Mr. Speaker, it is always a great pleasure to listen to my colleague talk about the budget, particularly since, as a Liberal by trade, he has only recently been thrown out of the other side of this House. He is now in opposition.
I recall that during the 13 years of Liberal rule, and particularly during the last 11 years, we in the Bloc Québécois were continuously putting the question of the common good and improving people’s lives back on the agenda. During that time, the Liberals were cutting transfers to the provinces, and not the least important transfers: health transfers, where there was a drastic cut starting in 1995; cuts in post-secondary education transfers, to such an extent that the education system everywhere in Canada has been undermined and we no longer know what to do to improve the level of infrastructure and the quality of education.
There were also cuts to social assistance for the most disadvantaged people and the tightening of the Employment Insurance Act. That meant that 60% of people who would ordinarily have been entitled to employment insurance were also thrown off, just as my colleague was thrown out of power a few months ago.
I wonder, if the common good was so important to him, how it is that when he was on the benches opposite and we were trying to persuade him that the government should take action in the public interest and for the common good, he did nothing? How can it be that this man, a colleague whom I do respect, did not stand up for the people, took part in, and even supported, measures that harmed the people, that raised the poverty rate and denied the unemployed the benefits they would ordinarily have been entitled to?