Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to comment on that. We are not talking about cuts that the government needs to make to balance the budget. We are not talking about cuts that are very large in dollar terms.
When I was chair of expenditure review we had savings of $11 billion over five years, far larger than the Conservative government has done, so it should not really boast about how much money it has saved.
The main point is the nature of those cuts. Contrary to our cuts, which were focused on government efficiencies and doing things more efficiently, not hurting individuals in need, not hurting depressed regions and all of the job implications suffered by attrition, these cuts are against those who are not part of the Conservative base. They target the most vulnerable, whether they be adults needing literacy training, youth needing employment opportunities or status of women, and I could go on.
However, it is not the amount of the cuts, it is the ideological nature of those cuts which the Conservatives are directing toward the most vulnerable in society. Canadians will stand up against these cuts because, by and large, Canadians are a fair-minded people. They appreciate the need for cuts when the government has a fiscal problem but they do not appreciate a government single-mindedly going after the most vulnerable in our society.