Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to speak to this bill, and since I only have three minutes, I am going to get to the point.
The government introduced a budget that is an orgy of spending, three times the rate of inflation. The government is sprinkling little goodies here and there with one purpose which obviously is to win the next election.
In a time of surplus, there are great opportunities. I am going to offer the government some ideas that I hope it will consider adopting to improve our country and our citizens' well-being dramatically.
I would propose that the government adopt my private member's bill on the Canadian low income supplement. It would give $2,000 to those Canadians who make less than $20,000 a year. That would put real money in the hands of the most underprivileged in our society.
The budget failed to deal with the real fiscal imbalance, and that is the imbalance between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have nots. That was utterly ignored in the budget and was a huge blunder on the government's part.
The government has to decrease the lowest income tax rate on those who are the poorest.
The government has to increase investments in research and development and technology. When we were in government, Canada went from being 19th in the world in Rx and D to third in the world in research and development.
The government should introduce further tax credits, something called tax shifting. If we used tax shifting we would be able to shift the taxes in such a way that would convince Canadians and industry to use green technologies and thereby improve our environment.
The government needs to deal with the crisis in affordable housing. The way to do that is to use public-private partnerships. No single segment in society is going to be able to deal with this challenge that is coast to coast. P3s would work. Canadians are looking to the government for leadership and the federal government has a responsibility to act. So far it has failed.
The government needs to provide strategic investments in health care. Health care is truly the number one issue in the lives of Canadians and the government has failed to deal with this. It should open up a centre for best practices under the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
The government needs to exert a leadership role with other partners on a national workforce strategy for health care workers. As we are getting older, so too are caregivers. This is a massive crisis that will not be resolved overnight.
The government needs to do a better job of investing in local infrastructure. It should reduce the federal taxes on gas prices.
These and other solutions that my colleagues have would dramatically improve the welfare of Canadians. I hope the government does the right thing and listens to us.