Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, I attempted to get in on the debate earlier about time allocation on the bill. There were so many things said that were completely false, such as the notion that large budget omnibus bills are any part of the tradition of Parliament. They are offensive to parliamentary democracy.
The largest in all history was the one referred to earlier today by the parliamentary secretary before the current administration and that was in 2005. It was 120 pages long and it was offensive in its day. To have two budget omnibus bills in the year 2013, as we had in 2012, in all cases over 300 pages long is outrageous. To close debate on it so early is a further outrage.
Does my hon. friend not find it troubling that in the last session of Parliament, 38% of all government legislation came bound together in unrelated pieces of legislation for one vote and now these very large, unwieldy and unrelated pieces of legislation are forced into time allocation?
Mark Adler: Mr. Speaker, what I find offensive is that during the 1990s the Liberal government balanced the budget on the backs of Canada’s most vulnerable citizens by cutting social services and cutting funding to education and health care. That is the way it balanced the budget.
The way we balance the budget is by lowering taxes and creating the conditions whereby businesses can create jobs in this country, because everybody deserves a job. Is every Canadian employed right now? No, and that is why our job is not finished. We will never say our job is finished until every Canadian who wants to work has a job and has the opportunity to have a job. That is when we can say that our job is done.
I would encourage the opposition to, rather than criticize where there is no criticism warranted, join us in our plan to create jobs and foster economic opportunity and growth in this country of Canada.