Madam Speaker, I noted that the hon. member for Waterloo declined to answer the question from my colleague from Macleod. He did not make any attempt to actually answer the question, which does not surprise me.
This member referred several times to remarks about intellectual honesty in referring to the Reform Party of Canada. Somehow he feels that because we put forward the name of one of our members to occupy the position it means that we are dishonest and that we should put forward a name of a member from the Bloc Quebecois.
If he had taken the opportunity to actually read the appendix to his own Liberal red book at some time over the last four years, he would have found that this proposal put forward by four members of the Liberal caucus, one of whom is the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands, states: "In order to enhance the independence of the Chair and in an effort to reduce the level of partisanship, when the Speaker is from the government party two of the junior chair officers should be from the opposition so that the four presiding officer positions are shared equally by government and opposition". That is the promise, the recommendation, the proposal.
We note that it does not say official opposition. It says opposition. The last time I checked we remain an opposition party, perhaps for another year. However, at the whim of the Prime Minister we will be the government.
The hon. member also said that he was appalled that the Reform Party said it was going to do things differently when it ran for Parliament. He obviously does not feel that opting out of the MP pension plan is different. I would ask the hon. member for Waterloo if he opted out of the pension plan. That is where he could have shown some leadership to his constituents of Waterloo on an important issue. However, he has declined to do so.
We could go on like this all evening. I would argue quite strongly that we have kept our commitment and we are doing things differently. One thing we are doing differently is standing on principle, which is something unknown to Liberal members of the House.