Mr. Speaker, this is turning out to be a very interesting bill. When it was reintroduced, the impression was left that it was housekeeping and that there was nothing to it. We were to nod heads and off it would go. We have found out that a lot of people have concerns with the bill, and the minister will find that out over the next couple of weeks of debate on the bill.
Having said that, it might be interesting for us to sit back and assess what is going on in the House today.
The government kicked into its second phase early in the new year when it reopened the House under a new captain but with the same old crew. We saw absolutely nothing on the government's agenda. The new Prime Minister, with the old team and the old government, wanted a change of face. Who could blame him. Except for you, Mr. Speaker, if someone had to look at that some bunch every day, one would think it would be time to put a new look on government.
The Prime Minister wanted to do that. I always say to the Liberals, the only positive thing they have sitting on that side of the House is that they can look over here and see a real opposition. I even give credit to some of my colleagues to my left who have been very supportive on some of the issue we have raised in the House.
When the Liberals came back, the Prime Minister's intention was to put a new face on government, have a quick election and clean House. He was more interested in cleaning his own house than in cleaning the Houses of Parliament. However, it did not work, and for all kinds of reasons the election has dragged and dragged.
What happened was it was the continuation of the old government with absolutely no plan whatsoever. It had no agenda when it came to new legislation. There was absolutely nothing. For a number of weeks, it brought back and regurgitated old legislation, the same legislation that was under the previous leader.
Eventually it ran out of time because there was very little substance to anything it had and it flowed fairly quickly, seeing that we are so cooperative on this side of the House. The government was caught, first, by not being able to call an election because of what the people of the country thought about the Liberals. People began to find out about the scandal-ridden government being led by the Prime Minister, the person who led the Department of Finance and was supposed to be the boss in all of this.
What has happened? It is now scrambling to try to bring in old legislation again. However, some of the legislation is important and very pertinent to society today, such as the previous bill we discussed today on impaired driving under. That bill has been referred to committee. Why was it not brought in earlier? Why have people been asking for years to deal with such legislation? Because it was not a priority for the government. Only when it got stuck, did it start scrambling for legislation.
It is also looking at the possibility of an upcoming election. Therefore, the legislation it is bringing forth are pieces of legislation that it hopes will endear the Liberals to certain segments of society.
I hope people out there are more sensible than to be bought off by a bill that is introduced and may never see the light of day if we get a quick call. The government wants to be able to say that it has introduced legislation to deal with the problems and issues which people have been begging it to do for years, including the issue of driving while drunk.
We had another one earlier today that dealt with aboriginal issues. The government is starting to look at special interest groups, people concerned with driving while drunk and the aboriginals concerned about the way they have been treated over the years. To try to attract some attention and get some votes, the Liberals have rushed in a few of these bills and dusted off some of the old ones that have been ignored and put in the trunk.
Now this bill has come in and the government has said that we should not worry about it, that there is nothing to it and that it is a minor change of regulations. Because the scrutiny of regulations committee has told the government that the authority for implementing the regulations may not be vested in the minster, it has made some changes.
I asked the minister how much consultation he had. If we check Hansard and listen to the minister's remarks, we will easily see that he talked about the consultation with the scrutiny of regulations committee. He admitted afterward that he probably did not have any because he did not seem to know very much about it. Now he is only a minster for--