Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Portneuf for his question. He raised a couple of interesting points. I am not exactly sure what Mr. Trudeau was thinking when he started us down this path. Perhaps it is just a Liberal frame of mind. I am not sure but time will tell.
I realize I am stretching it, but Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Mulroney have a similar problem or similar disease that afflicts new governments. It is called missed opportunities. When a new government takes the reins in Parliament it has a window of opportunity, which lasts a few months while the honeymoon period is on and while government members are glowing from ear to ear and from coast to coast, to make significant changes in the way that Parliament and Canada are run.
Both Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Mulroney had a similar disease in that they missed opportunities. I am not sure exactly what the perception of Mr. Mulroney was in Quebec where he won a huge number of seats, but we voted for him in the west in 1984 because we thought we were electing a fiscally responsible voice that would ensure our concerns were upheld in Parliament.
During his first budget Mr. Mulroney missed a tremendous opportunity. People wanted a fiscally responsible budget brought down, but because of some vocal people who were naysayers he folded the tents and went scurrying with his tail between his legs.
If I could come now to the 35th Parliament, I fear from looking at the budget that we have a similar phenomenon. We have a populace leader of the government who seems to be very much in tune with people. He seems on the outside to be one of the little guys from Shawinigan, just a regular guy, but he missed an opportunity in the budget to change the course of the 35th Parliament. It will not get easier. If the hon. Minister of Finance thinks it will get easier as we get near the next election, he is totally wrong.
As the hon. member said, whether they received bad advice or did not catch the full vision of what people were sending them to Ottawa to do, I am not sure. Regardless of what it was, if an opportunity is missed at the start of a parliament to set the tone for what the government is trying to accomplish the opportunity will never come back.
Perhaps the government wonders why we make such a fuss about the borrowing authority, the budget and so on. It tells us to wait until next year, but we have heard this wait until next year stuff for at least 10 years and it never comes because it never gets easier.
Any time we shrug something off and think that a problem will go away on its own it is just wishful thinking and there is a famous road paved with wishful thinking.