We feel very strongly that this fewer jobs, less growth, less prosperity budget needs to be exposed for what it is. Of course, it is not as if the government actually put front and centre what the impacts of the budget were. When we looked through it initially, we found that a lot of the figures were hidden, which is what we feared. Here I go back to the memo from the President of the Treasury Board a few weeks ago that basically directed civil servants to hide within the budget the actual cuts to services and jobs. That is something that was leaked to the press, which then exposed it. Not only would the government not put that information in the budget documents themselves but also not put it in the reports on plans and priorities that would come out in the month of May, thereby hiding from the Canadian public the truth about the budget.
After a couple of days of being able to go through the budget and rip it apart, we are actually seeing what the real impacts are. That is why we are raising these points in this House.
Just on the job front alone, the government's estimate of 19,000 job cuts in the budget has been exposed as not accurate. We are actually talking in both the public and private sectors now of a loss of over 50,000 jobs across this country. It is nothing short of irresponsible for the government to proceed with cuts in services and jobs that are then multiplied in the private sector. We are talking about tens of thousands of jobs that would be lost right across the country. That is something that I can get into a bit later on.
However, the reality is that this fewer jobs, less growth and less prosperity budget has a profound negative impact. That is why, as my colleague from Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing raised, we are going to continue to speak out on the budget. Canadians are speaking out as well.
From the Halifax area, where there are three terrific NDP MPs, the members for Halifax, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, and Sackville—Eastern Shore, a Mr. Roger says: “Make no mistake.... This budget is not about fiscal prudence or a healthy economy, this is an ideology-driven budget. It's hard to believe they have made Canada more regressive with respect to the environment. Meanwhile, they have slashed 19,000 jobs in public service at the same as saying they are trying to create jobs. Orwellian double-think?”
A person from Ontario says: “Why do believers in free market continue to feel that oil companies need subsidies from their own government? Somehow, I don't think that environmental assessments are going to stop the oil companies from taking their equipment and going home. Let them work on their own dimes and make sure that they are responsible to the environment and there are adequate environmental assessments”.
Another Canadian says: “Sad to hear about Katimavik. As a participant, I was lucky enough to travel Canada as a full-time volunteer, working in community centres and for NGOs and gaining valuable life experience, strengthening communities, self-directed learning, sharing skills, environmental stewardship. That program taught me a lot about being a decent citizen”.
Just hot off the press is another comment: “Has the Prime Minister been reading 1984 too much? This government is becoming very Orwellian when they start to suppress information and facts going to the public”.
Obviously, when we raise the tweets and the Facebook postings, this indicates what is very clearly a trend right across the country: Canadians are concerned about what they are seeing in the budget.
As I mentioned earlier, I am going to be coming back to the tweets and Facebook comments a little later on. However, I also want to start reading out some of the emails that we have been getting from coast to coast from Canadians who believe, profoundly, that the government is simply doing the wrong thing in the budget.
My Conservative colleagues have asked if they can send in tweets and Facebook comments. I will just say again that if they want to send tweets or Facebook comments, we will certainly read them if we have time, but what we will say, and I want to be very clear about this, is that we will be putting Canadian families first.