Thirteen years is right. Thirteen years is the time it took to get rid of that Conservative deficit of $42 billion and to create the conditions for a booming Canadian economy. I am proud to have been a part of those 13 years.
Our only concern is that on the other side, they are going to mess it all up with this attitude of not wanting to pay down debt, going too close to the edge and going back to a deficit. That is the problem.
Let us go on again about Canadians or regions that are not necessarily the richest. What I would say, having travelled extensively in Atlantic Canada and northern Ontario, that I have a keen appreciation of the central role of regional development agencies in creating jobs and stemming the outflow of people to the more populated parts of the country.
Why was there no mention of regional development agencies in the budget? Do they no longer fit into Conservative Ottawa, which wants to solve everything with a tax break? Or, is it the case, as with aboriginal people and farmers, that the government just does not care?
Why is it cutting funding to forestry, which is so critical to those regions of the country? Why, in a typical case of indifference to the plight of the less privileged, is it totally ignoring the fishing industry in which older workers are in a state of transition?
The answer, as usual, is that it is a government and a political party that does not care. It has no compassion for Canadians in need.
Another relatively underprivileged part of the country is the north. We see another broken promise with no mention of the northern development plan. Why the decimation of aboriginal funding, which will be especially damaging to the north?
That gives a pretty clear idea of the general attitude of the government, which is callous toward the least privileged members of our society
Let me now spend a little more time on three particular areas of concern, beginning with the environment.