A Conservative member asks why we are supporting it. If one looks at the current situation and addresses the need for this country to be ready for the new 21st century economy, obviously the NDP believes, the Conservatives may not believe, in investing in our human resources.
We believe in investing in programs that will help Canadians access this new economy, not spending, as my friend from the Conservative side just said, willy-nilly for the sake of scattering tax breaks and tax credits, as the Conservatives did in its their budget.
We believe in spending according to the priorities of Canadians, so that they can help themselves and create an environment where young people can access education and training to build a future. We need to create economic growth that we all so desperately need, especially given the fact that our birth rate is not growing very much and accepting that we have a serious shortage of skilled labour, and that our dollar is now almost par with the United States, which is having a huge impact on the manufacturing sector.
We believe in strategic investment that grows the economy and at the same time helps people develop their full potential.
It is difficult to support a motion when we feel this frustration with a Liberal Party that feels it can change its spots or colours just like that, on a dime. Let us not forget, when we look at this motion, that it was only about five or six months ago that we were faced with the Liberal government's economic update.
If we look carefully at this motion, we will see that it is very similar to last fall's economic update. There have been years of surprise surpluses and the Liberals saying the cupboard was bare. Then, last November, when they knew an election was imminent and when in fact their own leader said he was going to call an election within two months, suddenly they were able to say the cupboard was no longer bare and provided us with a shopping list of goodies.
They served us up a virtual feast of program initiatives that they could not--