Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this two to three page document, although three pages may be stretching it a little, which would authorize the spending of 4.5 billion taxpayer dollars. I understand that it took up the back of a napkin under the leadership of the leader of the New Democratic Party and his finance minister, Buzz Hargrove, along with the Prime Minister who managed to put this little document together with no plan.
I have been listening to the speeches and I do not want to repeat a lot of things. I just want to say how pleased and proud I am of the member for Medicine Hat, the member from Peace River and our finance crew who worked on the finance committee and who talked about changing and raising the standard of living.
I have visited with several families in my riding. Some families have four kids and the mom and dad are struggling like one would not believe just to make ends meet. These families are trying to keep up a standard of living that is steadily going down and down. It is a real problem. Surely at this time of the year, following the income tax payments, members must realize how many constituents they have in their riding who are in serious trouble with Revenue Canada because they cannot come up with the extra money required to pay the taxes.
Taxes are killing us in this country. It is killing small business. It is hurting like crazy. It is slowing down that standard of living. I am proud of our boys who work in the finance committee. I am also very proud of our member from Red Deer who works on the environment committee and who has solid plans to present as to how to deal with these situations.
The government wants to spend up to $10 billion but I do not think it has a solid plan in place on where it is going to spend that. That is amazing. The Liberals talk about Kyoto and other things but it has no definite plan laid out as to how the money will be spent. They talk about throwing money toward the military. I am extremely proud of our critic on the military who just spoke.
I have been here 12 years and I look at the justice issues. For 12 years we have talked about a shortage of RCMP officers. I have 16 RCMP detachments in my rural riding and all of them are short of people. The penitentiaries in my area and in other places outside of my area are always short of personnel to take care of the penitentiaries. It is getting completely out of hand. Drugs and prisoners are in control of penitentiaries. Guards and personnel are slowly losing the battle. We do not seem to be interested in improving the situation with more personnel, better equipment and so on.
We have had very testy situations at border crossings since 9/11. How do we deal with this? The border closures made absolutely no sense at the ports. We know containers are coming in without being inspected. When I was at the Port Erie border crossing I watched trucks coming through and no one could tell me at the crossing what was on the trucks. They were coming into Ontario and being unloaded. A tracer was put on the truck but when the truck was found it was empty. They would issue a fine of $400 and send the truck back to the states.
We really have a shortage of people at our border and yet we are talking about protecting Canadians and the safety and security of our nation. One of the most elementary duties of our job in this place is to ensure we provide the country with laws that protect those very things.
I have been here for 12 years and we continue to talk about our children. Every year it comes up at budget time on how we are going to improve the situation. Child porn has been talked about since I came here in 1994. It has been a topic of conversation for nearly 12 years. It is improving somewhat but it is not because of what happens in this place. It is improving because of our dedicated police officers who are fighting it tooth and nail and doing an excellent job of it. I am very pleased with those people who are working in that category but we are not helping. We do not even have a national strategy with another international program to deal with child pornography. It is not getting better.
Age of consent is something that has been brought up in the House a number of times over the last 12 years. We want to raise the age of consent. They know that these are the things Canadians are looking for to happen. Why does it not happen? We are still debating this whole issue year after year.
Without a doubt, I do not think there is any member who would not believe it for a moment that drug abuse across the country is completely out of touch with reality. We have a number of people who are engaged in crystal meth. Very dangerous drugs are spreading like mad. Yet we still have no national drug strategy of any kind to battle this thing.
Our answer is to set up stations where persons can get their drugs, clean needles and everything so we can help them with their habit. Instead of helping them get out of the habit, we help them through bleach programs in penitentiaries.
I find it amazing when we look at the policies of Correctional Service Canada. It is zero tolerance for drugs. Yet every penitentiary in this country has more drugs in it than any street in any city in our country. We have talked about it for 12 years, but we do not accomplish anything.
We have come up with Bill C-48, the budget bill from the wonderful NDP which also has no plan. It is going to do something about education, housing, and correcting the situation on the reserves. These are good ideas and good things to do. I certainly support them and they are the top priority on our list. However, the members in my party, who work on these committees, have a concrete plan that they are trying to push forward. I see no plan coming out Bill C-48. I see $4.6 billion be spent.
Every year in the budget, we hear about money going toward education, housing, correcting the situation on the reserves, and the environment, but it is not any better today. It is still just as bad as ever. Where does all that money go? Where is the planning? Where are the procedures? Lay it out for me. Do I want people to live with a roof over their heads? Absolutely. Who would not want that?
I look at the waste. My goodness, there was a committee going around the world, and I think that has been stopped, spending lots of taxpayers' dollars trying to figure out what to do about prostitution.
Look at the gun registry. It has nearly a $2 billion expenditure and we do not have an accounting of exactly where that money went. Wait until that audit comes out. Do we think ad scam was bad? Wait until we get the audit of the gun registry. All of this has been going on for 12 years. Budget after budget have said the same things over and over, but it is no different. Out we come with another budget saying the same things and the NDP is trying to enhance it by saying the same things that have been said for 12 years.
Where is the concrete plan? When are we going to buckle down and use the money to get the job done instead of spending it on more bureaucracy? When are we going to get to the mean and potatoes, and start getting the job done? We cannot do it the way we are operating.
I just came back from my riding. I was even evacuated from my own house because of the floods. The flooding in Alberta is horrendous. Farms and ranches are under water. They are facing a real tragedy. What did I hear on the news this morning? The government is considering help. Considering, my eye. It should be an automatic thing. These are Canadians who are hurting. There is nothing to consider. It is time to sit down and determine what we are going to do for these people, but the government does not do that.
I went through four years of drought with the farmers in my riding. Not one penny ever reached them. They have gone through all kinds of BSE problems. The government comes up with program after program, but too many are not benefiting from anything.
Promises are going out and the bureaucracy is working to instigate these promises, but there is nothing happening. The agriculture industry is really in trouble, now that it is all under water, not just in Alberta but in Manitoba. The member from the NDP who spoke ought to be talking about the flooding and the tragedies that are happening.
I am so proud that the leader of my party has a vision for this country. That vision is loud and clear. That message will get out. One of these days every Canadian will see that planned vision. When they vote for Stephen Harper, it will be the best vote they ever cast in Canadian history.