Denise Savoie

[Petitions, April 8th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I also have a petition to present on behalf of many seniors who are faced with paying for a mistake made by Statistics Canada. It made a major error in its calculations of the consumer price index and it resulted in Canada's inflation numbers being underrated by half a percentage point from 2001 to 2006.

The petitioners are asking the government to take responsibility for this error and to repay every Canadian who was shortchanged by the government program because of this miscalculation.

[Petitions, April 8th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a number of petitions on behalf of Canadian students and their families who are facing crushing levels of debt notwithstanding the very welcome creation of a grant program by the government in the last budget.

The petitioners feel very strongly that the government has not gone far enough to address the debt levels. The petitioners are asking the government to reduce the federal student interest, or to at least give a nod in that direction, and to create a ombudsperson to help them navigate the many problems in the Canada student loan system.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2008, April 7th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if I can answer all my colleague's questions in the time I have left, but I will at least deal with the employment insurance and immigration questions, which are very significant ones.

We all know that $57 billion have disappeared into general revenue, while the criteria for eligibility have been tightened progressively, to the point where workers cannot claim employment insurance. The new agency the government would create would do nothing to increase accountability. In fact, it would undermine the principles of parliamentary accountability for employment insurance.

The NDP does agree, and has long agreed as a party, that EI should be separate from general accounts. In fact, I believe a number of bills and recommendations have been made to that effect in the House by some of my colleagues who have worked on this issue. It is not yet clear how the government would structure this new agency or how representative it would be.

On the immigration issue, this is a very serious concern to the NDP. First, hiding this major change in the budget bill was really a show of lack of respect in the House. It also would give the minister or cabinet discretionary powers for decision making behind closed doors on setting priorities, a responsibility that should rightly belong in the House. It is very worrisome if this is allowed to proceed. In fact, my colleagues and I will not allow this change to proceed.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2008, April 7th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-50, the budget implementation bill. I will use my time to speak generally of my opposition to both the Conservatives' and the Liberals' policies since they appear to form a majority government as it concerns this bill. I am also going to take some time to identify some of the glaring gaps that I have seen in the bill.

As I listened to the debate last week, I was struck by the new Liberal MP for Toronto Centre's somewhat arrogant comments that New Democrats are against companies making profit. Maybe that is what he believed when he was premier of Ontario and that is what gave them the enormous success they had, or perhaps as a new member he is just trying to explain why he switched parties. Whatever the case may be, the comments made by the member certainly do not represent the beliefs of the NDP.

In my community of Victoria I have had the opportunity to work with a large number of young business entrepreneurs and established businesses. I have whole wholeheartedly supported and encouraged them in many ways to continue their successful initiatives.

We on this side of the House support responsible governance, offering a triple bottom line approach to government policy. That is largely absent from the policies of the Liberals and the Conservatives as is evidenced in this bill.

Tax incentives to large oil and gas companies like accelerated capital allowance have been an intrinsic part of the Liberals' and Conservatives' policies. What we do not support is the focus on corporate welfare that has characterized the economic policies of both parties.

When the Liberals say that contrary to the Conservatives they balance social and economic policies, how is it then that an estimated 3.4 million Canadians, about one in 10 people, now live in poverty? How is it that about 800,000 of them are children? Why is it that more Canadians each year are reduced to holding precarious jobs, sometimes two or three jobs at the same time just to make ends meet?

Other pertinent and pressing questions for Liberal and Conservative members of this House include why is there still no nationwide system of affordable child care in Canada? Why have university fees skyrocketed out of control since the early 1990s? Why has our environment continued to suffer degradation with the sharp increase in pollutants and toxins and a rise in greenhouse gas emissions?

The answer is that all these societal problems are the product of years of single bottom line thinking. It is not that the New Democrats are against corporate profits, but rather it is that we believe in a triple bottom line approach integrating social, economic and environmental factors.

I would also like to consider some of the specifics of this budget implementation bill. In giving $60 billion worth of tax cuts, mostly to large corporate interests, the Conservative government has robbed the cupboard bare. With an economic downturn lurking over our shoulder, the federal government has seriously compromised its ability to help Canadians weather the impending storm.

