The Budget

Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, I am troubled by the budget for a number of reasons. With regard to the failure to reverse the decision to cut essential scientific work in the environmental field from the Experimental Lakes Area to the Polar Environment Arctic Research Lab, there has been a year in which the government could have reconsidered. These are very small savings and pale in comparison to areas where there is a lot of spending.

The thing that shocks me most about the budget is that I cannot find any tables that tell us, department by department, where the money will be spent. I have never in my life seen a budget that did not include the budget.

I wonder if my colleague has any comments.

Francis Scarpaleggia: Mr. Speaker, when I worked on my speech this the weekend, I looked furiously for some numbers and some comparative tables that would allow us to get some kind of an historical perspective on what was being done and noticed the exact same thing.

There seems to be an effort of subterfuge, to basically hide the realities of this budget in an historical context. I find that quite ironic. While the government is hiding what it is doing, it is spending large sums of money promoting itself and its supposed good works on television. Even a small portion of that advertising money could have been used to keep the ELA going, which is known as the best freshwater laboratory in the world. It is a travesty that it is being shut down.

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