That's interesting to me. On the non-partisan report, as they claim, they wanted to shut down debate before we could vote. Still, I'm happy to be here and to talk about it.
My colleagues who spoke, Mr. Sorbara and Mr. Ouellette, listed the items and the work our government has been doing to help Alberta as well as the provinces and the people across this country who have been hit hard by the commodity downturn. It's not just Alberta that's been hit; there are several provinces facing this. However, I'm not going to go through the list that my colleagues have, because I think Canadians can see that we have been taking this issue very seriously, not only for Alberta but also for Canadians across the country.
I want to highlight a couple of points so that anyone listening to this debate sees it for the partisan work that it is. The fact is, Mr. Liepert just mentioned that we should study the report. We need to study this report—the very report they forgot to provide to this committee. We had to look it up on our iPads as this debate was happening. The report was so important they forgot to send to this committee. I find the timing interesting.
It was said earlier that it's a non-partisan blueprint for the finance minister. Well, my colleagues pointed out the work our government has done in a short number of months that the previous government failed to do in nearly a decade, so I don't think we need the Conservative blueprint for economic growth in Alberta. In fact, Albertans chose differently.
If this report truly wasn't partisan, then, as my colleague pointed out, why weren't others included? Why weren't MPs from Alberta who were not Conservatives included? Based on the website—because, again, no documents were actually submitted to the committee, and the report wasn't even submitted to the committee to look at—it looked like seven meetings were held in developing this report. There were no submissions presented to this committee about what was said at these meetings, how many people attended, who attended, or where the recommendations came from.
It's important, because it was the Conservative members of this committee who said that it was the recommendations of the people and that this was not partisan. In that case, why didn't they invite any members who weren't Conservative?
Ultimately the situation in Alberta and across the country is a debate our government takes very seriously. My colleagues have highlighted all of the work we are doing. I think it's really sad that the Conservative members tried to end the debate before taking a vote. I'll highlight once again that if studying the report was so important, they should have provided the report to the committee.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.