It is relevant, Mr. Speaker. The Minister of the Environment brought it up, so if the member cannot take the heat, he should get out of the kitchen.
The next quote is:
My party's position on the Kyoto Protocol is clear and has been for a long time. We will oppose ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and its targets. We will work with the provinces and others to discourage the implementation of those targets. And we will rescind the targets when we have the opportunity to do so.
Who said that? It was the current Prime Minister, as reported in the Ottawa Citizen, on November 22, 2002.
That is the end of my quotes on the environment.
On the environment, the Conservatives did do one thing. They passed out light bulbs. That was how they were going to address the environmental issue.
It is a budget, and we are talking about various aspects within the budget. The Minister of Finance proudly stood up and talked about having to reduce taxes, and I agree. What the Liberals did, as my colleague from Willowdale said, was approach it in a balanced way. We reduced taxes, we reduced the debt and we put money toward programs that Canadians asked us to invest in, like child care, health care, post-secondary education, our cities, et cetera.
In the previous budget, the Conservatives hummed and hawed about how to reduce taxes. A Canadian sent us his tax form. He asked why the Liberals had reduced his taxes to 15% and now he paid 15.25%. In this budget, they have reduced it back to 15%. By doing this, they say they have lowered taxes. I do not know what math the finance minister learned, but I know that one and one equals two and that one minus three equals two.
We know his record when he was the finance minister in Ontario. The member for Willowdale alluded to the debt with which he left Ontario, unbeknownst to the incoming government.
The finance minister also did one shameful act, which Canadians are still paying for today, and that was the income trust fiasco. When the Liberals looked at it, we knew we had to address it, but we never made any decisions because of an election. This cost Canadians. Why? Because of the NDP.
Today the NDP has the audacity to stand and ask where the money is for social housing, or for the environment or for post-secondary education. Under the former Liberal prime minister, there were $1.6 billion for affordable housing, $1.5 billion for education, $1 billion for the environment and half a billion dollars for foreign aid. I stood up in this honourable House and I supported those recommendations. We applauded them.
What did members of the NDP do? They betrayed not the Liberal Party; they betrayed their constituents, who today are asking what happened to that money.
My colleague earlier alluded to support for child care. This is not child care. This is handing somebody $100 a month, which is taxable.
The member for Peterborough talked earlier about the money which was stolen. It is unfortunate he uses that type of language. Judge Gomery brought everything out and the culprits who indeed took money from Canadians were put before the courts and were charged, convicted and imprisoned.
At least we respected Judge Gomery's results. However, that party used Judge Gomery. Before committee, Judge Gomery expressed his disappointment that all the recommendations he put forward were thrown out by the Conservatives. Part of their victory had to do with Judge Gomery's commission.
The party talks about supporting our military. I have said before, I am a son of a veteran as well. We have stood in the defence committee with the chair, for whom I have great respect. We have done everything we can to support our military. Yesterday we had a vote on a motion from the member for Kitchener—Waterloo about lowering the flag on the Peace Tower. What a shameful display from the Conservative Party.
When the member for Mississauga—Streetsville has to go to the polls the next time and visit his constituents, he will have to answer why he betrayed them. He ran on a policy saying he was going to do this and he was going to do that, and the next thing we knew he walked over to the government. We Canadians are still waiting to see the famous report he put together when he went over to Pakistan. We still want to see it. We want to know how much it cost Canadians.
Anyway, I do not want to move away from the budget speech. Here is what one gentleman said some time ago, and I was really impressed, I must say, so I will quote him. He said that there is no greater lie “than a promise not kept”. Do members know who said that?