Mr. Speaker, I am thankful to be recognized in today's debate.
When I am going to be speaking, I make a point to come into the chamber to listen to the debate and hear what has been going on so that I am not just coming in here and reading a speech that I wrote in advance. Quite frankly, I do that because I really like to respond to some of what I have heard in the chamber, and I have heard a lot today already: a lot of rhetoric and a lot of what I would characterize as misinformation coming from the Conservatives.
The member for Terra Nova—The Peninsulas gave us a great speech today on economics and how an economy works. I know that his degree is in engineering, but Professor Rose at Queen's University, who taught me economics, would be proud of the way that he, almost like a textbook definition, discussed how an economy works. Unfortunately, the reality is that he probably only studied the microeconomy and did not bother looking at the macroeconomy, which gets into global forces and what happens when we open up our borders, introduce free trade and start trading globally.
The member for Terra Nova—The Peninsulas would want us to believe that everything within our economy, in particular in his description related to inflation, is only caused by the government. I will give him the benefit of the doubt since he is new here and did not spend the last three years in this House listening to the Leader of the Opposition basically say the same thing to Canadians day in and day out. The Leader of the Opposition was the member for Carleton back then, and now he is from somewhere in Alberta, maybe next week from somewhere else, but he made the same claim over and over that if we just got rid of the carbon tax, all inflation would be gone. That never happened, because the reality of the situation is that so many other variables impact inflation.
For starters, we can look at climate change. It is going to impact the cost of food, point blank; that is just going to happen. It decreases crop yield, it increases production costs and it affects supply chain distribution. These are real impacts that have effects on the cost of food.
It is much easier for the member for Terra Nova—The Peninsulas to say that when we print more money, we get inflation. I read that in textbooks too, but unfortunately, the reality is that it is much more complex than that. Although I have great respect for engineers, and Queen's University has a great engineering program, I would really encourage the member to perhaps do another degree in economics so he can get a more holistic and complete view of this.
I was talking about misinformation, and what the member for Terra Nova—The Peninsulas said was specifically about veterans services. He said there would be $4 billion in cuts to veterans services. He is just trying to stoke anger in a sound bite for a clip, and I am sure he has already clipped it and put it on social media.
Let us talk about that $4 billion. The only impact the budget had as it relates to veterans services is that it said we were previously paying eight dollars and something per gram for medical cannabis, but since the market value of a gram of cannabis has gone down and is closer to six dollars, we will decrease the amount we distribute based on the market reduction in the cost. That is it.
The member was not here when Stephen Harper slashed veterans services and closed veterans offices. Those are the impacts of the Conservatives. With all due respect, I think it is really important that members try to talk about the realities and the full, real impacts, not just try to produce sound bites for their social media clips.
That brings us to the reality of what we are dealing with, and the reality is that this is a good budget.
I have a lot of friends, both on the left side and on the right side of the political spectrum. Some people have really surprised me, because they have traditionally been on the left side or on the right side but have been telling me, and this is just anecdotal, “Mark, I have never really voted Liberal before, but that is a really good budget, a budget that meets the moment and one that Canada needs right now.” That is why we see—