Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar for his comments. He suggested that the Reform Party together with others were opposed to competition in the banking sector. I would like to correct the record. The Reform Party has said that it would only approve the proposed merger of the two large chartered banks if we had a more competitive banking regime.
I would like to ask the hon. member about what happened to his social democratic principles. I grew up in Saskatchewan down the road from where Tommy Douglas was first elected. As a high school student I read the Regina manifesto, the glorious socialist vision of our friends to my far left in this Chamber. It said among other things that the CCF and its progeny, the NDP, were committed to no competition in the banking sector, not to more competition but to none, to nationalizing the banking sector.
I wonder what this hon. member has done with his socialist principles. Did he lose them along with his psychedelic Volkswagen bus in 1968?