Mr. Speaker, I want to take advantage of this opportunity to thank the people of Rivière-du-Nord for their support in the last election. I will defend their interests every day.
Public finances must be sound, the budget must be balanced, the public debt must be reduced, government arrogance must be combated and controlled...
Where does this quote come from? From Marcus Tullius Cicero, in the year 55 BCE. The Conservatives have not invented a thing with their rhetoric.
This week in Saint-Jérôme, the Café de Rue SOS, a little storefront café that welcomed vagrants, people with various drug problems, the poor and the undocumented of this world, had to close its doors. It was not because people were not eager to go there and get their only meal of the day. No, it was because its grant dried up and there is nothing for it in this budget. There is nothing to increase assistance for the homeless. They are forgotten. For this government, they do not exist.
While the business world, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Conseil du patronat, were happy this week with the government’s budget, those who have been overlooked were left to nurse their hunger, and they are very hungry. They can be certain now of sinking a little further into poverty and exclusion every day. There is nothing in this budget for them.
This government’s whole approach to the budget is based on an illusion so cleverly maintained and so often repeated that it assumes the allure of truth. The illusion is that by reducing taxes on big business and becoming, as Minister Flaherty promised, the G8 country where companies pay the least tax—