We need roads to get to the golf course. There are some beautiful ones in his part of the world. The roads to get there are wonderful. I was not talking about them. I was talking about the official opposition and its position.
Here is a statement by the member for St. Albert, a man for whom I have respect as chair of the public accounts committee. I serve as vice-chair. It is meeting at the moment so I will try to hurry. The member for St. Albert said that the newly announced infrastructure program had all the makings to become another administrative fiasco.
Was it an administrative fiasco in 1993? No. Was it a success? Absolutely. It was a success from sea to sea to sea. It seems that members of the official opposition in particular cannot take yes for an answer. If we looked in every one of their ridings in addition to the Conservative ridings that I referred to, I suspect we would find infrastructure programs where the entire community including the provinces were all involved in delivering high quality transportation systems to the people.
Let us ask another question. We all know that opposition parties submit closet budgets, phantom budgets, would be budgets or hoped for budgets. How much money did the official opposition budget for transportation infrastructure? Never mind the Tories. We know what the Conservatives have done. They said they would spend about $30 billion more than already is available on debt reduction and tax reduction to help their rich friends. They would not do anything for transportation except maybe pray to the sky and hope that someone would solve the big picture problem.
How much has the official opposition put in? Nothing. How can its members stand with any kind of credibility and vote for a motion like this one? What do they call their alternative budget? They call it solution 17. In their budget there was not one dollar, not one loonie, toonie, or anything for transportation infrastructure. Their finance critic wrote about an alternative budget. He put the entire surplus of $95 billion over the next five years toward a plan of tax cuts in debt retirement. The official opposition is actually a bit better than the fifth party. The reason is it has spent all the surplus whereas the fifth party spent the surplus plus $30 billion and still did nothing for transportation.
I listen to the policies and to the ongoing leadership debate in the official opposition. I listen to candidates like Tom Long from Ontario. He goes around the country and gives one message in the west and another one in the east. He insists on telling people that he will cut their taxes and get an economic boom going in the country even though we are currently sustaining an unprecedented economic boom that is second to none.
It is amazing to see what is going on all over the country. All we have to do is travel to find out. Yet we have no commitment from any of the candidates who would be prime minister of this great land on what they would do for transportation infrastructure. At the same time we have a fifth party who stands in this place and whose leader will not run for a seat in the House. I wish he would. I would love to see him in here.
I should officially welcome the new member from St. John's to his new seat. I guess they did not tell him that it would be that far back in the corner. I am sure, with his credentials, that he will be moving up. He is a former minister of education in the wonderful province of Newfoundland. I sincerely welcome him to the House and into the fray.
Hopefully he will bring some good old down home Newfie common sense and recognize that when you put forward a statement on a national transportation policy you should try to gild the lily a bit and include some specifics. You should not just stand to make grandiose statements that everybody else should fix all the problems, especially when you come from a part of the country where you would be hard pressed to try to convince anyone who has been there that transportation is not in any kind of difficulty.