Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to follow the member for Winnipeg North and her impassioned plea for the government to stop the cuts, to get back to its senses and to think about the communities and the people who will be affected very dramatically by every penny that is taken out of their budgets by way of these decisions.
I was pleased to move a motion in the standing committee on which I serve, human resources and social development, that would actually take a look at these cuts, particularly in that ministry. At the first meeting we had this past Tuesday, the most important question we asked the group that came in to talk to us about the impact was whether they had been consulted about these cuts. Members of the group said that there was no consultation, no warning and no conversation whatsoever regarding the impact on the people they serve or whether they would be able to handle this.
We still have not been able to find or to get from the government any vehicle template that it might have used to actually make these decisions.
Not even the former Conservative minister in the Mulroney government, Perrin Beatty, co-chair of the Canadian Labour and Business Centre that must close its doors after 22 years of operation, was able to see the minister or the Prime Minister regarding the cuts to the program that they are so obviously committed to and think is a good thing.
This centre is Canada's longest standing business and labour forum, the only national ongoing forum for partnership and dialogue on labour market and skills issues. The government is cutting that program at a time when the economy is rapidly changing and we are into a global reality. It cut the program and did not want to sit down and talk to the chair of that program about its impact.
Every time we ask a question here in the House or in committee, the Conservatives stand and say that they are spending millions of dollars on this, that and the other things, but the reality is that no matter what they say on how much money they claim they are spending, they are spending less. They are spending less on programs that affect very directly the most at risk and marginalized of our communities, our families. Most of these cuts are targeted at the most vulnerable people.
The government has cut $200 million out of the voluntary sector; $55 million out of youth employment, the summer employment programs; $45 million out of Canada Mortgage and Housing; $17 million out of the adult learning and literacy program; $17 million from workplace skills; $13 from the social development partnership; and $13 million from the social economic initiative. That is just a short list of a long list of programs that have been hit dramatically and which will feel very directly every penny that they lose.
However, it should not surprise us at all that the government is making these cuts. When the budget was announced last year by Mr. Flaherty, supported by his good friend from the Ontario legislature, Mr. Baird, sitting up in the gallery was Mr. Harris who was very proud to be delivering on a program that he had very effectively rolled out in Ontario.
If anyone is wondering what these cuts are about, or where they are going, or what is coming next, all they need do is look back at the record of that government in Ontario from 1995 to 2003.