Mr. Speaker, the issue is that there is a disagreement with the prescription of what Parliament should do now with regard to the economic climate that we are in. The government is in denial that we can somehow continue to carry on with business as usual.
The opposition members would appear to have been calling solely for an accelerated stimulus package. We know what happens when the economy turns down.
The member who just spoke has been here 20 years now and has been through these cycles. He knows that a minimum of 250,000 jobs will be lost. By the time there is a recovery in the economy, it will not be the older workers who will get the jobs and they will need some help.
We will have people who have jobs and do not have the skills to move into a new industry. We will have people who will not be able to pay their bills or even sustain themselves while they are transitioning into new work, which means there will be family hardship.
Does the member agree that a stimulus package just cannot be a $50 billion tax cut to everyone and hope that it will do something, that we need some targeting, some hope that we can give to Canadians by investing in those areas where job loss can be mitigated and new jobs can be created so that we put people's interests ahead of political interests.