Madam Speaker, I want to follow up on my hon. colleague's comments. It seems to me that one of our prerequisites of entering into discussions with the government about improving the budget was the fundamental principle that it had to be balanced. If we did not have a balanced budget, we would not be able to move forward with any of our social agenda.
The question regarding Bill C-43 that raised our concerns initially was regarding the $100 billion in corporate tax cuts that had already been given out. Having gone through the June election last year, night after night in debates I heard about the Liberal agenda which talked about social spending. It talked about housing and addressing the environment. We were quite shocked however when we saw the original Bill C-43 because it seemed that none of those priorities were there except another $4.6 billion in tax cuts.
We wondered how it was that we had money to spend on more tax cuts after the $100 billion had already been sent out when there was a deficit in the lack of housing, and a deficit facing our students in terms of the debt loads they are carrying. We had the debt loads that our first nations communities were facing and the debt load that was starting to grow in our environment from a lack of a long term plan.
When we sat down to work with the government on improving Bill C-43 into something that was more in line with what the Canadian public wanted, it was based on the principle of a balanced budget. It was based on a principle of giving to Canadians a plan that would actually move us out of the many other deficits that had grown over the years. We have been obsessed with the Conservative Party's one note song on tax cuts at the expense of everything else.
We have heard such strong support for this budget from the home front. We are hearing from people of all political stripes in Timmins—James Bay who are saying to deliver this budget and make it happen. They want this budget to go through. They want the games to end. We are almost in July and we still have not passed these two bills. I am asking my hon. colleague, can we get a very firm commitment that Bill C-43 and our amended budget will be passed before this session ends?