Madam Speaker, the member asked us to be constructive so I will do my best, but it is difficult. Frankly, I find it disappointing that the member would put such delusional partisan rhetoric on the record, such as he did when he said the government did not cut health care. I sat in the provincial cabinet when we were forced to deal with downloading from this government firsthand. Without pre-notice, without consultation of any kind in any way, shape or form, that government decided to cut our transfer support for health care. For the member to put that on record flies in the face of the facts.
The member suggested in his comments that we fabricate and that our statements and criticisms are figments of our imagination. I suggest to him that the fabrication comes from that side of the House and certainly shows in his own comments. When he reads them I hope he will recognize that it was the receivers of health care services who were directly impacted by his government's arbitrary decision.
That being said, I would now like to move to the constructive suggestions.
Yes, we in the Canadian Alliance would reduce EI premiums. We would reduce them by making cuts elsewhere. The cuts we would make would be in areas such as untendered granting of contracts on a partisan basis. We would end the violations of Treasury Board guidelines so commonly undertaken by members opposite and which have resulted in the shuffling off of numerous members on their frontbench as a consequence of them following the lead of a Prime Minister who violates his own guidelines in his conduct. We would pursue changes of that nature.
We would avoid doing things like cancelling a helicopter contract and costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars just so the government could avoid doing the right thing for the good of the country. It cancelled a contract and caused the taxpayers in Canada to pay hundreds of millions of dollars on the basis of nothing else but politics.
We would avoid wrongfully condemning previous prime ministers and having to fork over hundreds of millions of dollars, as in the Airbus scandal.
We would avoid the excessive partisanship of the member, and his comments are revealing of excessive partisanship, and we would avoid using taxpayers' money to try to cover our partisan backside.