We had high hopes, for example, of seeing significant changes in the area of post-secondary education before the release of budget 2008. We are pleased to see that the government did establish the first Canada-wide student grant program. However, many fundamental structural problems with the current system of post-secondary education have not even been considered or addressed.

There is nothing to suggest that the government has acknowledged the crushing levels of debt faced by young graduates. As a result of the deregulation of tuition fees throughout the 1990s, many young students and graduates are disappointed that the government has not even reduced student loan interest by a token 1%, not even to give them the nod that this is a problem that is putting them in debt and seriously impacting their life choices as they set out in life and in their careers.

We are pleased, though, that this bill acknowledges the challenges faced by part time students and seeks in some small measure to remedy them.

We have also noted that the statements of student loan accounts will now be available online. However, this measure should never have been in question since it is the right of every borrower to have a clear statement of how much is owed. Interestingly, this has been denied to students. They have had difficulty finding out how much they owe.

Again on post-secondary education issues, although the bill deals with severe permanent disability, it still makes no mention of what has been acknowledged as a policy gap, something called “episodic disability”, such as mental illness or cancer, illnesses that are clearly debilitating but do not necessarily fall under the definition of “permanent disability”. We know that their lack of ability to access relief makes their difficulties even more severe.

There is also no mention whatsoever of a student loan ombudsman. This would have been an easy measure for the government to take, a position which the NDP and many student groups have been calling for.

In all, this bill provides a small measure of progress while neglecting some of the most important issues facing students today.

Another issue is housing. In my region housing prices have gone through the roof and have left many people under-housed or on the verge of homelessness. The gap in this bill with respect to housing is absolutely unexplainable. Cities are experiencing serious funding shortfalls in dealing with the lack of housing. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities estimates that it will take an injection of $3.35 billion annually to end homelessness, build new affordable housing units and rehabilitate and renovate existing units.

The federal government must be present at the table to discuss a long term national housing strategy. Otherwise, cities that do take measures to address their housing problems could find themselves overwhelmed by people from another region. This highlights the need for the national government to be at that table.

I would also like to briefly talk about the environment.

The federal government has adopted a business as usual approach to the most serious problem we have ever faced, that is, climate change. Carbon sequestration, which is mentioned in the budget implementation bill, is certainly part of the solution but it is simply not enough.

In this budget bill, the government could have established targets, for example, to retrofit thousands of homes and buildings to allow Canadians to make the necessary changes to adapt to current environmental realities.

It is not only a question of inadequate policies, but the government is taking us in the wrong direction. We have been embarrassed internationally by the government's inability to take up the challenge on basic human water rights. Canada emerged as the pivotal nation behind recent manoeuvres to block the United Nations Human Rights Council from recognizing water as a basic human right according to international observers.

That is where this government is taking us, and that is unacceptable. I hope that it will go back to the drawing board, listen to Canadians and come up with real solutions, which Canadians have been waiting for on these issues.

[Income Tax Act, April 7th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-207, which seeks to amend the Income Tax Act in order to encourage new graduates to return to their region of origin, and therefore better support the regions and curb the exodus of young graduates.

I am a little bit confused by my Liberal colleague's speech because he does not seem to agree with his colleagues on the Standing Committee on Finance where, unless I am mistaken, the Conservatives and the Liberals attempted to gut this bill.

I support the original bill which provided a non-refundable tax credit of 40% of the graduate's salary to a maximum of $8,000 for the first 52 weeks of employment in the region.

This bill is based on the Quebec tax model that has helped 1,300 people a year in that province at an estimated cost of $21 million. The amount that was cited by my Conservative colleague seems to be an exaggerated amount if extended across Canada.

There were, indeed, problems with the bill but none of those problems were insurmountable.

It is said that there is none so deaf as he who will not hear. I am afraid that the Conservatives simply did not want to have anything to do with it. I will speak about this in more detail later.

First, I would like to talk about a few problems with this bill, including the definition of the regions. As pointed out, the definition is based on an act that has not been amended for a number of years, specifically since 1982. That is a problem. When we refer to new graduates, do they have to have graduated very recently or could it simply mean graduates?

As I mentioned, these are not insurmountable problems. They could have been fixed in committee.

