Mr. Speaker, I find it amazing that New Democrats are so critical of so many progressive announcements that have been made by this government. They committed to balancing the budget for this fiscal year. I suspect they are having a difficult time justifying how they are going to be voting.
We are lifting tens of thousands of children out of poverty; we are lifting tens of thousands of seniors out of poverty; we have reduced the age of retirement from 67 to 65; we are investing record billions of dollars into Canada's infrastructure; we are giving a tax increase to Canada's wealthiest; we are giving a tax decrease to Canada's middle class; and we are doing so much more. That is not even making reference to the Canada child benefit, which is giving out literally hundreds of millions of dollars.
How does the member justify this in her own mind? We know the limitations from the last election. The NDP said that it would balance the budget. Given that its attitude was to balance the budget, how could it not support this vote?
I could appreciate if the only thing the NDP was saying was there is too much debt in this particular budget, which there is not, because then at least I could understand why it would be in opposition to it.
How does the NDP justify voting against all those positive social policy decisions that are going to affect the lives of millions of Canadians in every region of our country?