Mr. Speaker, I want to start by first saying that I have tremendous respect for the hon. member who just spoke, but she talked about the values that Canadians wish to have, such as investments in health, education, infrastructure and so on, yet her own government announced, and she said so in her speech, $100 billion worth of tax cuts in 2000.
We said the same things in 2000 that she says now. We said that many people were left behind, including autistic children and veterans, as well as the shipbuilding industries and everything else.
Yes, it is indeed important to ensure that taxes are done fairly and equitably right across the board. If reductions need to take place, they need to be done with a proper and thorough debate in the House of Commons.
I would like to give the member an opportunity to elaborate a bit more on this style of government we are seeing, with a government that turns around and gives a massive tax break to very profitable corporations, usually in the financial and the oil and gas sectors, corporations that are already making record profits under the current tax system.
Yet the government turns around, and except for a penny or two off a cup of coffee or whatever, average Canadians will not realize any major tax reduction at all in their taxes. Yet the very wealthy who run some of these corporations will realize the lion's share of these cuts.
Does the hon. member not think it appropriate that we should be investing in those people who are going to be left behind by the government, including farmers, fishermen, Inuit, first nations people, children with autism--I go back to that again and again--and families who are suffering? What about homelessness? What about infrastructure and so on? There are so many things the government can and should be investing in, but it simply has re-gifted many things that we in the NDP pushed for in Bill C-48 of the previous Parliament.
Why does the member think that the Conservative government and its Conservative members, who individually are really decent people, collectively seem to have lost their minds? They have gone blank. I would like to give the member a chance to elaborate a bit more and enunciate to us why the Conservatives would be so cold-hearted on many of the things I have just mentioned.