Madam Speaker, would you not just love to have that kind of power that you could just wipe a day out? It is amazing.
While listening to the previous speaker and the ones before, I was trying to understand the point of view of the opposition. I found that there was some reasoned debate by the speaker who just finished, until the end.
Frankly, I also play at the game a little bit from time to time, but one of the reasons that we have such difficulty in this place is because of things like the accusation by an hon. member opposite. He tried to suggest that all the Liberals in this place are only concerned, as he put it, about their pocketbooks, that somehow there are no hon. members on this side of the House only on that side. He said that we only cared about ourselves not about our constituents or the country. It is that kind of rhetoric that makes the hair on the back of our necks stand up and takes the temperature in this place to new levels.
I find it incredible. There is no doubt we are rushing the bill. Let us take a look at the history. In 1991 there was the Lortie commission on electoral reform. This is a slam dunk. We are hammering it home. In 1993 there was the special committee of the House of Commons. Then in 1998 this draconian hard headed government, which does not care about public opinion according to the bright lights opposite, brought in a bill.
That bill was debated in the House and sent to committee. The member opposite remembers serving on the committee late into the evening. Why? It was because they wanted to hear opinions. I have news for members opposite. They are not the government. We on this side are and we have a responsibility as the duly elected government to put forward an agenda.
Members opposite form the opposition. I understand that. I served five years in opposition in the province of Ontario. I respect the fact that they have a job to do, but each party, particularly my dear friends in the Reform Party, continually mislead and misrepresent the issues. This is part of the reason that we wind up—