Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the member for his comments on this no-tell motel budget that they have concocted.
This budget is an insult to thinking people. It is a disrespectful budget in the sense that it disregards the fundamental principles of money management, but then I do not blame the NDP members for disregarding principles they have never abided by and do not understand. These are rules that are much too complex for the members of that socialist community to understand.
It is evident they have not read the bill. The fact that it is a very expensive bill has escaped their attention, over $2 billion per page. The fact that they have been basically promised very little by the Liberals and sold out for it tells us their price. Also, the member did put some factual inaccuracies on the record that should be cleared up. It reveals his lack of logic and a logic that never seems to enter into NDP money management discussions.
First, he said that the elimination of corporate taxes would pay for the NDP promises. The member probably is not aware that those corporate tax cuts do not occur until 2008 and the promises are starting earlier than that. Therefore, I am not sure how he will do that. Maybe there will be some deficit financing in the interim.
Far be it from me to defend the Liberals, but I have to on this one. He said that the budget proposes to do nothing about housing. I would encourage the member to have a look at the budget book.
There is a good section on aboriginal housing, first nation housing on reserve. On page 96, if the member would like to refer to it, the government provides an investment of $295 million over five years. According to the NDP finance critic, the whole NDP-Liberal budget is a trivial amount at $4.6 billion, so maybe $300 million or so is chicken feed to the NDP. I am not sure.
However, the fact of the matter remains that in spite of the NDP-Liberal pretend commitment to aboriginal people, the sad truth is not one aboriginal person will own those houses. They are just houses, not homes. That is a disappointing thing for aboriginal people and aboriginal people care deeply about the issue. They will walk out tonight, look up at the same sky as us and see the same stars. The problem is on the ground where the on reserve aboriginal people live, they do not have the same rights as the rest of us and that is a shame.
Mouthing little platitudes about caring for aboriginal people and then not voting for the amendments the Conservative Party brought forward to support aboriginal people, shows a bit of a contradiction.
I invite the member to comment on how he feels about the fact that in Canada on reserve aboriginal people are not subject to matrimonial property rules, which means an abused aboriginal woman is supposed to give up everything in our country if she walks away from the home that she does not own. The rules do not protect her. Would the member care to speak to that?