Mr. Speaker, I think the member provided the answer in his question, so if I could take the liberty, I would just make the point that I wanted to include in my speech but ran out of time.
It had to do with pension income splitting and who in fact is getting the benefit. Of seniors, 70% do not have pension plans. They in fact are the ones who primarily invested in income trusts to provide a similar cashflow from income trusts as they would otherwise get if they were a member of a pension plan.
It really is very odd to me that the day that it announced that it was going to break a promise and tax income trusts, the government at the same time somehow also promised that it was going to provide for pension income splitting. In fact, the beneficiaries of income pension income splitting are the people who have pension plans but not the ones who have income trusts.
The government did not mask or alleviate the pain that it inflicted on about two million Canadians who had $25 billion wiped out from their retirement savings.
I think the member is quite right. The government and particularly the finance minister are ready to duck. They want to duck as quickly as possible. They put forward a motion to put the question and to stop debate on this bill. The less we talk about the budget the happier the finance minister is and that ought to tell us something.