Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for the member, one with regard to wait time guarantees and the other with regard to transit pass tax credits.
The Government of Canada entered into a $42 billion health care accord with the provinces which would have provided a 6% increase annually to the provinces and territories for health care. However that 6% increase is not reflected in the finance minister's current budget.
One of the five priorities of the government, as laid out to Canadians, was to address the issue of and the promise of wait time guarantees. However the budget contains no new money for the guarantees. These are the actions that the government would take to cover the health care costs of transferring patients to other provinces, or even to the United States, along with their families, et cetera. Why is it that wait times was a priority in the five priorities but absolutely no new money was included in the budget for wait times?
The second item concerns transit passes. Since climate change issues do not seem to be a priority of the government, it strikes me that there is a transit pass tax credit. It is $1.3 billion of spending. In fact, 95% of that will go to existing transit riders and, of those, it is only those who actually have monthly transit passes. People who pay cash fare or do not have a monthly pass are not eligible because they have no receipt. The government expects a 5% to 7% ridership increase but there is no capacity. It appears that this is a real waste and mismanagement of the money because it has absolutely no impact whatsoever on greenhouse emissions.