Mr. Speaker, I appreciate having two minutes. I will be very fast. I appreciate the thoughtful comments from the members for St. Paul's and Rosedale. It is rare that we have a discussion at this level of intellectual rigour. Nevertheless, some rhetoric sneaked in.
The main point I would like to make in response to what was said is this. It was said that this is an ideological position embodied in this bill. It is.
I have asked my colleagues, my friends, constituents, this question. The governments of Canada are now spending over one-half of your income. Are you getting your money's worth? I have never yet met anyone who said: "Yes, I am".
The question that has to be addressed when we talk about the ideological basis of this kind of an approach to limiting government is, how did we get there and how can we protect ourselves from going even further because of all of the good sounding arguments being made for specific cases of people needing help. Measures get put into place. They never get eliminated. That is the main issue.
I find it somewhat below the intellectual capacity of these individuals to call my ideas faddish or incorporating unreasonable dogma, or go back to the gold standard or that an idea that comes from America is the worst of all possible things.
I will write a letter to all the members of the legislatures of the provinces in this country that have adopted a similar bill to tell them they are faddish, dogmatic and influenced by Americans. There was nothing about the merit of the bill itself. That is very sad.
Almost all the objections that the members raise have been taken care of by provisions in my bill. The fundamental difference is that I represent that segment of Canadians who believe government is too big, has become too bloated and we need some institutional device for slimming it down. We cannot trust the same system that got us here simply on the promise that now that we have learned in the future we will not do it again.