Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member's speech, though, I am consistently struck by the fact that the government's spin on the budget bill does not match reality.
I want to remind the member that while the Conservatives have claimed their budget is about job creation, the reality is that even they had to admit it would lead to 19,200 lost jobs in the public sector alone, and the PBO projected a total of 102,000 jobs lost.
Multiple witnesses before the finance committee said that Bill C-45's proposed changes to business R and D support, for example, would kill jobs and hinder innovation, which is a key factor to economic growth. Contrary to the spin, the austerity measures in the bill would be a further drag on the economy.
Would the member want to comment on the supreme irony that we find in the sense of humour of the Minister of Finance when he called this act the “jobs and growth act”.