They have been starving for 30 years now, ever since the Trudeau era. Mr. Trudeau ran not on ideas, not on philosophy but on charisma.
That is what we are trying to determine today. Can another election be won on charisma or on ideas? Which are we going to go for? It looks to me as though charisma and ideas are dead, and so Reformers will have to take over because we have something that has not been seen before in the House: honesty, accountability and the freedom to do what one thinks is right, not what the hierarchy tells us.
Democracy comes back to the idea that we vote on a ballot and nobody knows how we vote. Publicity can be put out saying: "I was against the government and I did not vote for it", but what was done behind closed doors? That is what I see in a lot of the backbenchers.
We do not agree with the frontbenchers. We do not agree with what the government is doing. When it comes time to make a decision, it is not willing or able or capable. Why? Has anyone ever thought why? The Prime Minister says: "If you do not do what I told you to do in the House, I will not sign your nomination papers in the next election". Does that not sound like coercion or intimidation? I would hate to have a leader who would tell me he will not sign by nomination papers because I am going after the wheat board and the commodity exchange because they are the sole entity of what I am doing.
Why are we even debating this? We should prorogue the House for the rest of the two years. We would probably do more good outside of the House than sitting here debating things we know are a fact and that we cannot change. That is the problem in the House.
What can I say to a Liberal government that does not want to listen?. We can tell the Liberals what was told to the Conservatives in the last election. The Liberals were not elected, the Conservatives were defeated. In the next election history will change and we will defeat the Liberals because the people will vote for the Reform Party. We will throw the Liberals out of the House once and for all. We will have a reformed House that is honest and accountable and that will really do something for this country.