I have not asked the premiers to support the bill. Presumably, they will be right at the top of the list of the implicated ministers if this should become law.
Let me make a comment that might surprise you. You know, I spent all those months traversing the Prairies, however virtually, and I was asked to explain why we do so badly—we the Liberal Party—in prairie Canada. It's a source of constant frustration to me personally, as a prairie dweller, as someone who's lived in the region all my life, representing both a provincial constituency in Manitoba and a federal one in Parliament. I offer the same kind of common-sense analysis that anybody else would. We've failed continuously in aligning our political interests to the real interests of prairie folk. It's demonstrable. Just look at the results. Look at the numbers. I'm not going to try to sugar-coat the results. They're real. I'm delighted that we won a couple of seats in Alberta, on a partisan note, but we didn't win any in Saskatchewan.
It keeps me up at night. The only way you can penetrate that kind of dislocation is by opening your ears and by advancing policy suggestions that are important to the daily lives of people who live in these provinces. Show up and be there, and be there often, with both ears wide open. Clearly we have not done that, and we've paid the political price time and time again.
I hope we can change that. I'm not here to make any partisan commentary whatsoever. I'm here to look at the interests of the people who live in these provinces and try to better align our policies to make their lives more fruitful.