Mr. Speaker, it is hard to follow a seasoned parliamentarian, who was actually the second-in-command to the minister of finance in the Conservative government, which, through the worst recession, paid down $40 billion and then came out of it faster than any other nation, not by coincidence but by management, and actually gave the government across the road a surplus. That is quite amazing.

However, we cannot forget the election. The group across the way campaigned by saying they were going to have a little $10-billion deficit, which is how they described it, and Canadians bought into it. That is democracy, folks. That $10-billion deficit is now over $20 billion. I mentioned that to folks in my rural riding of Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, which does not often deal with billions of dollars.

Let me provide an example of the Liberal government being irresponsible, disrespectful, and incompetent. Let us say I am a small business guy who has a project, I want to increase my business, and I go to the bank with my business plan, saying I need $1 million. After I make my plea, my lender tells me I have the money for my project. Eight weeks later I go back to the bank, saying I am going to start the project, everything is in order, but I now need $2 million. The bank wants to talk about the changes and I say there actually are no changes, it is just that I did not know what I was talking about in the first place and I now want to increase what I previously asked for by 100%. In the real world, that does not happen. When I walk out through the door of the bank, it would hit me in back.

What happens when the Liberal government has a budget that in incompetent in terms of its projections and irresponsible in terms of what it has done to taxpayers? The banker is now every taxpayer in Canada. That is only the tip of the iceberg. We now have a Minister of Finance and a Prime Minister who are in an elite group. I actually get a kick out of it. Do members remember when they said they were going to take that little deficit from the top wealthiest 1% and spread it among the working class? I think they call it the middle class. We, in our places, actually work. They said it would save taxpayers $2 billion. That worked out well. They took that off the top, did not get the revenues they wanted, and shafted taxpayers for about $3 billion. That is the irresponsibility and incompetence of the Liberal government, which says one thing and does not actually know what it is going to do.

Earlier, my colleague mentioned another great investment, the Asian infrastructure bank, in which we are going to spend $480 million, though we are not sure. We are going to send it to Asia. Liberals have this love affair with China, so I am assuming it is going to possibly go to Beijing, where it can build its infrastructure with Canadian tax dollars.

I know that the folks across the aisle met last week, as I did, with members of the municipal governments in the Federation of Canadian Municipalities who come from rural areas. Rural infrastructure is important, with our vast amount of roads, bridges, and rail that need to be looked after. I do not know what the number is, but what is amazing is not the amount of money that has gone out but the amount of money that has not gone out. We have talked a lot about infrastructure. The new infrastructure plan is a bit like the new housing strategy. When is it going to take effect?

We hear that housing is really important. We hear that we have desperation in public housing, and we need to deal with it quickly. That is what the municipalities talk about. The years 2020 to 2021 meet the urgency panic button. This is 2017. That is four years down the road, by the way. I suspect it will make a good election platform in the next election in the fall of 2019.

Similarly, with respect to infrastructure, most of that has been moved past 2019 into 2020. That happens to be after the election, so it will make another good election platform, I guess. What is happening in our rural municipalities across this country and in Lambton—Kent—Middlesex is a lack of actual dollars to partner with our municipalities that need a partner. In Ontario, our third partner has sort of disappeared in the red tape of Ontario, much like where the Liberal government has taken Canada.

We are now worrying about where we will get the money for the infrastructure, because it is not flowing. They talk about it, but when we talk about something, and I go back to my earlier discussion about businesses going to the bank, we actually have to manage it. We need to have a business plan on how to put it out.

In my riding of Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, agriculture is the main industry. It is the driver of the economy in Ontario, and I might say the driver of the economy, quite honestly, in this great country of Canada. The Liberals came out with what they called the new growing forward 2 agriculture program, and they added a couple of things to it, such as a public trust and money to actually help processors, because we need to vertically integrate this great industry of agriculture from top to bottom, and in this case, from the bottom up. I agree with those.

As a country based in agriculture, we need to make sure that we grow the safest and best products. Just ask anyone in international trade about our agricultural products. We always provide quality. We need to make sure that we have public trust on our side so that people understand what great products we produce in Canada. Because we are great producers, we export a lot. We also process much of the product we have. Where is the money to help do this? The Liberals added two or three components to the Canada agriculture program, but where is the money for it. The Liberals said they would have to shift some around, which means everyone is going to get less, or it will be just like infrastructure, with spending in the earlier part, and maybe even housing. They are just going to talk about it, but they are not going to put any money into it. They might talk about the money going into it in five years. By then, Canadians will be hopeful that they are no longer in government and that the Conservatives will be able to do it.

My time is running out. All I can say to the folks in Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, and across this great country, is that Bill C-63 is a disaster, and I will simply not be supporting it.

Bev Shipley

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