Mr. Speaker, I had the occasion earlier this afternoon to compliment the member on a well thought out and logical speech, but I have to rise at this time and challenge him on what I thought was in many ways a rather incoherent speech.
He kept talking about the need to do more to remove internal barriers to trade within Canada. We on this side of the House agree entirely with that. That is what the bill before the House is currently about.
He went on to talk about the education system. I wondered if he thought he was in a legislature at the same time as sitting in the House of Parliament. He talked about the huge exodus to private schools. That is a little bit of an exaggeration and not worthy of the member. Clearly the vast majority of youngsters in this country still attend a very high quality but still needing improvement public system. I really would encourage him to avoid that kind of hyperbole in the future.
I would like to talk so that people who have been listening to the debate will know what this bill is about. We concede that it is only a beginning, but we are trying to undo over a century and a quarter of barriers that have been built up between the provinces of this Confederation.
This agreement and this bill before us is only part of the success to date because it only reflects the federal government's obligations under the agreement, not the obligations other governments provincially have undertaken to implement. It does deal with the procurement of goods, services, construction, labour mobility, consumer related measures, agriculture and food goods, alcoholic beverages, natural resources processing and so on.
We want to see faster progress as well but let me just ask the member a question. This is a Confederation that was formed by agreement, by consensus. It has always progressed by consensus and agreement. This agreement has been achieved by consensus among the parties. Is the member now in fact suggesting that the federal government should dictate to the provinces the removal of those internal barriers?