Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to continue into what is now the fifth hour of debate in this important budget discussion. One of my colleagues from across the way asked how much longer I intended to speak. I will just answer this way. The budget is 500 pages. Canadians are tweeting and posting on Facebook,. They are sending in emails, and faxing their comments. The NDP will speak as long it takes to get the message across that the budget hurts ordinary working families, that the budget hurts Canadians families and that Canadian families deserve better.
During question period, we had all kinds of Canadians who seem to be excited. The more they find out what is in the budget, the more Canadians seem to be galvanized to respond.
It is interesting to note that the feedback we are getting from Canadians from coast to coast to coast is, above all, from Conservative ridings, ridings that have elected a Conservative MP in the past and ridings that are represented by Conservative MPs. I find that very interesting, the opportunity the NDP is giving those Canadians to make their voices heard in Parliament. I am very pleased that Canadians in those Conservative-held ridings are exercising their democratic right to have their views brought forward before the House of Commons.
I will begin by reading some of the tweets that have come forward in the last few minutes, since question period was just a little over an hour ago. I have a tweet from a gentleman saying, “Demographic graph shows the cutoff for OAS cuts falls just after the baby boom late 1950s birthrate bump. Cynical if this by design”.
We heard on CBC's The Current this morning that, “Myth of ratio workers to support retirees was debunked. Should look at actual hours worked today and tomorrow. The U.S. took much longer to address an OAS-like issue. The Conservative Party is too reactive. Knew about the demographics since the 1960s and have put together a knee-jerk poor plan”.
When Suzanne Legault testified at committee she said, “They should not be subject to cuts already dealing with stretched resources. Canadians have a right to know”.
I have another tweet from lifelike telling the NDP, “We appreciate your efforts on behalf of Canadians for sharing the feedback in the House of Commons”.
We certainly appreciate the tweets and the Facebook postings that are coming on.
Another persons writes, “Since when do we accommodate poverty as opposed to try to prevent it?”
Another comment reads, “The finance minister is the last person who should be criticizing Ontario provincial finances. How very unhelpful to national unity. Ontario is 38% of Canadian GDP”.
Another person tweets, “My feedback regarding budget is the short time period Canadians have been given to adjust to the new age for OAS and many will suffer”.
Another comment from Ottawa reads, ”The government should stop demonizing anyone who raises the issue of taxation. Revenue generation through income tax is a valid measure”.
Another tweet said that they like my glasses. I thank them for that.
From Ottawa again, it reads, “Governments should be working to decrease the growing gap between richest and poorest Canadians. Tax grid should be more progressive”.
That is a very important point. As we know, under the government, Canada is now experiencing record levels of income and equality, with a small proportion of Canadians now earning most of the income pie.
Another comment reads, “The CBC is such an integral part of the Canadian fabric from sea to sea to sea that anything done to weaken it would harm us all”.
Another comment from Ottawa reads, “How can the public service function effectively with constant turnover in uncertainty? What institutional memory will be left after the losses?”
Another comment reads, “Cuts should not be made to officers of Parliament. Why is the Prime Minister's Office's noise machine not setting an example in cutting its wasteful budget?”
What those comments refer to is the fact that the budget of the Prime Minister's Office has gone up more substantially than any other component of the budget over the last few years. It has been massive increase.
Obviously, Canadians are reacting to that as they have in the past with the fighter jets and the prisons agenda. Canadians are saying that building new prisons and buying costly fighter jets and the F-35 fiasco should not be priorities. The priorities should be making sure that services work for people.
Another constituent commented, “To me the budget is going to take me out of a comfortable retirement. Because of the environmental changes and the gutting in environment, of course my health will suffer”. Another constituent commented, “I am reminded of the hypocrisy of former Reform Party MPs opting back in after criticizing the pension plan”.
The comments go on and on. I do not want to devote all of my time to reading tweets but they are coming in one after the other. They are coming in faster than I can read them out.
Canadians seem very galvanized. They have been following the budget debate. They heard what the Conservatives promised last May 2. The Conservatives promised not to attack health care or retirement security. They promised to maintain services. They also promised to be fiscally prudent and responsible and then we see what the results have been in this budget.
In December in Victoria the finance ministers imposed what over time will be a significant cut in health care transfers. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has evaluated those cuts at over $30 billion, at a time when Canadians need health care. The government is not taking any of the responsible approaches on health care that we have talked about in the House and as our former leader Jack Layton and our new leader, the member for Outremont, have mentioned. None of those things have been brought to bear.
We have talked about expanding home care, which would reduce the cost of acute care beds. Often seniors who are unable to stay in their home without the provision for home care end up in acute care beds at a cost of many thousands of dollars more than it would be if we simply provided home care in the first place.
We have also talked about the bulk purchasing of medication. That has worked in other countries in bringing down the cost of drugs. Because of the long-term patent protection that is given for pharmaceutical drugs, Canadians are paying far more than they should be paying for pharmaceutical drugs.