Mr. Speaker, with the greatest respect for the member, as he pointed out, the people in the United States have this great technology but they do not have Kyoto. My whole point is exactly what he is saying. He made my argument for me. We do not need the Minister of the Environment's little green book, for which he does not know the cost of developing the technologies.
Should we be reducing smog? Absolutely. Should we be trying to clean up the environment? Absolutely, 100%. Every single member over here will support that.
The hon. member said himself that if we do not ratify Kyoto we will have to buy the technology from the Americans. They are not ratifying Kyoto but they will continue to develop their technologies. We have some of the brightest minds here in Canada. We can do it here. However we need a government that will provide the economic policies so that this country can flourish and our economies will not lag behind. We need a government that will put resources into developing these technologies, not blow the money into the wind, into a firearm registry that has zero accountability.
The Liberals want us to trust them. We have seen billion dollar boondoggles. We have watched hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising contracts going to their friends who donate to the Liberal Party. Why should Canadians trust the government? There is not one reason.
With all due respect, the member made my argument for me. The minister's little green book will not develop these technologies. However we can develop those technologies if we have a strong, economic platform. Yes, we can. We do not need Kyoto. Kyoto will be another fatal disaster. If the government ratifies this we will be back in the House a few years from now saying, “Oh well, we just threw another billion dollars up against the wall and we haven't reached our CO
2
emissions”.
The facts speak for themselves. We only have to look at the record. Do not blame me. Look at the government's record of mismanagement and hiding. It is an abuse of power and it blows it off like it does not even care. It is in full defence, full damage control mode.
The member who just spoke, and who I have the greatest respect for, is from British Columbia. He witnessed firsthand what happened when the provincial government out there blew $450 million on fast ferries. The public was outraged, as it rightly should have been, and it threw those members out of government. So far that party is down to two seats.
The same thing deserves to happen to the government. It has no respect for the Canadian hardworking people who send taxpayer money to this institution.
I keep emphasizing that it is not about a gun registry, although, yes, we believe that money should be going into policing, it is about a government that can blow away a billion dollars and have complete disregard for the taxpayer. It could not care less about it. It tries to sweep it under the rug. It is wrong.
The worst thing is how did that billion dollars ever get in there if it hid it from Parliament? How did that happen? Did one of the ministers secretly go off and try to pull money from other departments? Will we finally get to the bottom of the truth in this matter? For the government to take a billion dollars to create a database and hide it from Parliament, that is borderline criminal.
It is time we throw the government out. It is time Canadians show the government what it deserves. When it stands up and says that we should trust it, how could anyone, even its own members, trust the government?