Madam Speaker, since the member used seven minutes of the ten, I assume I will have seven minutes to respond.
The member has misinterpreted my motivation here. He seems to be implying that I do not want to listen to the people. That is false. The accusation he is making is factually incorrect. I do not only want to hear from special interest groups, I also want to hear from ordinary Canadians. That is why I said what I said.
The member indicated that members of parliament are invited to go to their ridings and have consultation meetings. I take my job very seriously and, Madam Speaker, I do not know if you have noticed, but when the House is in session I am essentially always here, pretty well 99.9% of the time. It is very seldom that I allow functions in my riding to take precedence over my job here because I am here to represent them.
On the weekends and on the weeks out, I go back to my riding to listen to the people. What did the government do when it prorogued the House? It chose the week that we were scheduled to be out where we would have normally scheduled our town hall meetings. We did not have enough time to schedule, advertise and book them before those two weeks of break. The week we would have had in order to give advance notice was taken away from us by the opening of the House and the throne speech.
What has the finance committee done about November 11? That is a so-called week out, when members of parliament go back to their ridings to listen to the concerns of their people. It has scheduled a finance committee.
As the member for Elk Island, I am a faithful member of the finance committee. When it is sitting and listening to witnesses I am there every minute of the time. When those people are there because they have taken the time to prepare a presentation, I will be there to hear them.
What has the finance committee done? It has taken me out of my riding during that week and scheduled meetings in Toronto, just totally ignoring the fact that for those of us in the west, travel time is necessary. We have duties in our ridings on November 11 for Remembrance Day. The member just says “That does not matter, we can get back to our riding in one hour, let us not worry about the west”. That is the whole point. He also said that Canadians should be heard on an issue as important as the budget, and I agree. However, there is another important issue, the issue British Columbians have with the Nisga'a deal?
I will reflect his words right back. He said “they had better be very careful”. I am telling them that they had better be very careful because if they do not listen to British Columbians they will be in much worse trouble than if we do not go around with our prebudget hearings. I have a very simple conclusion.
I want the budget to be representative of what the people want. I want the finance committee to travel, but I want the Indian affairs committee to travel too. If they deny that, what else can we do? They have pushed us into a corner.
Do I not have seven minutes, Madam Speaker? I wish in the future that you would stop those members halfway, because I think we should have at least as much time as they have to make their points.