Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise today to address what is likely one of the most lacklustre budgets ever presented in the House of Commons. I would argue that it is a very boring budget that does not demonstrate any vision for Canada. There is no reason for people to look at this budget document and say it reflects a Prime Minister who actually has a vision for the future of our country. There is a great sense of disappointment as a result. Many Canadians are very concerned about the direction of our nation and want to see more hope and a Prime Minister who is committed to building Canada, looking at things, whether our infrastructure or the many different industries throughout our great nation and how we can support them and feed growth.
I will start by providing comment for the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food because I know he is listening very closely. We have had very serious problems in the Prairies. The Liberal Party and I have raised the issue regarding grain. We have piles of grain all over the Prairies, we have empty ships in the Pacific Ocean, and the Minister of Agriculture has done very little or nothing to ensure that grain ends up in the ships in a timely fashion. He has abandoned his responsibility of ensuring that grain farmers get their grain to market and of protecting their interests. It is a crisis. We are not talking about a few million dollars, but tens of millions of dollars, which could easily turn into in excess of hundreds of millions of dollars. This budget does nothing to address that crisis.
Then we have the pork crisis, which really affects several provinces, in particular Manitoba. There is the threat to exports, and again we have not seen any action coming from the federal government, no reference, on this issue.
These issues, in particular the wheat issue, have been there for months and there is nothing in the budget to address them.
We can talk about smaller industries, which are actually fairly significant in size and contribute immensely to our economies. However, I want to focus some attention on the bigger picture and look at where we are going as a country. I have made reference to it in the past and my colleague, in her speech, made reference to the deficit situation.
Why would we believe the Conservatives when they say that the government will, at some time in the future, achieve a balanced budget? We know for a fact that when the Conservatives took office from former Prime Minister Paul Martin, there was indeed a multi-billion-dollar financial surplus.