Indeed it is unbelievable, as my colleague said so well.
The Conservatives' approach to innovation, education and research is another missed opportunity. This government slashed $140 million in funding for research councils last year. It cut $160 million from the Canadian Space Agency. It cut the National Research Council of Canada. It scrapped 50 years of Canadian leadership in nuclear medicine.
The Conservatives have been putting some money into bricks and mortar, but they have neglected the brains. They are renovating university and college buildings while cutting funding for the research that goes on inside. Rather than make a long-term commitment to build a national knowledge economy for Canada, the Conservatives giveth and the Conservatives taketh away, and their bluster cannot conceal the truth of that.
It is unclear how the government could have imagined that it could create a credible innovation agenda without a comprehensive commitment to learning, starting with world-class early learning and child care, through post-secondary education and research, working with provinces and territories to fight literacy, which holds millions of Canadians back from achieving their full potential, providing enhanced language training in both official languages for new immigrants coming to our country, and lifting the cap on aboriginal post-secondary education.
That is how we Liberals want to develop a workforce for the new world economy. That is how we would create opportunities for our kids. That is how we would invest in Canadians.
Instead of a future filled with promise, this government is saying that we are in for some lean years. The Conservatives have promised to freeze departmental spending, but what programs are they going to cut? We do not know. This year may be the year of small cuts, but next year promises to be the year of the axe. They are going to justify the cuts by talking about the recession, but our deficit is the result of their own incompetence.
The Conservatives promised cuts and freezes to the programs Canadians count on, but meanwhile the government is spending $570 million every year for management consultants. That is a 200% increase, and no Canadian can understand why that is justified.
Spending in the Prime Minister's own department is up 22%, more than $13 million. Meanwhile, the finance minister spent $3,000 on a photo-op and a cup of coffee. It was the most expensive double-double in the history of Canada.
The throne speech shows the choice facing Canadians. On the one hand is the laissez-faire approach, where everyone looks after themselves and the government has nothing for us but five years of austerity, cuts and freezes. On the other hand is the Liberal alternative. We believe that a good government can protect people today and plan a future of employment and hope. We believe in a government that unites Canadians instead of dividing them.
The choice for Canadians is becoming clearer by the day: on the one hand, laissez-faire and cuts; on the other hand, a government that believes in uniting Canadians around a shared national project of readying our great people for the opportunities of tomorrow.
The throne speech could have been an investment in Canadians' future, in health care and pensions, in clean energy and innovation. But the government did not choose that route. It chose gimmicks, a slash and burn approach and laissez-faire ideology.
This is not the Canada we stand for, and it is not a Canada where we stand united. A strong, united Canada, an educated, healthy Canada, a green Canada open to the world, a great Canada, rich with the greatest hopes and dreams of its youth, that is the Canada that we want to build with Canadians and that we want to celebrate.
In conclusion, this throne speech was not just disappointing, it was unnecessary. It was damage control after the Prime Minister had shut down Parliament. Every paragraph makes that clear.
Therefore, I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting the period and adding the following:
and offers our humble wish that Your Excellency is not burdened in future with frivolous requests for prorogation.