Mr. Speaker, it says quite a bit and most of what it says is not too complimentary.
I do want to say, however, that the former minister of veterans affairs is not exactly as pure as the driven snow either. A week or so ago he was promising $10 million to move some jobs from one part of the country into his riding. This is the very sort of thing that we have been on about all day during question period, that is, it is the wrong way to run a country.
I will say this about the former veterans affairs minister, I think he is right. When necessary, and it happened throughout his career from time to time, he stood up to the government and said the way things should be.
On the health accord, as an example, it would be far better to have people on all sides of the House speak their minds in a way that moves the agenda forward rather than doing what they are doing over there today, which is political brinkmanship. They are going to say, and I heard it today from the Prime Minister during question period, “If you do not pass this thing in all stages today, then you are against health care”.
If the government would do everything we asked them to do today, we would have tax relief, parliamentary reform, a justice system that worked and equality for aboriginals. On and on it would go. If the Prime Minister would do everything we asked for today, I guess we would be further down the road, but we would have a Canadian Alliance government if that happened.
I do not expect that he is going to do that. What the Prime Minister is doing today is trying to paint a picture for the upcoming campaign. He is going to hang his head in sorrow at one of these press conferences and say “Woe is me. I could not get it through the House of Commons because I asked everyone else to suspend the rules of the House of Commons to get something through and they said that we should play by the rules”.
All we are asking for is that the government play by the rules. Let us get this thing done, but we can finish it next week. There is no panic about it. Everybody knows it will go ahead. We are all going to support it. I hope that today it will at least get through second reading. There is no reason we cannot finish this bill and finish it easily next week.