Madam Speaker, just listening to the previous speaker reminds me of the degree to which the NDP love to put a spin on things. Let me just comment on a couple of the things the member across the way makes reference to.
He talked about the importance of a national pharmacare program. I believe there are many members of this chamber who are striving to achieve that. I know my colleagues, at least on the government benches, are very much committed to strive toward that. We have a Standing Committee on Health that is working on that and inviting stakeholders to its meetings. It was in the midst of a report when the NDP had a flash of an idea and took the idea from the standing committee and presented it inside the chamber, not allowing the standing committee to do its fine work. True to form, the NDP likes to think that if it is a good idea it has to be an NDP idea.
The member just made reference to the housing strategy, that it might be a big plan but that we are not spending money on it today. I inform the member across the way that we are spending money today. Every year, the national government spends hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidizing national housing. However, this is historic because this is the first time we are getting the type of money we are seeing invested not only for today but into the future for a national housing strategy. Instead of at times trying to recognize the fine work the government is doing, the NDP tends to navel gaze and wants to look at where it can criticize and how it can say it is better than the government.
The member talked about tax fairness. One of my favourite lines is that the NDP likes to come across as if it thinks the rich and corporations should be taxed and the money given to the poor. That is the standard line that it likes to say. When I was in the provincial Manitoba legislature, where the NDP was in government for far too many years, it actually reduced corporate taxes from 16.5% to 12%. That was the NDP in government in the province of Manitoba—