Mr. Speaker, I have been listening carefully for the past few minutes to the Minister of Health, who, I must say, has livened things up somewhat in the House today. He has brought a little life to the place, and should be congratulated for doing so.
However, he is avoiding the motion by attacking the Reform Party and particularly its leader. He neglects to say that the motion in question talks about keeping promises. I will remind him of a few of them.
When it was in opposition, the Liberal Party promised to eliminate the GST-it did not. I do not know whether he was here at the time, but the people in his party criticized the unemployment insurance reform proposed by the former Conservative minister when they were in opposition. However, they went a lot further: $2 billion in additional cuts. They had promised to reduce, indeed eliminate duplication in the field of health care. I would like his response to that, as that is his particular concern.
I am a new member of the Standing Committee on Health. I have been on it for only a month and have discovered a series of duplications. Could he tell us what he plans to do during the time he has remaining as minister, between now and the election, about eliminating duplication in the area of health?
Finally, he spoke of integrity. He was Minister of Public Works, he knows the rules, because there are lots of rules, but we could go a lot further. For example, we know that there are rules for contracts of $30,000 and over, however in the case of contracts under $30,000, to encourage greater public confidence in the system of public administration, would he support, as an example, legislation on the funding of political parties by individuals rather than by corporations, as is currently the case?
The traditional parties are receiving considerable funding from big business and the banks. Six of the major funders of the political parties are banks. Does he consider this normal? In the interest of integrity and at the invitation of the Reform Party would he support legislation limiting the funding of political parties to that provided by individuals?