Mr. Speaker, that was a very humorous remark. As everyone knows, there was a mixup in the House of Commons when one of the Conservatives unknowingly, and we are not blaming anyone, did not speak in the appointed speaking order and the budget was passed.
As the member knows, the Liberals voted strenuously against the budget and for very good reason. That is why I was so shocked that a party that is progressive like the Bloc would support it.
How could anyone vote for a budget that would take $12,000 away from low income students and give them $78 for school books? I asked our college library and was told that every book is on average over $100.
In fact, a Conservative member, when asked what we could do for low income people said that they could go back to school with the book subsidy.
How could anyone support a budget that took away greenhouse gas funding programs? The Conservatives cancelled a whole slew of them. We had 22 programs related to transit, wind energy, renewable resources, car emissions, and large final emitters. They took all that away when the world is in such crisis.
As the NDP leader said today, it is raining in Antarctica. In the north the permafrost is melting, the roads we depend on for business are melting, and there are climatic challenges around the world.
Finally, how could anyone vote for a budget when we had the greatest surpluses in Canadian history that could be shared equally among everyone? Instead of giving the tax breaks equally to everyone, and I have no problem giving them to everyone, the Conservatives took them away from the poor, increasing their tax rate from 15% to 15.5%, reducing the basic deduction by $200, taking away the child tax credit, and taking away the assistance to help poor people make their houses more inefficient. That is shameful, and that is why I would have voted against the budget.