Mr. Speaker, I have been waiting very patiently all day for members from the government to actually speak to this bill. I do not know what is holding them back. There are 880 pages for them to draw some inspiration from.
In the 1880s Prime Minister John A. Macdonald had a vision for this country. He wanted to build a railway to unite the country from sea to sea. Today the current government does not have a lot of vision. The only member over there who shows any kind of vision is the minister for democratic reform, a fellow member from Winnipeg, and others who have had a dream to build an east-west power grid for a number of years now.
There are nine Conservative MPs in Manitoba, including the member for Brandon—Souris, and fourteen Conservative MPs in Saskatchewan all missing in action on this file over the last few years.
I want to know, when is the government going to commit to an east-west power grid so that electricity from Manitoba can flow both east and west rather than just flowing north and south?
Would the member like to comment on why the government members are hiding and why they are not speaking on their own 880-page budget implementation bill?