all sorts of words, but I do not want to get into that area, Mr. Speaker, where you are going to have to stand instead of me.
The member was really upset. Why would the government, having made the commitment to bring in a bill, then renege on it after getting the NDP to do its part?
Right now we have this deal where the NDP has said, “We will vote and support this corrupt Liberal government in return for some promises in the budget”. But it is common knowledge that we cannot trust these guys. This Liberal government will never deliver to the NDP even if this budget passes. These are all just empty promises.
In fact, Bill C-48 starts with these words: “An Act to authorize the Minister of Finance to make certain payments”. That is the heading of the bill. It just “authorizes” him, which is a whole other topic that I could talk about in terms of the wide open spending that this bill permits.
It is really a very short bill, but basically what it says is that the Minister of Finance “may”--it does not say that he “shall”--in respect of this year “make payments out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund”. It is basically everything over $2 billion in excess of government spending. If the government had a $2 billion surplus only, then there would be zero there. Also, even if there were a $4 billion surplus and it looked as if that would commit $2 billion in the next two years each for this particular budget program, it still says the minister “may”. It does not say he “shall” and these NDP members have fallen for it. I should not laugh. I should not do that--