Madam Speaker, I just hope that Canadians across the country watch this debate for the rest of the week. They will see how the Conservatives are wasting thousands and thousands of taxpayers' dollars and they are not saying anything about the topic being debated.
We are debating a budget bill with four items: transit, foreign aid, housing and post-secondary education. The member opposite mentioned that it is a 400 word bill. It is past one o'clock and the Conservatives have spent the entire day without saying one word about the items that we are debating. I hope they are not going to go the whole week. I hope they will find new researchers to write their speeches so they address the four items in the budget.
Let me remind those members and their researchers that the topics are transit, foreign aid, housing and post-secondary education. We will be sitting until midnight tonight and tomorrow night. I hope they will come up with at least one member who will debate the topic.
What have those members been talking about? They are saying we should have more tax cuts. We have the biggest tax cut in history of $100 million. The member just talked about families. That reduces the rates by 27% for families with children. It takes a million taxpayers off the tax rolls. For businesses and entrepreneurs the result is that it puts our corporate taxes 2.3 percentage points below those in the United States. Members cannot complain about the tax rates.
Let us go on to Kyoto. It was embarrassing that a member opposite suggested that there was not a Kyoto plan when we have one of the most modern plans in the world. It has been praised by environmental organizations in Canada. We had a debate on it. It is a thick document and the loyal opposition does not even know there is a plan.
Conservatives should be most embarrassed for raising the topic of aboriginal Canadians. We have increased more than other items in the budget, year after year, the money for aboriginal Canadians for land claims. We have made slow progress, but how could the Conservatives bring it up when they voted against every increase for aboriginal Canadians, for land claims and self-government that have helped aboriginal Canadians take control and responsibility for their destiny? The Conservatives voted against it. It is an embarrassment that they would bring that topic up.
One of the member's colleagues suggested putting tax points over to the provinces. Why would he want us to have more debt and more taxes at the federal level, not spend money on the military, agriculture, aboriginal people, health and pension for the aging, and just transfer the taxes to the provinces?