It does not surprise me that the Conservatives did not understand the possibilities of this bill. It could be a step, in my view, in the right direction in terms of levelling the playing field and possibly bridging the divide between rural and urban areas which have a significant advantage right now in attracting qualified workers.

For example, we know that urban areas depend on good food. Concerns about food security are increasing in Canada. This would be a way of encouraging value added industry related to food production in rural regions by motivating young people to go back to rural areas.

This bill could have had a positive effect on low and middle income families in those regions. Canadian communities need the economic and social conditions to thrive. All regions in Canada need those conditions.

One of my colleagues on the finance committee made a statement.

I have a copy of the document, from which I will quote. He indicated that Canada presently has a productivity problem, according to the statistics. He said, “Now, typically speaking, Canada is a country that suffers from a productivity challenge.” I do agree with that.

And then he continued, “We have economists come forward and talk to us about that all the time. This bill would seem to set up a counter-intuitive incentive to improving Canada's overall productivity.”

I do not agree with that. It may not be an intuitive solution but if our goal, in Canada, were simply to send workers to the regions that are already thriving, this would not help all Canadian regions to flourish, and that is the point of this bill.

In my opinion, the role of government is not simply to send workers as widgets to fill a need for industry. It is also to ensure that all regions in Canada develop and are allowed to maintain their integrity. This is where a law such as this would help assist workers to encourage them to go back to their region.

In British Columbia there is a very strong economic growth right now but that there are also smaller regions, for example, forestry regions where workers are unemployed and suffering from the beetle kill, where this law would assist those small regions.

I would ask my colleagues to think about this, and those in Alberta perhaps know it better than anyone else, the impacts of the tar sands and the development of the oil industry, which has produced riches no doubt, but it has also created terrible social and economic problems.

I do not think the objective that we should have as government leaders is to only feed those industries, continue to feed that one part of Canada that is going full steam. Certainly that should be part of it but there are other regions in Canada that should be better supported.

The bill offers one small piece of the puzzle. It is not the total answer but it would help encourage graduates to go back to regions or to go to rural areas and provide some of the technical knowledge they have acquired at university, the expertise, the ingenuity, the creativity that would bring an enrichment and renewal to these regions that may be economically depressed.

Therefore, I am pleased to support the amendment to re-establish the integrity of the bill and to reject the amendments of the finance committee. I understand that there is a new amendment that will be coming forward to further make this bill more acceptable. I hope my colleagues from the Liberals and the Conservatives will be supportive.

We did not support the gutting of the bill at committee. As I said, we saw it as a first step to draw young graduates to economically depressed regions. It could act as an incentive to motivate regions toward greater economic development within the context of an overarching regional government strategy.

As I said at second reading, when I spoke to the bill, it does require a regional development plan but I could see very easily where a bill of this kind could be paired with a good regional development plan that would really allow the region to grow in a way that it would not without the bill.

In conclusion, we support reinstating the bill's content. We would have proposed that it could have been strengthened with specific definitions but that in itself is not adequate to vote it down.

[Victoria Emergency Responders, April 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, in Victoria, the capital region's emergency telecommunications system, used by police, fire, military and ambulance, needs urgent upgrades and approvals from Industry Canada.

Signal failures have put at risk the lives of emergency responders as well as the lives of the public. Spotty coverage has resulted in a loss of communication at crucial times. Officers must work in pairs because of concerns CREST will fail.

Since 2001, local officials have struggled to get a commitment from Industry Canada for new radio frequencies. Industry Canada is aware of the problem but continues to delay.

When will the minister direct his officials to stop playing with the lives of people in our region and take immediate action to grant the needed frequencies?

[Afghanistan, March 11th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know where to begin with those comments.

Certainly, naiveté is dividing the world into good and evil. I did listen and found very moving some of the comments of the female Afghan MPs. What I heard on national radio in fact additionally was that one of the things they valued about Canada was the humanitarian aid.

I certainly do not think that what is happening in Afghanistan can be achieved without measures of security. Clearly, I recognize that, as do all of my colleagues, but there is a very clear difference between establishing measures of security and even having forces there to maintain security under, for example, a UN chapter VII and having a war fighting mission, as the government has nurtured and encouraged in the past years.

