Mr. Speaker, I do not think I will be going to that dinner. I wonder whether you will be going but I understand you cannot answer a question in the House so I will put one to my friend from Cape Breton instead.
It strikes me as very strange that the new Alliance Party, which is the old Reform Party, which was the old Social Credit Party at one time was very much in opposition to what the banks did to ordinary citizens. I remember the member for Souris—Moose Mountain for example railing against the banks and their insensitivity to rural communities in small-town Saskatchewan and the like.
I am wondering if the hon. member would conclude with me that perhaps with this big dinner in Toronto that is coming up for $25,000 a plate, and some of those folks would probably be bankers from the different banks, that it has probably caused the Reform Party, now the Alliance Party, to be a bit muted in its once traditional criticism of the banks. I can remember that used to be one of its favourite themes over the years. When my friend from Souris—Moose Mountain was a Social Creditor many years ago, he used to campaign among his neighbours about the powers of the banks being too big and too massive. That of course is the case for many of those people who all of a sudden have had a change of heart.
There is now a $25,000 a plate dinner which of course is not for ordinary people, which means the party has lost touch with the grassroots ordinary people. Does the hon. member think that might be the reason for the change of heart?