Yes, it is amazing, absolutely appalling, how badly the government has done. It has dragged us down to 152nd worldwide for economic growth. Thus the comments of the last Canadian I referenced are very apt. If we fire a coach because the team goes from first place to eighth place, what do we do with the whole team when the team drags the whole country down to 152nd place? We fire the whole bunch and start anew. That is just what Canadians are going to do on October 20, 2015.
I will read a message from the riding of Berthier—Maskinongé. One Canadian said the following: “I think that it is scandalous that the retirement age has been pushed back from 65 to 67. Once again, the poor will be penalized.”
I will read another comment from the Ottawa region:
“I believe that responding to the Conservative government's incessant attacks on the environment is critical.... I call on the new leader of the opposition, the member for Outremont, on behalf of the 60% of us who did not vote for the Conservative Party of Canada, to take the government to task for all the things that are wrong in this budget and to continue fighting it through implementation”.
He is absolutely right. That is what we are doing. I thank him, a Mr. Scott from Ottawa, for saying that.
We could have just said on Friday that we're going to let 24 Conservative MPs stand and read their package of the Prime Minister's Office's talking points. That is what the last three days of debate could have been. That is certainly what the Liberals seem to want to see. That is certainly what the Conservatives seem to want to see.
What we are saying is that the last three days of debate have allowed hundreds of Canadians to participate by Twitter, Facebook and email, and that is a good thing. It is democratic when we have hundreds of Canadians who have been able to actively participate and send their comments on what they feel about the budget, where they feel the government has done wrong things to the country. Through all of this correspondence, there is hope for the future. It is very clear, whether Canadians are younger or older, regardless of their background and region, that they all know that Canada can do better, that Canadians deserve better and that one day they will have a government that will actually take their concerns into consideration.