Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of questions for the hon. member. If I am not mistaken, there is $250 million in the budget to help the oil and gas industries experiment with carbon capture and sequestration technology. What I would like to know is why the government is paying for that.
The oil and gas industry is one of the wealthiest industries in the world. It is one of the wealthiest industries in Canada. Its profits are projected to soar forevermore. Why are we engaging in this kind of corporate handout, this welfare program for the oil sands industry? That is question number one.
Number two, the hon. member and some of his colleagues have spoken about the urgency of paying down debt. Of course we have to pay down debt, but what rule of thumb did the government use to decide that $10 billion is enough to pay this year toward the debt and that we have to balance this with other priorities? What rule of thumb did it use? The government could have said that it had to pay down the debt but that it has a $123 billion municipal infrastructure deficit so maybe it should pay down a bit less debt and put more toward the municipal infrastructure deficit.
How does the government make these decisions?