Mr. Speaker, prior to question period, I was commenting on the issue of the economics of balanced budgets. We recognize that this is something on which the government has fallen short. I want to move forward on it and talk about priorities and what the government needs to focus more on.
In the last number of months, we have seen several issues come to the floor of the House. I thought it might be beneficial to provide some sort of brief comment on them.
One of the issues that has always been important to me is health care. I had the opportunity to pose a question on this issue in the debate on the budget implementation bill. I raised the fact that the health care accord had expired.
One of the things we have found with the Prime Minister is that he has not been very successful in meeting with the provinces or getting them together to look at what is important to the country as a whole. The Prime Minister has really fallen short on recognizing how important health care is to all Canadians. The government's response to that issue has been quite surprising. It has literally done nothing.
I would like to think that the government could have demonstrated a much tougher approach, trying to appease the issues of health care and looking at ways in which we could achieve another health care accord. This is very important to Canadians, and it would have been nice to see it being incorporated into a supplementary budget document and allow for some form of an agreement. I believe the government is selling short the importance of health care to Canadians.
Another issue that comes up when I am in my constituency is crime and safety. I have had the opportunity to raise this issue in the past. The government is very good at taking certain aspects of legislation, bringing them forward and trying to give the impression that it wants to get tough on crime when, in fact, it would be far better off coming up with bold initiatives under the budget that would prevent crimes from being committed in the first place.
I would ultimately argue that when we look at the budget, it is an issue of priorities. If the government wanted to have more of a profound impact on dealing with the issue of crime, it would need to invest in issues that would allow for more youth engagement in our communities in a more positive fashion.
This, again, is one of the deficiencies of this budget and, therefore, the budget implementation bill. The bill does nothing that is really creative or, using my previous example, that allows more youth being positively engaged in the communities we represent. That is important not only to my constituents, but to constituents as a whole.
We have talked a great deal within the Liberal Party. Since the leader of the Liberal Party was elected, one of the priority issues has been the middle class and what the government has done for its betterment.
I cannot help but notice that since the leader of the Liberal Party was elected, the term “middle class” has been used a great deal more inside the House. Whether it is the Conservatives or the New Democrats, they are talking about the middle class a whole lot more. I acknowledge that it is a positive thing. Prior to becoming the leader of the Liberal Party, far less attention was being given to the middle class.
It is interesting and encouraging to hear more talk about it from the government, but we would really like to see more tangible action that would made a positive difference for our middle class.
The leader of the Liberal Party has talked about this when we go forward. This is an issue on which the Liberal Party will continue to challenge the government, such as how it delivers on economic and social policies for Canada's middle class, which is of great importance.
I have also highlighted another deficiency of the government in regard to the infrastructure. Municipalities and communities across our country are in need of infrastructure dollars, and those infrastructure dollars need to be spent today. The government's focus has been to try to work on spin, saying that it is spending more on infrastructure and that it is a huge commitment. What it does not tell Canadians is that the bulk of that money will not be spent until well after the next federal election. The next real batch of any large amounts of money will not occur until the election year.
At a time when our municipalities and communities are in need, and there is a wonderful opportunity for the government to invest in our infrastructure today, sadly, the government has chosen not to do so. That is at great cost to the many different communities we all represent.
With those few words, I look forward to any questions there might be. I wish we did not need to have a time limit on this bill.