Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Vancouver East for her very important question, but I also want to raise another issue.
Another matter regarding firefighters of course is the fact that we fail to provide adequate compensation to firefighters who die on duty and fail to support the families when something has happened to officers on duty.
In terms of first nations, Métis and Inuit people, we have been embarrassed on the international stage. We have international non-governmental organizations who have come into communities in northern Ontario and issued reports about the desperate conditions around housing, water and education.
There are over 600 reserves in this country and many of those reserves are living in third world conditions. In a country as rich as Canada and as resourceful as Canada, surely we should be able to invest some of the billions of dollars in surplus into first nations communities.
I do not disagree that there is always a challenge in terms of spreading the money around, but we have some of the poorest of the poor who are doubly disadvantaged in terms of their ability to lobby and advocate on their own behalf the government, and their ability to get a fair and equitable part of the resources in Canada.
Therefore, I will be voting against the budget. It does not address some of the serious income inequalities in this country.