Mr. Speaker, that is the best case of sour grapes and NDP envy I have heard yet from the Conservative side.
I do not know about the member for Kildonan--St. Paul, but I came here to work as hard as I could for my constituents and the people of Canada. I came here to make a difference, not to sit on the sidelines and not to be a backseat driver, but to actually try to effect change.
Opposition members are not prevented from trying to influence things in this House and trying to make a difference and effect change. That is exactly what we did. It is not like the Conservatives who took a look at the February 2005 budget and said, “Oh, it is not bad. It is better than we thought,” and ran out and supported it as their leader did on February 23.
Instead, we said the budget was not what we expected. It did not reflect what we had heard in terms of the democratic process of prebudget consultations, in which I might add members of the Conservative Party were involved. They were part of the finance committee that heard from so many Canadians right across the country who said that something had to be done about education. There is a hodgepodge of programs. Students are not able to get access when they want higher education and then they are not able to repay their huge student loans.
If the member has not heard that from hundreds of constituents, I do not know what she is doing, because that is one of the number one issues we are hearing now. We heard it during the prebudget consultations.
It just so happened at that point the Liberal government did not respect the democratic process to ensure that there was something in the budget for education and housing. We reminded the Liberals. We used the power we had as 19 members, not the 99 members over there who did nothing. We have 19 members and we used our power to make a difference. We effected some change that will help students and homeowners. It will make a real difference to this country.
All I can ask the member is, is she prepared simply to see more money going to the profits of big corporations as opposed to lowering tuition, creating affordable housing and cleaning the environment?