The MP for London-Fanshawe is criticizing the newly unveiled 2017 federal budget, and says there are many missed opportunities.
"They had such an opportunity here to really look after the people have suffered in the last two or three years, in terms of the economy -- and they didn't do it," said NDP MP Irene Mathyssen. "It comes down to who do you serve? And they could have done a lot of things."
Mathyssen suggested that more could have been done to invest in First Nations children by closing the funding gap for child welfare. She said the government could also have introduced a pharmacare plan.
"They have set aside $140.3-million over five years and they say it will lower drug costs. But not significantly, not in a way that people in my community would even notice," said Mathyssen. "What they should have done was pursued pharmacare. It would have saved $11-billion every year."
She said another missed opportunity in the recent budget was implementing retrofit programs for older homes.
"If you start looking at houses that are 25-30 years old, they have tremendous energy loss because of the reality of the time they were built," said Mathyssen. "[The government] could have introduced an energy efficient retrofit program that would have helped Canadian homeowners and lowered their energy bills. And it's a great job creator."
The MP also slammed the Trudeau Liberals for ending the transit tax credit, which allows the cost of transit passes to be deducted.
"It meant a great deal to [those] who couldn't afford a car and must get to work; must get get to school," she said. "It's something that the [people] in the community were banking on -- it's gone now."
The budget shows the federal deficit has decreased $2.1-billion to $23-billion since the last fiscal update.
"You can fool around with numbers, but at the end of the day, they still have a huge deficit that is going to be there for the next generation," said Mathyssen, adding that the deficit is expected to increase to $28.5-billion for 2017-18.
While, the federal government projects the deficit will drop to $18.8-billion in 2021-22, Mathyssen isn't so sure.
"I'd be very, very skeptical about that," she said. "If they were to fulfil just some of their Liberal promises, I don't think we'll see a declining deficit."
Overall, Mathyssen said she feels disappointment "it terms of what government can be... We're just not seeing it."
"This government said it was going to be different, that it was going to be a breath of fresh air," she said . "It's discouraging because power and the ability to govern is about doing good and positive things... I just don't see it in this budget."