Mr. Speaker, the Reform Party is the first political party in Canadian history to vote no confidence in itself while in official opposition. This raises two very interesting questions.
Why would Canadians put their trust in a group so hungry for power that after only two elections it is ready to give up what makes it unique and go crawling back on penitent knee ready to barter its position on Quebec, on the Senate, on moral issues, all for a taste of the fruit of the tree of power in the garden of Canadian politics?
It also raises the question of whether Reform should continue to be the official opposition. In the last parliament the Reform Party argued that the Bloc should not be the official opposition because it was not and could not be a government in waiting as defined by Erskine May.
The Reform Party has now put itself in the same category. It is not even a party in waiting. By admitting it cannot form a government without becoming something other than it is in name and substance, perhaps Stornoway should become empty again. Its current occupant appears to have forfeited the category that qualifies him for occupancy.