Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this House to speak to our opposition day motion, which reads:
That, in the opinion of the House, government planes, and in particular the plane used by the Prime Minister, should only be used for government purposes and should not be used to transport anyone other than those associated with such purposes or those required for the safety and security of the Prime Minister and his family.
Coast Guard helicopters, $16 orange juices, five-star hotel stays, in and out scandals, senator housing and expenditure scandals, unethical lobbying, and the list goes on. What do all of those points have in common? Shady Conservative ethics.
Canadians want to believe that politicians fight for them in this House, and that every day in the work that they do, politicians are adhering to those basic principles, the importance of transparency, accountability, and ethics.
Unfortunately, despite the rhetoric we have heard from the governing Conservative Party, we have seen anything but that, whether it was the current Minister of Justice being flown around by Coast Guard helicopters; or the former minister of international development, who went abroad to talk about the importance of development in some of the poorest countries in the world and ordered expensive orange juice and stayed in five-star hotels; or fundraising friends of the Conservative Party, who were rewarded with plum positions in the Senate and then proceeded to blow taxpayers' money on shady housing and expenditure accounts.
Where are the days of the Reform Party? I come from western Canada, and I remember growing up at a time when the Reform Party took western Canada by storm. The rhetoric was very strong on the issues of accountability and throwing those out who had wasted taxpayers' money, who had indulged in the culture of entitlement that we have seen too often from previous Liberal and Conservative governments. Lo and behold, the Reform Party became the current Conservative Party and gained power. We have seen that same culture day in and day out, rewarding themselves, rewarding their friends, and all the while telling Canadians that they have to tighten their belts and that the cuts are necessary for them to continue lining their own pockets.
Let us look at those cuts. In the last number of years we have seen record cuts by the government. We have seen cuts to pensions. We have seen cuts to the public service. In fact, by 2015, we have been told there will be a total of $10.8 billion in cuts when it comes to public services. This is in the areas of food inspection, aviation safety, environmental regulation, employment insurance, and the list goes on.
We can look at the recent round of cuts that Canada Post has announced. Yesterday, there was public outrage over Canada's failure to engage in a proper investment in terms of our Canada Health Act. We have seen record environmental deregulation and cuts to important departments, such as Fisheries and Oceans and Environment Canada, which are there to keep our communities safe.
We have seen a retraction in terms of our international obligations and the kind of investments that we used to make around the world in order to support communities that are dealing with challenges on that front.
In my riding, perhaps the clearest indication of cuts has been the experience of first nations people. First nations people have always borne the cuts of government, whether it be Liberal or previous Conservative governments, but under Harper we have seen record amounts of cuts with respect to—