Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up where my colleague left off and point out that one of the reasons the Conservatives are having such difficulty was the original blunder they made when the budget was tabled in this place not that long ago.
What did we see? Before, underscore before, the finance minister was finished reading the budget, the leader of the official opposition stepped in front of the cameras and surrendered. He surrendered, and not only on the budget issue. As far as the NDP is concerned, the official opposition surrendered its responsibilities to provide loyal opposition in this place. We do not need an opposition to cave and fold and run up the white flag. Opposition is there under our parliamentary system to provide opposition. Those members did not do it. They caved.
What is driving the Conservatives crazy is that the NDP had sense enough and enough presence of mind to look at the budget and say, “We watched the Liberals in the last campaign. We listened carefully and in the final days of the campaign they sounded an awful lot like New Democrats”. They talked about all the things that we have consistently and historically fought tooth and nail for.
Canadians responded by allowing the Liberals to remain in office. They still get to ride around in their limos, but they do not have absolute control of this place. The message from Canadians was clear. They heard what the Liberals had to say. They liked what the Liberals had to say, but they sent a minority government to Ottawa to make sure there was some way to keep the Liberals honest and to hold them accountable and to make them actually govern the way they said they would in the campaign.
The official opposition surrendered right away and said, “We give. We give”. But right off the bat we in the NDP said that we were opposed to the budget because it did not fulfill the mandate that the Liberals in a minority situation were given by the Canadian people. We decided that if we had the opportunity we would use our 19 seats and leverage them in a minority situation with the sole purpose of forcing the Liberals to deliver on the issues Canadians expected them to implement.
What are we talking about? We are talking about affordable housing. My hometown of Hamilton desperately needs affordable housing. We need affordable housing in downtown Hamilton more than we need more corporate tax cuts which nobody ran on and nobody had a mandate for.
While I am on that, let me point out that the NDP made sure in Bill C-48 that we maintained the tax cuts that were there for small and medium size business because those are good investments. We all know that the job generators in this country are not the huge multinational corporations. The actual jobs are created by small and medium size business. That is why we made sure that those tax cuts stayed in there because they help Canadians.
The Conservatives were not interested in helping anybody beyond their corporate pals. Once their corporate pals were taken care of in the budget, there was nothing further for them to do because that is their constituency. That is fine. It would be nice if they were a little more up front about it and acknowledged it, but if they want to pretend that they care about other things, they can do so. They can make those arguments. Canadians understand. The white flag went up on that budget because of the billions of dollars that nobody had a mandate to give from the public treasury into the corporate profit bottom line. That is where the NDP drew the line.
As a result of the NDP better balanced budget, we will have a balanced budget. We will have tax cuts where they will do the most amount of good, small and medium size business.We will ensure there is repayment on the debt. We have the priorities of Canadians correct where the Conservatives in particular have it wrong. We have ensured that those billions that the Conservatives wanted to give the Stronachs of the world would go where it would make a difference.
I talked about my hometown of Hamilton needing affordable housing. Let me also underscore the absolute critical importance of public transit, infrastructure, roads and bridges. When I talk to the Chamber of Commerce in Hamilton, it is as concerned about the status of roads, bridges and sewers as anyone else, more than most, because its understands the importance to the local economy.
The money that is to be invested in cities is a benefit to virtually everyone who lives in Hamilton, except maybe any family members of the Stronachs who happen to live in Hamilton. They may not be so thrilled. For the most part, Hamiltonians are pleased. They want this budget.
Let us talk about money to clean up the environment. I do not need to tell my colleagues here the kind of challenges we face in Hamilton. It is not unlike many other cities and constituencies across the nation. Money invested in a Kyoto plan that works affects the lives of Hamiltonians just like it affects the lives of every other Canadian. We made that a priority. We thought that is more important than Frank Stronach getting an even bigger tax cut.
The bigger priority for us was our students. Again, we are blessed in Hamilton. We have McMaster University and Mohawk College. We have Redeemer University. We have a number of institutions of which we are very proud and which Hamiltonian students want to attend, but they need means. Unfortunately, under the Liberals for the last 12 years, the effects of the cuts to the post-secondary education system have meant that for many Hamiltonian youth going on to university, no matter how talented they are, or how smart they are, or how hard they are prepared to work, many of them are facing family circumstances where they will be unable to go on to university or college.
That is one of the secret geniuses of Canada. In addition to our ability to maintain and respect cultures from around the world, we also ensured that our young people historically over the past decades, no matter what the income of their family, if they had a desire to go to university or college, we ensured they had opportunity to do that. We have done quite well, but we are living off the dividends of that investment from decades gone by.
The Liberals cannot stand very proud I am afraid and talk about their investment in post-secondary education over the last 12 years. This new better balanced budget, Bill C-48, negotiated proudly by the NDP, will make a difference and will put money on the line to help Hamilton students and other students across the country achieve their fullest potential. Is that not the promise--
