“High diesel prices make it hard for families in my area to afford fuel and get by. I want my colleague to tell us how these high prices are hurting people in his riding.”

“Mr. Speaker, I have a very reasonable question for the member. Many members from Abbotsford had to convoy all the way to Vancouver during this last couple of weeks. They had to make sure they raised awareness of the government in power about high diesel prices. Diesel prices have become very extraordinary for our community in the Lower Mainland as people go day to day filling up their tanks and making sure they can try to provide for their families. They sometimes fail on making the mark. I know this goes for people across the Lower Mainland and across our nation. I know this affects people in my Conservative colleague’s area as well, so I would like to understand what the effects are in my colleague’s area.”

“Voting against the budget does not mean I oppose every program in it. We can reject the government's overall plan while still supporting parts like health care or the military. We support youth jobs, but we want the programs to work better. The government should have let us debate our committee report on this today.”

“Mr. Speaker, respectfully, this is the same general silliness as when a member tries to suggest that by voting against the budget, because someone does not agree with the government’s budgetary policy, they are somehow necessarily opposed to every single part of the budget. Obviously, that is not the case. In any Parliament, opposition members typically will oppose the budget if they do not agree with the general direction of it, but they still are glad that parts of the budget exist. I would not presume, for instance, that if a member voted against the budget, they are opposed to the existence of a military or a health care system simply because those things are funded through the budget. That is unreasonable and cheap and silly. We have called for improvements to the Canada summer jobs program to address some of the failures in terms of government action. We have called for various improvements to these youth unemployment programs, some of which could be better targeted and more effective. I am proud of that work. That work is clearly on the record. Again, if the member and his colleagues had allowed debate on the 10th report of the human resources committee this morning, I think we would have been able to elucidate some of these important solutions.”

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