I want to be very clear. We would signify to our allies that Canada would withdraw in a safe and orderly way. That has always been the language that we in the NDP have used. The hon. colleague chooses to twist it to match his own belief, but the wording of “a safe and orderly withdrawal” is not leaving without options.

I do not know if he calls leaving no options the NDP's suggestion that we not be involved in the UN agencies, such as the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, UNICEF, the United Nations Development Programme and the Peacebuilding Commission. These are examples of where using the combined effort of these agencies could be very useful in at least beginning the path toward peace.

[Afghanistan, March 11th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, when the House is this quiet on this kind of issue I feel like there can almost be an understanding of what peace might be. Every party in the House wants Canada to help Afghanistan achieve a just and lasting peace.

This evening we are deciding whether this peace can happen using a war fighting combat mission ending in 2011. Yesterday I heard the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence suggest that there are members in the House who want to abandon Afghanistan. For the record, I personally believe that Canada should play a role in peace-building in Afghanistan for as long as it takes, even beyond 2011. I also want to say that I am proud of the courage and loyalty to our country displayed by our brave soldiers in carrying out the mission set by Parliament.

However, I find it very difficult to believe that the current mission and the role that the Liberals and Conservatives are asking our Canadian Forces to play is the best path toward a lasting peace, nor am I convinced that this mission has been well thought out with the support that our soldiers need to succeed there.

The fundamental flaw of the mission, I believe, is the absence of a comprehensive strategy of conflict resolution. I will explain a little more what I mean later, but without it I believe we are dooming our troops to a war without end against an enemy that we create more of every day.

We know that DND has overrun its annual budget by $1 billion again, for a total of $3.6 billion in overrun since 2001. Even that amount has not stemmed the violence or the tide of newly recruited insurgents fighting back. In terms of troop numbers, the Manley report calls for 1,000 more troops and the U.S. army general, Dan McNeill, said last June that NATO was about 5,000 troops short.

If this counter-insurgency mission were to follow U.S. policy in troop levels, as it has in other respects, according to its own counter-insurgency manual for missions of Afghanistan's type, we would need some 480,000 troops on the ground.

Rather than commit billions of dollars and 2,500 Canadian troops to a poorly designed mission of war, I have come to believe that it would be preferable to consider a different approach that includes an act of diplomatic process run by the United Nations toward conflict resolution and a sustainable peace.

The resolutions to many modern conflicts over the past couple of decades have come about through a parallel peace process that genuinely addresses the political causes and issues of the conflict and, in doing so, isolates the criminal elements.

I know the government has a rare allergy to research, especially in the social sciences, but I would like to raise something that the Liberal-Conservative alliance has apparently not yet considered, that is, how to resolve conflicts without reliance on absolute military victories. In conflict resolution theory, it is understood that demonizing and dehumanizing an assigned enemy group is directly counterproductive to achieving peace.

In Canada, we have and continue to dismiss the Taliban as criminals and fanatics, without acknowledging the legitimate issues of political exclusion at play. Without a process to incorporate the legitimate political objectives of all sides in a structure of collaborative governance, we cannot claim to ourselves or to those whose hearts and souls we seek to win to be truly seeking peace. Sustainable peace is not possible so long as political exclusion continues and yet we continue to exclude a large segment of Afghan society from the national government.

Recently, the independent journalist and historian, Gwynne Dyer, wrote that the original U.S. mission in Afghanistan threw out all the prominent Pashtun political and religious leaders who had dealings with the Taliban. He continues:

Six years after the invasion that wasn't, the Pashtuns are still largely frozen out. That is why the Taliban are coming back.

Afghanistan...is also a country where the biggest minority has been largely excluded from power by foreign invaders who sided with the smaller minorities, and then blocked the process of accommodation by which the various Afghan ethnic groups normally make power-sharing deals.

The Taliban are still the main political vehicle of the Pashtuns, because there has been no time to build another. It doesn't mean that all Pashtuns are fanatics or terrorists. Indeed, not all the Taliban are fanatics (though many of them are), and hardly any of them nurse the desire to carry out terrorist acts in other countries. That was the specialty of their...Arab guests, who fled across the border into the tribal areas of Pakistan almost six years ago. The current fighting in the south, the Pashtun heartland, which is causing a steady dribble of American, British and Canadian casualties, will continue until the Western countries pull out.

