Mr. Speaker, I also want to commend the member for her precise analysis of what is going on and the impact it will have on the lives of communities, families and children across Canada.
Members will remember that earlier I asked the member for Etobicoke North what happened under the Liberals, who now claim to be the champion of all that is good, communal and socially correct in this country. I believe it was in 1993 that Jean Chrétien came in as prime minister and he and his finance minister introduced a deficit-cutting agenda and did away with the Canada assistance plan.
The member for Etobicoke North suggested that it was done in the 1980s. I want him to know that it was done after 1993. It was part of the agenda of the Liberal government to fight the deficit on the backs of families, children and struggling men and women across this country.
Not only did the Liberals do away with the Canada assistance plan, which called on the different levels of government to do specific and particular things with the money that was transferred, but they reduced that transfer by some $7 billion to $8 billion per year. Then they moved forward after that, experiencing a good economy after 1995, to begin the same kind of tax reduction for corporations that we see in the budget which this government has delivered and proposes to deliver in the mini-budget.
The economists who look at this say that, depending on how we do the math, this is another $6 billion to $12 billion out of government capacity to actually respond to the needs of families and children, our aboriginal communities, post-secondary education institutions, hospitals and health care across this country.
I wonder if the member herself has thought of, first of all, the Liberal impact of taking billions of dollars out of the social transfer and of the corporate taxes they gave away over their 13 years? Second, this government is giving away more money through corporate tax rates. Has she thought about the impact this will have on some of the people whom I know she feels very strongly about and has actually met with to hear about some of the challenges they are facing?