Mr. Speaker, I am sharing my time with the member for Parkdale--High Park.
It is always quite interesting to hear members take selective issues and put their own twist on them. There was no mention about Ireland's success with the hundreds of millions of dollars invested in that part of the world by the EU. If we were to talk to people over there they would tell us that the capitalization of Ireland, the geography and the money invested by the European Union is clearly what has put Ireland in the position it is in today with regard to its quality of living. Having said that, I do not think we should denigrate Ireland's success. While speaking about quality of living though it would be nice if Ireland could also do something about the peace process.
I also find it quite interesting that the party putting forward today's opposition day motion lives by the credo that if it is in the press, it must be true, that if something is repeated often enough, people will believe it, and that the best way to draw attention to oneself is to create fear among the population of the country. We have seen classic examples recently in that party's call for more money to be spent on safety and security, the military and all kinds of issues in the opposition motion today.
For many years the Alliance has been saying that we need to actually cut expenditures. In fact it was part of its platform some five or six years ago, convenient memories today I suppose. That we should cut defence spending was actually a position of the Reform Party, the predecessor to the Canadian Alliance. Now things have changed. Members stand up in question period and say we should spend, spend, spend. Where do they get their figures?