Mr. Speaker, I do not mind the member for Ajax—Pickering pointing out that there are some serious gaps in the present government's Speech from the Throne and raising for all Canadians the fact that there is little in the Speech from the Throne about education, agriculture or cities.
I would accept that but for the fact that I cannot help but hear the words of the Liberals ringing in my ears when we raised exactly the same point with them when they presented their last federal budget. We told the Liberals there was nothing in the budget speech about education, agriculture or cities. What did we get back? We got nothing but disdain and disparagement from the Liberals, who treated us with ridicule and scorn for daring to raise those important issues.
If it were not for such a double message that we are getting from the Liberals, I could accept it, but it is very hard in the debate concerning the Speech from the Throne to accept this from Liberals. They are asking day to day why we keep beating up on the Liberals instead of the government. That is why, because we could not get through to them on these important issues.
They have created a situation where in fact Canadians are left scrambling with some very difficult situations because in fact the government cut transfers to education and did not put the money back. When they tried to redress the issue with health care, they took the money from education and the social transfer to boost money for health care. We now have $3 billion less in transfers for education today than we had before that episode under the Liberal government.