Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the member for Cambridge.
First and foremost, I want to point out that this budget is balanced and fair for all Canadians. While cutting taxes for working families and introducing pension income splitting for seniors, the government is also investing in key priorities, such as infrastructure and the environment.
While offering a balanced, fair budget with long-term measures to offset the fiscal imbalance, we also set up the wait times guarantee trust. And thanks to our tax back guarantee, lower debt will mean lower interest payments, and therefore lower taxes.
I am proud to say that I am a part of a government that realizes the importance of a sound economic plan to ensure the prosperity of Canada over the long term and not a focus on one-off side deals that compromise all principles of fairness.
In my limited time to talk about the budget I want to take the opportunity to relate to the House how this budget positively impacts the areas of my riding of Tobique—Mactaquac. I specifically want to discuss the support for agriculture and forestry, a commitment to infrastructure and to helping our truckers, small businesses and families. Those are all very important to my riding and all areas where this budget has delivered and will continue to deliver results.
When it comes to agriculture, our government continues to support with unprecedented levels.
For agriculture, this budget includes two new commitments totaling $1 billion that will help improve our agricultural sectors. For instance, $400 million will go directly to farmers to help them deal with rising costs.
We are also adding $600 million to create contributory style producer savings accounts, which will be available as soon as agreements can be reached with the provinces and territories.
The $600 million for the savings program, in my view, is a start to implementing an income support program that will lead to a new program which will make up for the serious deficiencies in the current CAIS program. We expect that $10 million of this funding will go directly to farmers in New Brunswick, enabling them to stay competitive in local, regional and international markets. This effort, combined with the next round of discussions and consultation on agricultural policy framework, will be good for farmers. It will be good for farmers because we are doing this right and not ramming a program down the farmer's throat, as we saw with the current CAIS program.
There is no question that producers in my riding are very interested in a new generation of programming that includes a saving component, somewhat like the old NISA program, and ensuring we deal with the cost of production. The farmers certainly shared those ideas with the Minister of Agriculture when he was in Tobique—Mactaquac a mere weeks ago.
This budget also addresses a key element for diversifying the products we produce through funds earmarked for biofuels. This biofuels program will also benefit renewable fuel for agricultural producers by allocating $1.5 billion for renewable fuel production, including the technology and projects associated with ethanol biodiesel.
I will save the rest of my speech for after question period.