Madam Speaker, I that know time is brief so I will try to make my points very quickly here.
It is a pleasure to enter into this debate for a number of reasons, the first one being that this whole area of equalization is an important area, something that we support. We do not support the way the government has gone ahead with this bill and the way it has introduced it. The government has had five years, imagine, to deal with this issue and in three days it has brought it forward without consultation. It is another example of the top down arrogant style of governance we have seen from the Liberal Party of Canada over and over and over again. It is reflected again here with the introduction of this bill.
It reminds me a little bit of a comic strip we are all well aware of. In the Charlie Brown comic strip there is a character named Lucy. She would pull the football away from Charlie Brown every time he tried to kick it. Charlie Brown kept coming back to try to take another kick at the ball and every time Lucy would pull that ball away and Charlie Brown would lie flat on his back.
That is the way the Liberal government approaches legislation. In fact it is the way the Liberals approach governance in this country. We could substitute whomever we would like to for Charlie Brown, whether it be the hardworking Canadian taxpayers who fork over dollar after dollar after dollar to the government, or in this case the provinces which are treated in that same way. They come back in good faith, yet the government continues to pull the ball away from them, to take away the goodwill they bring to the table over and over and over again.
That is the way this Liberal government deals with Canadians and with the provinces. And the Liberals wonder why they need to send out a task force to western Canada to find out what the problem is, why they have only a few members of parliament when there is approximately 100 seats in the west. Perhaps the Liberals will be sending a task force to other regions of the country as well to figure out why people are not voting for them. It is very simple. Canadians are not voting for the Liberals in those parts of the country because the Liberals are not listening. They do not get it. They do not understand.
Those comments were made clear by a member of the government, the member for Broadview—Greenwood just a few short minutes ago when he said he was an interventionist. “Do not worry, people of Canada. The federal government will solve your problems. Send us your bucks and we will take care of you”.
That simply is not working. It is not the truth and it is not the reality of the situation. And the Liberals wonder why they have to send a task force out to western Canada and other parts of the country to find out why people do not support them. They just do not get it. They do not understand.
The member for Broadview—Greenwood mentioned that he cannot understand why people in western Canada are upset with a government that says it has basically taken care of them. “We have put all this money into this program and that program. Why do you not support us?”
People of western Canada and other regions of the country do not support the government because it does not listen. Government members think they have the answers.