Mr. Speaker, with a surplus of $14.1 billion, the government cannot spend the amount of money it is spending in dribbling a little here and a little there and end up saying that this is huge progress.
One of the problems is that we have never returned to the base funding. Huge cuts were introduced in 1995 and subsequently did enormous damage to our post-secondary education infrastructure. They did enormous damage to our health infrastructure. They did untold damage to the level of commitment to overseas development assistance. The result is that we need nothing less than major infusions into rebuilding the base and ensuring that we are not just introducing a little bit here and a little bit there and a little bit somewhere else, which effectively atomizes our capacity as a nation to really deliver on these national, universal and exceedingly important programs.
Nobody is fooled. The government can go through it and say there is some for this and some for that and some for something else, but one thing is absolutely clear. Until the funding gutted out of these important programs by the previous Liberal government is restored to the base so that year after year it is built in, then we are still going to see the erosion of the quality and the accessibility of our health, education and other social welfare programs.