Mr. Speaker, I too serve on the Standing Committee on Finance and I am very disappointed in listening to the previous member's comments. It seems to me that he has a different version of the facts than I have. I was there and heard some of the comments and some of the explanations given.
With respect to the people he had invited who were kicked out and went to the media after, it was quite clear that some of the parties did not have an invitation or arrived unexpectedly and were allowed to present their cases. Both of them agreed that they would present their cases within a half an hour. The chairman of the standing committee gave permission for that
and co-operated so that both parties could be heard, and this is the appreciation they get. The grandstanding and the criticism in the press came after that.
I was present, I heard the explanation to that and that is a different set of facts. I am just saying what I saw and what I heard differs from what the hon. member just said.
His decision to put on a flair that he is the person now representing all of Canada because he has such an interest and such a caring heart for the unemployed is adverse to reality. Everybody cares about the unemployed, but we also have a concern about the deficit and the debt. We also have a concern about how to approach it.
For a member who quite clearly wants to separate from the rest of Canada to state and argue and present a case that we are not for Canada borders on double talk or contradiction of terms.
He is talking about a member of the Reform Party being present or not being present at these committees. I was not the individual named to the subcommittee that examined Bill C-17. I am sure there were problems getting people together. I am sure it was hard to co-ordinate it all because there are only 100 things that you have to do within an hour around this place.
If he truly were interested in representing his point of view, representing his argument, I suggest that he would go a lot further in accomplishing those goals if he pointed out the problems of Bill C-17 as we have, pointed out the constructive alternatives to Bill C-17 as we have, and then let the House decide which way to vote instead of going around and basically distorting the way events actually occurred.