Mr. Speaker, I was in full flight, responding to some of the heckles from my friends in the Liberal Party on my comparison of this budget to the Liberal double-double. I said that it is the Liberal double-double, deficit and debt, and there is no roll up the rim to win for Canadian families. Studies have shown that 80% to 90% of middle-class families, the families they claim to be helping, are paying more under the Liberal government.
High deficits and high debt are connected with taxes. Taxes are already going up, and in many ways large deficits are deferring taxes to the future. The Liberal government seems to forget that it is going to continue to make our economy less and less competitive. The budget contained five mentions of NAFTA, with no funding attached to any of the industries that could be at risk. That includes those industries that the Prime Minister did his speedy little steel town tour to because they almost blew the market access for steel and aluminum for Canadian workers.
I am going to spend my final few minutes on the Canada summer jobs, which dovetails nicely to the thousands of Canadians who have written condemning the Liberal government's approach to politicizing a summer jobs programs. It is in the budget at page 56, and states, “A summer job helps students pay for their education, and gives them the work experience they need to find and keep a full-time job after they graduate.”
All members of Parliament know how impactful these programs are. They do great service-related events for communities and help students defer costs of their university or college education at the same time. It is a win. Service clubs are involved, as are seniors homes and faith organizations. All sides of this House have seen the great work that is done with this program. Never in the decades of operation of this program has there been a thought-police approach, where they are putting in a values screen. The Liberals did that because they wanted to exclude faith organizations from playing roles in their communities, even though the Prime Minister's sunshine photo ops with the Syrian refugees who first came to Canada were all coming through private sponsorship roots from faith organizations.
Excluding people in this way violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and violates the spirit of what the Canada summer jobs program is supposed to be about. We have heard from thousands of people who have written petitions. We have a vote tonight. For the Liberals who are listening, I would like them to use their conscience. Do they have freedom of thought in the Liberal government? It is time for them to stand up for all charter rights, and that includes freedom of conscience and religion, and recognizing that faith communities play important roles across Canada.