Mr. Speaker, the member for Calgary Southeast has had much to say and of course we have only moments in which to respond, so I will go directly to the heart of this issue, to what I think is this cynical and mischievous suggestion made by so many members of the House when they constantly confuse legitimate critique of American policy, whether it is foreign policy, social policy or whatever, with anti-Americanism.
I think this is one of the things Canadians find deeply disturbing, because the reality is that Canadians are concerned about the slide that is taking place to the point where people feel more and more that we have only one more step before, in meaningful terms, maybe not in geographic terms or boundaries, that Canada will be little more than the 51st state.
If the member had heard my opening comments, I made the point he has chosen to ignore: that not only is it fair game, it is essential that we look very closely at what is happening in the United States of America today before we just allow ourselves to slide into a merger that makes us indistinguishable.
I will quote again briefly and ask the minister to respond to another response I received when I put out the challenge of how people would wish to see Canada's sovereignty strengthened. This is what one person wrote:
I don't believe many Canadians are anti-American, but an awful lot of us hate what we see happening in America today. We don't want any part of the new militarism that says to hell with social programs, let's kick butt around the world. We don't want a health care system that leaves 30% of the people with no coverage, many of the rest paying user fees and dealing with heartless HMOs. We don't want an underclass in our society, but we see homeless people sleeping in bank lobbies in middle class neighbourhoods at the same time as we see high end tax cuts and the end of social housing.
Can this member not understand that Canadians want us to distinguish ourselves from our neighbours to the south with policies that are fundamentally different and that are based on--