No one knows for sure the political answer for Afghanistan. The problem, however, is that at the moment we are not looking for it. We are stuck with the simplistic answer that turns all the Taliban into the enemy, without acknowledging the legitimate political motivations behind the insurgency.

I am not saying that the path to peace will be easy. There will undoubtedly be broken deals and ceasefires before the criminal element can be identified and isolated. Until there is a political process to address the legitimate political issues, we cannot rightfully identify a group as the enemy of peace without being the enemy of peace ourselves.

In other words, we are told by our government that the Taliban do not compromise, and the Taliban tell their new recruits that we do not compromise. This is how wars continue without resolution, and this is how we are fighting the war in Afghanistan.

The path to peace is a long and challenging one. It is a path that requires patience, restraint, and both physical and emotional courage. However, it is a path that will cost fewer lives and fewer dollars, and most importantly, will truly and sustainably resolve the conflict in the long run.

It is for this reason that I have long opposed the current counterinsurgency mission in Afghanistan and I have argued for a new approach. As columnist James Travers recently wrote:

Talking to the enemy isn't sleeping with the enemy...By demonizing enemies and diminishing their importance to local solutions, the Prime Minister gravitated to the wrong side of potentially positive trends...But talking is a prelude to peace and peace is made between enemies--

What the NDP is asking for is a UN-led, rather than a NATO-led, process. Unlike NATO, the UN's explicit mandate is to preserve and promote international peace and security. UN agencies, such as the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, UNICEF, the United Nations Development Programme and the Peacebuilding Commission, tasked with carrying out this mandate, have a vital role to play in meeting the challenges in Afghanistan.

We believe that Canada should be leading the way on the path to peace, that we should be using the considerable skills and expertise Canadians bring to the table on Afghanistan.

This Liberal-Conservative motion is asking us to vote on a continuation of the same failed approach without the dimension that I consider crucial to a successful mission in Afghanistan, for Afghans and for Canadians.

I and my NDP colleagues understand the gravity of this vote as the most solemn task with which a parliamentarian is faced. We refuse to abandon Afghanistan.

We also refuse to accept the same futile approach that is making things worse. And most of all, we refuse to ask our troops to risk their lives for a mission of war when the option of peace has been neither explored nor exhausted.

[Old Age Security Program, March 4th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, Motion M-383 asks the government to review and improve the old age security program for Canadian seniors. It is high time and we will be supporting the motion.

It is vital that we have this debate because the federal policy with regard to seniors has a number of serious shortcomings which allow too many of our seniors to fall through the cracks. And this will continue unless we make changes.

The Canadian Institute of Actuaries and Waterloo University recently concluded that two-thirds of Canadian households planning to retire in 2030 will not have saved enough to defray their essential living expenses during their retirement.

The Minister of Finance may believe that everyone is able to save $5,000 each year, but that is not at all the case.

Fifty-eight per cent of respondents to a local radio show in Victoria said they could only dream of the day they had $5,000 of discretionary cash.

We clearly need a comprehensive review of OAS and other income supports for seniors, a review that is done regularly so it reflects the changing needs and circumstances that seniors face in different parts of the country.

The Victoria group Women Elders in Action testified before the finance committee last fall that in 2004, 40% of women workers held non-standard jobs commonly offering low wages without security and without benefits. The warning that they should expect to work until 67 or even 73 to achieve some semblance of economic security fits conveniently with the government's desire to have aging workers stay in the workforce longer. It is not surprising then that the only budget provision related to seniors was to get seniors to work longer.

It is these small changes that the Liberals do not mind supporting in the budget because they seem inoffensive, but behind them we have to see the larger project of Tom Flanagan and the Fraser Institute incrementally moving Canada toward a more conservative state. Before we know it, the logical next step will be to delay public pensions to age 70. I am not prepared to start down that road.

The NDP's seniors first motion would take us in the other direction, to protect, respect and support seniors. It passed the House in June 2006 and 20 months later, we have no action from the government, other than a new National Seniors Council which is apparently very slow to act.

Seniors in my riding are exceptionally aware and astute about politics. They know that what we do here in Ottawa affects their everyday lives.

