Madam Speaker, I will correct the member on both his tax claims and his veteran claims.
Specifically, he talked about the pathway the Harper government took to get back to balance. We did; after the global recession, we had a very difficult but planned path to get back to balance, and we did not raise taxes. In fact, our cuts to the GST and raising the basic personal exemption helped low-income Canadians the most. We helped lower middle-class incomes across the board and we helped small businesses, which are the hirers.
On the veterans front, we actually removed most of the paperwork. We created the My VAC Account, which the member knows. I had veterans actually say how they wanted to be served as Afghan veterans. They did not want to go to the offices like the World War II veterans did. By the end, we knew where resources needed to be put, so we put about 300 employees back in to some of the claims processing for mental health. That got the backlog down under my watch, and the member knows that.
The current government has allowed the backlog to rise back up because there has been no effective hand who understood veterans. The Liberals broke their promise on pensions. They were just placating people. I am hopeful that the new minister, who is much more substantive than the previous two, will bring some truth and a plan as well to veterans, because the government has there are enough resources to keep the backlog down. They just need to apply it to the employees.