Mr. Speaker, I do not want to give the House the impression that I am attempting to be meanspirited toward my colleague. Obviously he missed the first part of my intervention.
I said the motion before us is not very focused and is very widespread. I was able to indicate to the House some of the words being used in the motion, such as the word integrity, which seems to be a synonym for all of the things the bankrupt leader of the third party was using before the election in 1993, during the election and thereafter. Therefore I am speaking to the motion. It is members of the third party who are attacking us as a national government, saying we have not fulfilled our commitments.
I say to the hon. member opposite that our mandate is not complete. We still have a number of months and maybe even years. God, it might be even decades before we complete our mandate.
The hon. member talked a bit about overlap and duplication. I have worked very closely with provincial governments not only in this portfolio but in other portfolios to rid ourselves of overlap and duplication. In most instances it was a clear road ahead in terms of ridding ourselves of overlap and duplication. We will continue to work with governments.
However, the phrase overlap and duplication should be put in context. Where there is overlap and duplication one has to vet out the respective responsibilities of the different parties and come to some sort of consensus in terms of which level of government, if that is the case, or a third party might be able to do the service or produce the product in question.
With regard to UI reform, the hon. member comes from a great province, la belle province du Québec, where there is high unemployment. There is also high unemployment in my region. However, if the hon. member is suggesting we should not have modernized the unemployment insurance, I think he is wrong. I think the vast majority of Canadians wanted to see the modernization of the unemployment insurance.
The hon. member can debate a provision of the UI changes which have been brought in by my distinguished colleague, the Minister for Human Resources Development, who members opposite support wholeheartedly, as I look across. Those reforms have been predicated on the sense of fairness and what is right.
In terms of political contributions and amendments to the elections act, all of those matters can be discussed at a more appropriate time in terms of committee or other institutions which may be reviewing them from time to time. I do not really think this is the place for me to debate today.
We on this side of the House have attempted to fulfil the commitments we announced in the red book to the best of our ability. We have a period of time remaining in our mandate and we will endeavour over the months or years that are left to achieve all of those things we believe to be important. However, we need the co-operation of people in all parts of the country, including the province of Quebec, the western provinces, the Atlantic region and Ontario.