Mr. Speaker, repeatedly throughout my colleague's speech, she inaccurately referred to this as the “do-nothing budget”.
I have not had the chance to read all of the 400 pages in this budget, but as the chair of the environment committee, I did quickly go to the section on the environment to see what initiatives our government is proposing in this budget. I do not have time to read anywhere near all of them, but I am going to read a few of them.
The budget would protect Canada's national parks by providing over $390 million to make improvements to highways, bridges, and dams located in our national parks. It would support conservation by investing an additional $15 million in recreational fisheries conservation partnerships. It would support projects that would support the conservation of recreational fishing habitats.
I could go on and on about environmental initiatives, but I know that my colleague is very supportive of unions, so I have a question for her. I would like to give her a quote from Canada's Building Trades Unions, which said, “After years of being a mere add-on to post-secondary education, apprenticeship is being noticed by our federal government”. It went on to say, “The way apprentices are being treated has changed and they are now, thanks to measures introduced in the 2014 budget, treated more like their colleagues in college and university training”.
I would like to ask my hon. colleague if she would support the unions in their call for the support that we are giving to the trade unions by giving support to apprenticeship training, which is one of the most lacking areas of training in our country. If we are interested in improving the lot of middle-class Canadians, why would she not support this budget?