Mr. Speaker, in only four minutes I will try to paint the picture.
I am pleased that the end of my speech comes today because in the meantime I had a chance to read in this morning's papers—these are not our words—a good article in Le Droit by a journalist reporting on cattle farmers begging for help two years after the mad cow crisis. In Quebec, in addition to the anniversary of the 1980 referendum, tomorrow marks the two-year anniversary of the beginning of the mad cow crisis. We had expected to find help for farmers in this budget. Allow me to quote the president of the Union des producteurs agricoles:
Federal programs are geared more toward western farmers and still do not meet the needs of Quebec cull and dairy farmers.
It is absolutely clear, in our opinion, that this budget provides nothing to help farmers in Quebec, beef, cull and dairy farmers in particular. These three sectors are in crisis.
Now I want to talk about the famous foundations. Amendments are proposed in the budget, and the Auditor General's mandate is to be extended to agencies that received at least $100 million in funding within the last five consecutive fiscal years. Each word is significant. If money was received one year and not the next, then more money was received in the third year, this amendment is not applicable.
The Bloc Québécois has been calling for changes to foundations for many years. I was not in the House two years ago when I heard my colleagues repeatedly call for the elimination of these foundations for which the government and the members do not have oversight. As a result, we are asking the House not to vote in favour of this budget, which would see funding continue to go to these foundations. Between March 1 and 31, the government allocated over $3 billion to these foundations. This is unacceptable. As elected representatives, we have no oversight or control over these foundations. I repeat, this is unacceptable.
I want to conclude with a final word about seniors. The amazing thing is that this budget will amend the Old Age Security Act so that our seniors receive an additional $18 per month. This is huge. This is staggering. This is a disgrace. We should vote against this budget just for that. Obviously, we are in favour of giving seniors a bit more money, but we have been asking for ages for this bill to be made retroactive and for our seniors to receive, retroactively, the guaranteed income supplement payments that were stolen from them. This is the only word we have to describe this situation. They were not told, and they are entitled to that money.
There will be 54 of us voting against this budget this evening. I will not be the only one saying this: I am asking the House not to vote in favour of this budget and to ensure that this government is defeated on this confidence vote. If so, this evening would mark the start of an election.