Mr. Speaker, I will keep that in mind during my speech. If I have to say that the government is incompetent, I will address the remark through you.

I cannot tell the House what I really think about this budget because someone would raise a point of order. To put it politely, I think that, once again, middle-class Canadians are the ones who will pay the price and whose quality of life will suffer. I will not even talk about what will happen to poor people. They will basically not even have a quality of life now that this budget has been tabled. The problem is that, more and more often, this government is sticking the provinces with the bill and interfering in areas of provincial jurisdiction. That is really problematic for the provinces.

The budget gave the government the opportunity to propose a sensible employment insurance reform. There have been many popular uprisings, a coalition has been created in Quebec, and the maritime provinces are protesting. The government could have added one more thing to the budget, taken something out or announced a new investment. That would have been worthwhile. It would have proved that the government is listening to Canadians; however, I see that that is not the case.

I toured my region to speak with entrepreneurs affected by the EI reform, and they all told me that the reform is extremely problematic for their companies and industries. Seasonal industries, such as the horticulture and fishing industries in the maritime provinces and the agricultural industry in my riding, are struggling.

The government should also have backtracked on pensions and announced new investments in this area. Last year, the government suddenly announced that people who had worked hard all their lives, sometimes in jobs requiring manual labour, would have to wait two more years before they could retire. Once again, there were many popular uprisings, and individuals, workers and even employers spoke out about this situation. Yet the government did nothing. It is obvious that the government does not listen to Canadians.

Earlier, I was talking about how the quality of life of the middle class is deteriorating. Yet, the government plans to eliminate the federal tax credit for the FTQ and CSN funds by 2017. That means that small investors may no longer be able to save. This tax credit really helped them. Now, there will be people who will not have any money for retirement and who are unable to save. All they need is some help from the government, but the government will no longer be there to help them. Simply put, we have reached an impasse.

On the weekend I received dozens of emails from my constituents who were writing to say that they disagree with eliminating this tax credit. Chambers of commerce got in touch with me to say that this was not good. These funds are reinvested in the community. I do not see why the government would not continue to want healthy communities, where businesses are growing. I do not see why the government has a problem with this. This measure serves no purpose. It only hurts small investors, workers, employers, industry, businesses and Quebec.

I do not understand why the government is eliminating credits for caisses populaires. The caisses populaires have quite a history. Many businesses in Quebec got off the ground because a caisse populaire believed in people who could not borrow money from the banks. The Cirque du Soleil is one such example. This global enterprise was created in Quebec. It was able to take flight because of Caisse Desjardins. Today, it is putting Quebec on the map. However, the government has suddenly lost interest in this type of investment.

I could talk about services to the public. Earlier, I was talking about EI reform and the quality of life for the middle class. It comes back to that again here.

The Canada Revenue Agency will have to review its practices to become more efficient, and the government says that this will have no impact on the public. That is what it said about Service Canada, when cuts were made there. People ended up having to wait. They did not know where to go and there was no one on the other end of the line to help them when they called. Are we going to end up in the same situation with the Canada Revenue Agency? I think so.

The government cannot make cuts and expect that the public is going to receive exactly the same service with less staff. That is wishful thinking. The government is good at wishful thinking.

I cannot speak to the budget without talking about agriculture, since 90% of the land in my riding is farmland. Eastern Montérégie is known as Quebec's pantry, which speaks volumes. In this budget, there is absolutely no mention of agriculture. The word “agriculture” does not appear anywhere. Is this a problem? This is about our food sovereignty.

The government made cuts to agriculture last year that are still being felt this year because the cuts were spread out. There will be about $158 million in cuts this year. That is a huge problem, especially when we consider that agriculture feeds people and that farmers need a helping hand to feed people. Does this government want to jeopardize our food sovereignty by making cuts to agriculture and by not acknowledging that this is a critical issue for a country must maintain food sovereignty, especially a country like Canada, which must feed 34 million people? That was not mentioned once in the budget. I cannot believe it and it makes me so angry.

I could also talk about infrastructure. In its budget, the government says it is investing $70 billion in infrastructure. Congratulations. However, when I crunch the numbers myself, I see that $4.7 billion less will be invested in infrastructure compared to last year, if we take inflation into account. It is all well and good to talk about $70 billion. It sounds like a big number, but that is over 10 years and we must consider that Canada's infrastructure is in bad shape. Just think of the Champlain Bridge in Montreal. I am taking a risk when I cross that bridge every week. One of these days, something is sure to happen to me.

We need federal assistance for infrastructure. The municipalities' hands are full and the provinces also need some help. I do not see how the government can think that investing $70 billion in infrastructure over 10 years makes it a hero.

Earlier, I spoke about the middle class. Now, I would like to talk about people who are struggling even more, people who often have no income: the homeless. The HPS program has been renewed. This is good. However, the funding is much lower than in previous years and, once again, the federal government is really interfering in programs dealing with needs that should be determined by the regions. That is not what I see in the budget.

The government is investing $253 million in housing. That is a drop in the bucket and is not at all what we need. I should also point out that there is still no national housing strategy.

I could go on for another 20 minutes about what this budget is lacking, but my time is running out, so I will stop there. I would be happy to take questions from my colleagues.

Marie-Claude Morin

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