Mr. Speaker, I am certainly not defending anybody. What I am doing is simply clarifying the record. Sadly enough we have come to a situation today where we have aspersions being cast by that side of the House that are completely unfounded and inaccurate. It really bothers me that the level of debate in the House has sunk to the level that it has today with the opposition Alliance bringing forth these heinous accusations.
I sat and listened to the member for Edmonton North, who made a couple of disturbing statements in the House today. It was something along the lines—I tried to write it down but she was speaking very quickly out of both sides of her mouth so it was difficult to get it down verbatim—of “they have no trust in what he says”. I assume she was referring to Canadians when she said they.
Let us examine the record. We have a man who has dedicated 38 years of his life to Canada, to federalism and to raising the quality of life for all Canadians. On three separate occasions Canadians have shown their support and confidence in this individual and this party by electing three successive majority governments. We have to extrapolate on that and keep in mind that as a result of those three successive majorities, we have three successive defeats on that side of the House.
Now we can get to the point. They are personalizing, nothing more, based on the losses they have experienced three elections in a row.
My point for the member for Edmonton North is simply to remind her of and ask her to comment on the following. In 1996 she attended in my riding and made a very clear statement that she felt it was a disgrace and absolutely ridiculous that Liberal members of parliament would accept a parliamentary pension from the House. She said that and said she would never do it. She said her party would never do it. Here we stand when she has in fact done the complete opposite. Who can Canadians trust? Can they trust somebody who went on television and on air and made a commitment and backtracked on it, or a government that has offered good governance to the country for the last seven years?