Mr. Speaker, exactly. That is what is best, income tax relief. What is the worst? We will see on the Department of Finance website that consumption taxes are the absolute last place we should cut taxes.
It will be interesting listening to Department of Finance officials as they come before the finance committee trying to explain to the finance committee and therefore to Canadians, why the finance minister has totally and completely rejected the advice of his own officials. That is just dumb, but it gets dumber.
The next area in which the Conservatives put our fiscal house in jeopardy is in the reduction of the prudence moneys. Canadians probably understand this as sort of a rainy day fund, and that is probably a good way of describing it. But a one point move on interest rates, a one point move on inflation, a meltdown in the American economy, or a SARS incident or something of that nature could literally shake the fiscal framework of the nation and the government. Because of that, we build into our budget substantial amounts of prudence.
The government, for whatever reason best known to itself, has chosen to reduce that to $600 million, a very small amount of money on a budget that is over $200 billion.
We do not try to run a budget for the sake of running a budget and keeping a balance and things of that nature. We want to do great things in a budget.
The previous government invested heavily in post-secondary education. It created all kinds of research chairs. It put the universities of this nation back in the research game so that Canada is now one of the foremost nations for publicly funded research.
What did the Conservative government do? It gave an $80 tax credit to some students so they could buy some books. I think that is wonderful. I have a daughter who will be going to university next year and frankly, I would have taken the Liberal choice. The Liberal choice was a one-half cut in tuition for the first year and on the graduating year, another cut of one-half of the tuition costs for that year. Frankly, that is way better than a lousy 80 buck tax credit for picking up a few books.
As I said, our universities are now back in the game, but this budget says absolutely nothing about post-secondary education in terms of funding those foundations and research chairs.
Members will recollect that in 1993 when the Liberal government first came in there was a great deal of conversation about brain drain. Brain drain was a really serious issue. We all know that the only way Canada is going to be among the most prosperous nations on this earth is if our nation functions on its brains. If in fact we have well-funded public research, if in fact we have excellent universities, we will have a chance of succeeding. Does this budget say a word about that? Nothing.
The decline will be slow and the decline will be painful, because those foundations will not be funded. As a consequence, those researchers who have come here to pursue their particular individual disciplines will find other places in which to locate. Canada will suffer as a consequence.
As I said, this is a budget of losses. It is a loss for the aboriginal peoples on the Kelowna agreement. It is a loss for child care advocates and those who wish to set up a child care system in this country. It is a loss of fiscal sanity. It is a loss for Kyoto. It is so full of losses so as to be a tragedy.
The budget has no tax policy except political expediency. It is a loss of fiscal sanity. Its margin for error is severely diminished. It has no debt reduction strategy. It gives money to pretty well anybody who, alas, has his or her hand up.
I hope members will join me in voting against the budget. It is not a budget to recommend to our nation.