Mr. Speaker, I too would like to sincerely congratulate the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance on her first budget. It is certainly an historic moment for her and for the economy. I sincerely congratulate her on the volume of work that has been done. Her speech laid out a host of unprecedented measures. Many are very interesting, and we will certainly have time to come back and review them.
I want to note that this is the first time that I am seeing a tangible commitment to fight tax avoidance and tax evasion. It is just an expression of intent at this stage, but it is truly a step in the right direction, and I congratulate the minister on that.
In my opinion, there are two key things missing from this budget. First, there is the health funding that Quebec and the provinces asked for. We are in the middle of a health crisis, and from the Bloc Québécois' point of view, if there was ever a time to deal with that issue, it is now.
Second, since the primary victims of the pandemic are seniors, we have long been calling for an improvement to the old age security pension starting at age 65, so as not to create two categories of seniors. This improvement is nowhere to be found in her speech.
Why did the Minister of Finance not include these two measures in the budget, especially since the difference between the deficit announced last fall and the one announced today is the exact same dollar amount as these two measures? Am I to assume this is a political decision?