The hon. member opposite is saying hear, hear. He thinks article XI is still there. He thinks a different government signed it away. It was his own government that signed article XI of GATT away after it promised Canadian farmers it would defend that article to the death. Not one of them died or even lost a night's sleep over the loss of article XI.
The Liberals broke their promise when it came to standing up for Canadians in their trade relations with the United States. I happen to be a durum grower and I know they put a cap on durum exports to the United States. They did not have to. We have a trade agreement that says that we do not have to put a quota or a cap on our exports of durum into the United States. It does not matter.
The Americans put a little pressure on and said: "You be good boys up there in Canada, you Liberals, you co-operate with us. We do not want any more of your durum for a while". The agriculture minister said: "Okay. We'll just close off the flow of our high quality durum that is bringing a good return to Canadian farmers. We'll oblige you. To heck with these trading arrangements we made. We'll punish our own farmers just to help you poor Americans out". That was the response of the Liberal government.
The Liberals made promises about agriculture stabilization that they did not keep. They promised a whole farm NISA for all of Canada. They failed to deliver. There were two provinces that were not interested and they forgot to ask the provinces whether they would go along with their proposals for agriculture stabilization.
They promised a spring cash advance. They just reneged on that one the other day.
They did keep seven promises. One of them was to establish an Agri-Food Development Council to improve Canada's competitive position in the agri-food industry. I expect they kept it because it is a council. They had some Liberals who needed a job and they want to create jobs. So they said: "We'll create a council and we'll put some Liberals on this council. In that way we have kept our
promise and have also dished out some patronage at the same time". That is agriculture.
The Liberal government made a whole lot of other promises. That is what this debate is about, keeping your word, keeping your promise. If you say you are going to appoint deputy speakers from both sides of the House, you had better do it, Mr. Speaker. Canadians are not going to take being lied to any longer.
The red book is full of promises that have not been kept. The success rate is just about as dismal as it was with their agriculture promises. Let us go to promise number one: "We will restore Canadians' faith in themselves and their government". They failed dismally. In stark contrast Reform has offered in its fresh start proposals a guarantee that we will listen or we can be recalled.
Promise No. 2: "We will work with the provinces to redesign the current social assistance programs so sorely tested in recent years to help people on social assistance who are able to work to move from dependence to full participation in the economic and social life of this country". Nothing has been a more dismal failure than this promise.
They go on to say in promise No. 4: "We will exercise unwavering discipline in controlling federal spending". What a laugh. The recent contracts offered by the former and disgraced minister of defence are a testimony to the failure of promise number four. That is in stark contrast to the fresh start promise of things like balanced budget legislation that would prevent the foolish spending that we have seen from the Liberals.
Promise No. 10: "A Liberal government will replace the GST". My colleagues have talked about that, so enough has been said.
Promise No. 12: "A Liberal government will work closely with provincial governments to achieve the maximum possible co-ordination of tax policies". That one was a blow-out too. Only three provinces agreed to any kind of co-ordination of tax policies. For those three provinces to agree they took a $1 billion pay-off. That is a broken promise and again is in stark contrast to Reform's fresh start proposals that take seriously-