Mr. Speaker, the member says the government has put more money on the table. The “more money” that Conservatives have put on the table does not actually become realized until after the next federal election.
The Liberal Party is saying that the need is today. Municipalities across Canada need infrastructure dollars to be spent this year. How does the government respond? It turns off the tap in favour of spending the money in the next year, which happens to coincide with an election year. Members of the Liberal Party believe that the government is playing politics with infrastructure dollars as opposed to servicing the needs of our communities across the country.
Having said that, I would like to focus attention on what we are doing today. We are talking about the supplementary budget bill. This is a bill in which the government is attempting to pass through numerous other pieces of legislation. We are dealing with issues from the Supreme Court, to rail transportation, to food safety. It is all being bundled up and put into a budget implementation bill.
Conservatives do that so that they do not have to bring in separate pieces of independent legislation that would have allowed members the opportunity to debate and most importantly, allowed Canadians the opportunity to get a better understanding of exactly what the majority Conservative government is up to.
To make matters even worse, Conservatives are also invoking time allocation and by invoking time allocation--