Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member on his speech because his words were very encouraging. He reminded all of us in the House of something in which I firmly believe, that the role of parliament is to limit the ability of the government to tax and to spend.
We all know the history. Originally it was the king and his horsemen around him who went around with a mace, the symbol of which we have here. If people did not pay their taxes, I guess they were clubbed on the head with the mace. We have that symbol of authority in the House. It used to be that the king taxed people too much. The people said that was the end of it and parliament came into being.
As a member of parliament I would like to ask the member a couple of questions in that regard. Has he ever voted against the current king's requisitions? I say that advisedly. The Prime Minister and the finance minister seem to come up with a budget. It seems the only member on the other side who has ever voted against a budget measure sits right now beside me over here. He was censured by the government for doing exactly that.
Has the member voted in favour of an amendment to reduce it? For example, in an previous budget the Reform Party at the time put forward some amendments to reduce some departmental budgets of billions of dollars by $10,000. At that time we made the point that it was symbolic, just to show that parliament had the final control on expenditures. Did he vote in favour of it? Does he represent his constituents as an MP when he supports by his votes the spending of money to make films like Bubbles Galore and to hang dead rabbits on fences?