Mr. Speaker, during the month of January I travelled with the member for Markham—Unionville and the leader of my party across Canada. We listened to Canadians. We were in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary, and MPs in our party listened to Canadians in their ridings across Canada.
What we heard from Canadians was that they were absolutely offended by the approach of the Prime Minister and the government in November, with the economic statement that provided no vision for the economy and only created political havoc. Canadians were looking for stability and the ability of members of Parliament to work together during an economic crisis.
The budget does not go far enough. It takes a few missteps and it takes a few baby steps in the right direction, but the Liberal Party and my leader are taking a responsible position. Our position is that we will hold the government to account on a quarterly basis to ensure that the infrastructure money is actually leading to projects and shovels in the ground, to new jobs, and to better infrastructure. Our position will ensure that there is a plan to eliminate the deficit as the economy recovers, and that we will see greater investments in building a fairer Canada and the kind of job creation that the budget can create if the Conservatives improve the spending mechanism.
At no point did my party ever say we would vote against the budget before we read it, because Canadians know that would be an irresponsible position that would not make sense.