In January, the NDP's seniors critic, the member for Hamilton Mountain, came for a day to Victoria. She and I exchanged concerns with over 150 people, including a very productive session with representatives of Victoria's seniors groups.

We heard during that session that seniors are impacted by a number of big issues, such as the desperate lack of affordable housing in Victoria, the doctor shortage, the sky-high cost of necessary prescription drugs, inadequate home care and long term care to allow them to stay at home longer, and a shameful lack of financial supports for in-home caregivers who sacrifice so much to be there for family and friends in their moment of need.

We heard about a marked decline in service from the federal government ever since Service Canada replaced specialized support staff with expert knowledge on seniors programs.

We heard how the federal government does a poor job of informing seniors about their eligibility for CPP, income support and the disability tax credit. Fifty thousand seniors missed out on old age security and other supports in 2004, and close to one million Canadians who are eligible for the disability tax credit simply do not know about it.

I hosted a workshop on the disability tax credit last fall and as a result, some individuals are now receiving benefits they would never have known existed.

We heard how the federal government is refusing to pay back seniors for an error in calculating the consumer price index which shortchanged countless seniors on their CPP and income support payments. As it is, we know that seniors get a bad deal from inflation calculations that do not reflect the real cost of living increases they face. Now the government refuses to account for its own mistake. We also heard calls to move toward including alternative and complementary medicine in health care plans.

Most of these problems are well-known because they have been raised by seniors for a long time and by the NDP, but we still have no action.

These needs are just some of the reasons it is also important to support the incredible work by seniors organizations across Canada that try to help seniors deal with these issues.

Communities across Canada have groups like Victoria's New Horizons groups, Greater Victoria Seniors, Silver Threads, Seniors Helping Seniors and Oak Bay Volunteer Services. I could spend my whole 10 minutes telling this House about the tremendous and invaluable work done by these groups in Victoria.

Seniors organizations have told me over and over again that they need long term core funding to more effectively and efficiently provide the services that seniors desperately need.

The current project-based scheme imposed by the federal government forces these largely volunteer run groups to spend far too much of their time and energy applying for grants instead of delivering programs.

The worst part of the system is that the groups are not allowed to apply for the same project from year to year. They are forced to come up with new proposals every 12 months instead of continuing and extending their proven projects to reach more and more seniors in need.

Just yesterday the Canadian Public Health Association released a report from its 15 member expert panel on health literacy stating that 88% of Canadian seniors would benefit from stronger health literacy skills, that is, the capacity to obtain, process and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.

Carolyn Altridge, a retired RN in Victoria, told me that she regularly sees errors made in taking medication, with enormous costs to seniors' health and to the whole health care system overall.

Among the CPHA report's solutions were community grassroots initiatives such as the ones promoted and provided by Victoria's seniors organizations and centres. The very groups that could help address the health literacy gap are the ones the government is starving.

These are not start-up NGOs. They have been in business for years. They know the community and they know what works. They do not need seed money to become independent organizations. They need stable, long term funding to do their work of helping seniors stay independent as long as they can.

In some cases they have had to hire a full time employee just to manage the onerous application and reporting process to the federal government.

No one is saying that these groups should not be accountable for their funding, but simply that they should have some time left after filling out all the government forms to actually deliver the programs. They should be trusted by the government to know what works best in their field, instead of being micromanaged.

They are major on the ground solutions to many of the problems I mentioned today, including that of health literacy, and I firmly believe that respect for our seniors has to start with respect for the organizations that represent and serve our seniors.

It is an insult that the budget only mentions seniors in the context of getting them to work longer. If we mean it when we say that seniors deserve to retire with dignity and respect, we have to start showing it. This motion is the beginning of making some much needed changes to the old age security system and my colleagues and I will strongly support it.

[The Budget, March 3rd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my hon. colleague. I heard her say that there was nothing offensive in this budget. There was nothing for child care. There was nothing for affordable housing, not even a tax incentive to help build rental housing. There were no new financing instruments to combat climate change. Yet there were $14.8 billion in corporate tax cuts that the member's side of the House supported.

How can she answer this basic contradiction of robbing the cupboard bare and leaving people behind while still supporting the budget?