Madam Speaker, I too would like to say a few words on Bill C-17. I will come in a moment specifically to section 18 which deals with the proposed amendment to the Broadcasting Act to grant CBC some borrowing authority from the consolidated revenue fund.
First, the bill, in effect the budget implementation bill which flows from the budget of a couple of months ago, would seek to do a number of things. I am surprised, I say to my friend from Medicine Hat, that he did not spend a good amount of his speech lauding the bill because a lot of it goes straight to the issue of budget restraint which in some ways will be painful for various parts of the country, but necessarily painful because, as the Minister of Finance has said again and again and as the Prime Minister has said repeatedly, we are committed to getting our financial house in order and Bill C-17 goes a fair distance to doing that.
In light of the comment made by my friend from Medicine Hat, let me come directly to the matter of the proposed amendment to the Broadcasting Act.
This amendment would give to the CBC the businesslike flexibility which I submit is necessary for a billion dollar corporation by authorizing the CBC to be able to borrow up to a limit of $25 million from the consolidated revenue fund and from Canadian banking institutions through lines of credit, through commercial loans and the issuing of bonds or commercial paper.
I believe this measure would represent an important step in our campaign to help the CBC by permitting it to become more efficient in operations and allowing the corporation to enter into other ventures acceptable to the government that provide a return on investment. It is perhaps in this context, I say to the member for Medicine Hat, that I find his objection most surprising. It is interesting to note that he did not say what he was going to do today. He said what his caucus was going to do.
I say to my friend from Peace River, I assume that is another example of the free vote approach of that party. Now one stands up and says what the entire caucus will do. What happened to the free vote we used to have in that great party, that party that I have come to admire? Where is the leader today when I need him to answer on this particular issue of why suddenly he is allowing the member for Medicine Hat to muzzle a party of free voters?
I digress. On the one hand the member for Medicine Hat decries the bill for allowing the CBC some borrowing authority but yet we hear them wax eloquently from time to time about how we ought to become more efficient as a government and as crown corporations. Again I say to him that we cannot really have it both ways, can we?
The funds that the bill would permit the CBC to borrow would be used only to generate operating savings. This idea that somehow it is going to go out and buy Lotto 649 tickets with it or somehow splurge-