Madam Speaker, no rhetorical farce is ever fully complete without a rhetorical intervention from the member for Waterloo--Wellington. That having been said, it would be more helpful if the member was in the House to get the full gist of my comments. In fact I gave stern rebuke to the NDP member from Winnipeg for his comments about Canada goose stepping with the United States and engaging in neo-Nazism for daring to stand in line with the United States. So I agree fully with the comment from the member for Waterloo--Wellington.
We degrade debate in the House of Commons when we are asked not to be partisan and then in the same breath, without even finishing a sentence, make a partisan slam against the Canadian Alliance by daring to say that we are engaging in partisanship, and comparing our system of government to that of the United States.
As was mentioned the other day in question period, there is a reason why there is perhaps a heightened sense of partisanship and there is a good reason. It is because Canadians are damn angry right now.
Why did it take the Prime Minister of this country one week to reconvene his cabinet? Why did it take us six days to reconvene the House? Why have committees not been struck yet? Why has meaningful legislation not been put forward?
Why has the Minister of Transport not answered the question about whether or not a plane that flew out of Toronto's Pearson airport on September 11, with knives and box cutters on it and headed to Newark, New Jersey, the same place the terrorist attacks took place, was turned around? Why would he not answer the question about whether or not that was a security failure at the airport and whether or not there was a Canadian connection to these attacks?
Why has the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration not clearly answered the questions about the security at our borders in the long term, and the passport situation?
There is a reason why there is a heightened sense of partisanship. It is because his government is not answering clear questions in the House.
For the hon. member's information, there is a difference between the American system of government and the Canadian system of government. In the American system the chief executive of that country reached out to people with different political stripes and political values and asked how together they could put forward a front. It took six days for the House to reconvene before the Prime Minister even gave any other party in the House the time of day.