Mr. Speaker, I would first like to correct my hon. colleague on a few facts stated in her speech that were not at all correct.
First, she talked about a literacy program that she accuses us of cutting. What she neglected to say in her speech, however, is that these are not cuts in services to people. The cuts are for conferences, groups of lobbyists and researchers, and so on. So this was not services provided directly to people.
As a government, we are providing a great deal of money for programs that are available to older people who want to learn to read. That is in our budget. Millions of dollars are provided for that purpose. But the hon. member did not mention those facts.
I would also like to say that the reason why the Liberals are not happy with the changes made is that they want to spend the taxpayers’ money on their friends. We have put an end to the practice of giving money directly to the Liberals’ friends. That is the real reason why they are not happy. The Liberals had a history of waste and corruption such as has never been seen in the entire history of Canada.
We have here $28 million available for language learning, and for the other programs to teach immigrants to read English and French. We have programs that are still there in our budget.
I would like to know why the hon. member does not want Canadians to know that we have not cut services. This only involves the special interest groups that the Liberals had favoured.