Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to talk about the budget implementation act and what this budget has to offer.
For starters, I will note that, as usual, I am perplexed by the approach the Conservative Party has taken on the budget. When listening this morning to the comments from Conservative members, I heard the member for Brandon—Souris say that the budget is too high, there is too much money in it and we are spending too much. However, in the same speech, he went on to say that we need to spend more money on housing, more money on provincial transfers, more money on funding health in the provinces, more money for small businesses and more money for veterans, without giving a suggestion as to where money needs to be taken.
I asked a question of the member for Richmond—Arthabaska, who spoke just before my colleague. I asked him where he would start to cut funding and where he would remove money in this budget. I also asked him to explain his budgetary process to me. In the response I got from him, he went on about the debt again without actually answering me, and at one point I heard him say that all political parties wanted to help when it was necessary. That perhaps provides the most insight into the Conservative position on this.
In the beginning of the pandemic, when we had unanimous-consent motions to adopt supports for Canadians, the Conservatives knew they had no choice but to support them because public opinion would have turned incredibly negative toward them. They therefore supported help back then, although perhaps they would have preferred that every person fend for themselves at the time, instead of taking the approach that we should work together, collectively as a society, to get through this.
Nonetheless, the member for Richmond—Arthabaska stated, in his response to a question, that all political parties wanted to help when it was necessary. My take from what he said is that, basically, it is not necessary for us, as a collective society through the channel of the government, to support Canadians anymore. At least it is a step in the right direction in understanding where the Conservatives are coming from. They appear to be coming from a position that it was important to help Canadians before but not so much anymore. I understand it now, and it starts to provide some clarity.
I hand it to the NDP—