Mr. Speaker, not to belabour the point very much, but the member represents Saint John city, a great city in New Brunswick. He also knows very well what happened to the Saint John shipyard. Under the Liberal watch, that shipyard went down and it gave the Irving company $55 million of ACOA money to help shut it down.
A shipbuilding policy sat on his minister of industry's desk since 2001 and it was never acted upon. The current government has also failed to act upon it, which is a pox upon both those houses.
However, I want to give him a bit of a break. What was not in the budget was the issue of VIP services for widows of veterans.
We have a letter from the Prime Minister, signed by him when he was opposition, which said that the Conservatives would immediately extend VIP services for all widows and widowers of veterans regardless of time of death or application. He wrote that on June 20, 2005. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs from Kamloops, when she was in opposition, said the exact same thing, that when they formed government they would immediately extend that program for all widows and widowers. We have asked since January 2006 when it would it happen.
My hon. colleague from New Brunswick has an awful lot of those widows of veterans living in his riding. Why does he think the government not only ignored a motion passed in the House, but with $14 billion worth of surplus why could it not come up with $280 million to help all widows of all veterans?