Thank you very much.

I'll just start at the outset and set the stage, as it were.

I have had the pleasure, or displeasure, however you want to frame it, of negotiating the programming for the budget. Although I certainly disagreed with Mr. Beech on a number of things, we were always able to conduct ourselves.... Mr. Beech, to his credit, always gave me the opportunity to comment, negotiate, talk and figure things out. There was never a programming motion that, quite frankly, I was not aware of.

By the time we had made it to committee, often, we had had hours in conversation. There were a couple of days back in the last budget where I think I spent more time talking to Mr. Beech than I did to my spouse, so while we didn't always come to a resolution, he certainly worked earnestly. That's why I was really surprised when we had a motion brought before us that was effectively table-dropped on us. Even in talking to the NDP's Don Davies, I learned that it was just given to him the night before.

It was generally not the way things have gone with respect to the budget. It's an incredibly important document, as has been said by numerous people, over 600 pages, so we really wanted time to negotiate it and to understand it.

If you look at the original motion, the original dates for the study of what has been called by a number of folks “the most important piece of legislation that government will put forward” were May 9, 21, 23, 28 and 30. That would be among the least amount of testimony that has occurred for a budget in recent Canadian history, which is troubling.

Now, of course, it is May 21, so we would only have three days available for meetings. To the NDP's credit, Mr. Davies's credit, he did bring forward an amendment to increase the amount of testimony, but clearly that is not substantial. I would have greatly enjoyed spending some of the break week going over this because I do believe it's of critical importance.

That being said, of course, we are where we are, which is really challenging. I would say, too, as a matter of public record, that the fall economic statement moved through the House in relatively fast order. Actually, we're still waiting, believe it or not, for, I should say, as a committee.... It took forever to get it to the House because the Liberals just wouldn't call it and put it through the House. I believe they're still speaking about the fall economic statement tonight, actually. It seems odd to me that we're almost at summer—it's the May 24 weekend—and we're still discussing the fall economic statement.

The competency of this government has never been in question, and I don't mean that in a good way, but I guess that at this point, I would like to talk about some of our substantive issues here.

Philip Lawrence

$492,727.00