Madam Speaker, last Saturday night was one of the few times I had the opportunity to sit down and watch television. I watched the performance at Maple Leaf Gardens. The players of the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and so on were honoured. They looked back at the achievements of the great players who gave their hearts to Canada's national sport. They had tears in their eyes and were so very proud of their accomplishments.
I wonder what will be the record of this government when we look back at the 35th and 36th parliaments. The government has set a record which is a shame to democracy. The Liberals shut down this House 35 times in the last session. No other Government of Canada has come near that number. The government has said 35 times that it does not need the opposition or as one of my hon. colleagues just said, it does not even have to consult the opposition. We are barely into the 36th parliament and the Liberals have shut down the debate in this House 11 more times. That is a record no government should be proud of.
It really hurts me to sit here and listen to the hon. members opposite make certain statements almost bragging about their care in hospitals. A growing number of people will die before they get emergency hospital care in this country. That is not a highfalutin statement, that is a fact. This government has come in a total of 46 times and said it will shut this House down.
What is the record of the government? Going back to the 1930s, the 1940s and the 1950s we had some great hockey players. What will be the record of this government? It will be known as the most undemocratic procedural government in the history of Canada. Nobody can deny that.
I heard an hon. member say that the government gives out this money with no strings attached. My question is, what is in this bill that will prevent the government from making the same bookkeeping manoeuvres as happened just a few months ago in the Newfoundland election when all of a sudden it got rid of its deficit? What is in this bill to stop that procedure? Nothing. What is in this bill that will absolutely ensure that the government does not intervene during the life of this bill to pull strings just to suit itself? Absolutely nothing.
The government has had five years to come up with this, not five weeks and not five months. And today it has moved closure on a bill which has not really had any discussion in this House. That is Liberal democracy. This is not good planning. The one thing it does show Canadians is that this is government arrogance at its worst. Most people on this side of the House have not had an opportunity to provide input on the bill. This practice is very dangerous. It is a growing practice opposite and an extremely dangerous practice for any government in a democratic society to use.
What will happen if closure is exercised as much in the next four years as has been done in the past four years? There will be no point in any member of the opposition even sitting here, absolutely none. There will be no point in members getting on their feet and debating an issue because the government will say it has the right to use this procedure and it is going to use it. I heard that this afternoon. And use it the Liberals have done. Forty-six times they have said “The opposition does not count. We are not going to listen to them. We are not even going to have a debate on it”. That is where we are at with this bill.
If equalization works, why are there still seven have not provinces? I draw attention to my own province. It is rather interesting. A member of my family recently had a commercial trucker haul two loads of grain to the terminal. His bill for the trucking was in excess of $500. The amount of money taken off was over $1 a bushel for freight. When we analysed it we found that in my province we probably pay more money to the government opposite in federal excise fuel tax per capita than any other province. I heard the only member of that party from my province say that we will not get any more back from the federal excise tax because we are a have not province.
The rationale the government uses when it takes out millions of dollars is simply “We cannot give back even 20% of the excise taxes taken out of the province because it is a have not province”. That is the rationale being used.
I watch as our highways go to pieces. The rural roads are being completely ruined. After the millions of dollars the federal government has taken out, what guarantee does this bill give? At any given time a minister could decide that 48% of all the federal excise tax will be spent in a region of Canada and the people who really need the roads will get 3%. This bill does not correct that deficit and the Liberals bring about closure so we cannot have a debate on it.
Because of the policies of this government and because it told the people we had to get rid of this freight rate and so on, people are leaving my province like never before. They are saying that this government continues to tax them and the amount of money they are getting in return is not equal in any way. Three per cent has been the most in the last four years.
Will this bill ultimately stop political patronage? Every member on the government side of the House says no. What they are saying is “We will use this bill and we will use these payments the same way as we have used them in the past. We will use them to throw money into any region of Canada we want to, as long as we can buy money with that money that is going out”. That is what has happened and that is what is going to continue to happen.
This bill is more complex than the government admits. This bill is going to committee and we know what will happen in committee. The bill will pass all the way through. Opposition members will have motions but they will not be heard. We might as well tear our papers up now because the government is on the same old course it has been on 43 times before: shut down the opposition; shut down any criticism; “let us decide where we can put the money the most”.
I found out from reading the paper that there is a little bit of skulduggery going on like there was on the toll highway in New Brunswick. Somebody is going to be bidding on highway 407 in Ontario. Has anyone else heard about that? It is these types of things. When my friends from the maritimes stand up to discuss the toll highway the government responds to them in complete mockery.
I am not very proud to stand here and say that I condemn the government. I am not very pleased to know it has used closure 46 times. After one day of debate, it is a smack in the face to democracy and the people of Canada should realize it.