Madam Speaker, I know the member opposite does not like what he is hearing but I can assure the member that it is completely relevant to the debate. Had he been listening in terms of the comments and looking at the book, and I can appreciate it is a fairly thick book, he would find that there are many expenditures that deal with our agricultural community. The actions of the government and the profound impact that it would have on the Prairie farmer is worthy of debating today. I suggest that in time the government will regret taking the actions that it has decided to take on the Prairie farmers.
The title of Bill C-13 is “keeping Canada's economy and jobs growing act”. I have had the opportunity to question members and one of the things I raise constantly is the fact that back in August 2008 there were actually 14,631,300 jobs. Today, there are 14,106,100 jobs. We all know that statistics can be used for all sorts of arguments but the point I am trying to get at is that over the years we have lost half a million full-time jobs.
Let there be no doubt that the biggest concerns Canadians have today is the economy and the need for jobs. I believe that this budget document could have done a lot more in terms of being able to create the jobs that Canadians want to see. With a little more imagination, we could have seen a budget that was fairer and that could have generated the type of jobs that Canadians believe government has a role to play in terms of providing the necessary incentives to have an impact on providing those jobs.
In fact, one of the questions I posed to one of my New Democrat colleagues was on the whole issue of housing. It is an area in which I believe the government could do so much more in terms of providing more incentives to improve our housing stock and so forth.
With so little time to speak, I want to pick up on a couple of other very important issues.
The health care accord is something that is of critical importance. Having been in a provincial legislature for a number of years, I can say that the greatest challenge a province has is that percentage of the budget, the need to deal with it, the need to provide funding and the need to look at future federal budgets. The federal government has a role to play in ensuring that there is a basic standard of health care services from coast to coast to coast. However, there is concern in terms of the government not taking the necessary action to make a difference.
I have raised the issue of seniors. Far too many seniors in Winnipeg North and everywhere else in our country are having a difficult time meeting their basic economic requirements. We need to do more to provide that support to our seniors. I would have liked to have seen more going toward senior pensions and the guaranteed annual income portion of it.