Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague. It reminds me of another time when the official opposition was isolated. It had to do with the MMT legislation.
We sat on this side of the House and begged the government not to put restrictive legislation on that octane enhancer for those who are not familiar with the issue. We said that if the government did that, the government would be taken to court and would have to pay because it had not tabled the evidence in this place which showed that it should be restricted. What did the government do? It thumbed its nose at the official opposition. That is fine.
Liberals do not agree with us because they like to be wrong a good part of the time. They did not agree with us and what happened? I wonder if the Liberal caucus even had a discussion about this. Guess what happened. Back it came. It did not go to court though. We settled out of court. Tens of millions of dollars were given to the Ethyl Corporation, an American corporation.
The government said that for whatever these dollars were worth, and the dollar is not worth that much, it being down to 64 cents, as much as we can gather together we will throw at Ethyl Corporation. Why? Because members over there do not believe in free trade. They mouth the words when it suits them and the rest of the time they restrict business; they put them under their thumb. Business that could be thriving and adding value is told it is not welcome in Canada.
Tens of millions of taxpayers' dollars went to pay Ethyl Corporation in an out of court settlement. I wonder if the Liberal caucus had a little talk about that with their minister. I wonder if they said that the Reform Party was right, again. Yes, we were isolated on that and we were right again.
On Bill C-55 and the split-run magazine issue, we will be proven right again. The Liberals will come whining back into this House. The favourite whine on the Liberal side is “I want to tax and put on some more red tape”.