Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance. I was also disappointed with the lack of vision for ordinary working families.
Canfor, in my community of Westminster, British Columbia, shut down last week. Many more across the country have closed. Good paying, family supporting jobs are disappearing, and it is a very serious situation.
He also has said that Canadians want a clean environment, and I agree with him. However, there is nothing in the budget to deal with climate change, another missed opportunity by the Conservative government, carrying on, sadly, in the tradition of the previous Liberal budget.
The budget has $500 million going into a trust for transit. When the New Democrats had an opportunity in 2005 to amend the Liberal government's budget, they managed to get $900 million for transit. In this budget it is a paltry amount.
When the government found almost $1 billion for transit in Toronto in the last budget year, why is there so little for transit and infrastructure, which is very much needed to clean our environment, in this budget?
The Evergreen Line is in my community. What was provided for the Evergreen Line, the actual cost of which is $1.4 billion, was about $64 million, enough to fund half a kilometre of that line only. This is all that has been provided by the Conservative government for the city of Port Moody and the tricities in British Columbia. Why so little? Why half a kilometre of transit for British Columbia when it has funded, in the last year, almost $1 billion for the city of Toronto?