Mr. Speaker, here we go again. This is number 83 in terms of closures and time allocations. It is a new record. It was the Liberal Party that complained about the Mulroney government when it invoked closure and time allocation more than any government had done in the past. The new record holders are here with us. The Liberals have been holding the record for some time.
Let us look at the way we operate in this place. The opposition usually has three or four times as many members present for debates as the government. We might as well shut the House down. No one seems interested in hearing the other side of the argument. That is too bad in a democracy. The government could have its representatives here to seriously debate the issues but that does not happen.
When the parliamentary secretary was answering questions earlier today a question was asked with regard to the committee coming up with a number of amendments that had been agreed to by members on both sides. Committee members had unanimously agreed, based on the testimony of witness after witness opposed to the tax grab, that the amendments were essential and necessary. However we might as well send a bag of hammers to the committees and spread them around the table because when they report back to the House nothing will have happened.
With the government and the way it rules it does not matter what committees recommend or what they hear from witnesses. The government will implement what it will implement whether we, the witnesses or Canadians like it or not. That is what we get because the PMO and all the front line guys that surround the Prime Minister have made up their minds. All the little puppets are prepared to jump up in their seats and support the government of the day even though committees, witnesses and Canadians do not. I say welcome to democracy, particularly in Canada.
I was relaxing on the plane to Ottawa. I was reading the newspaper as most of us do when we are on a plane. Lo and behold there was a nice little article in the newspaper. It said the solicitor general's department would spend $500 million to create cottage style facilities in our penitentiaries.
I found headlines regarding the air traveller fee. I brought some of them with me. One reads “One billion dollar Grit gouge takes off: Government underestimates passenger numbers in calculating flight surcharge, which will create a huge surplus”. Another says basically the same thing. It reads “Rage against the air tax from people who are affected most”. Another talks about “Sniffing out a pile of tax dollars”.
The government is good at doing that. For the nine years I have been here government members have sniffed around like a bunch of bloodhounds to find out where to get more tax dollars. Maybe that is why we are number one among the G-8 countries for paying taxes. It is because the government gets to do all these flowery, fuzzy little deals like building cottages in our penitentiaries for $500 million. Where will it get the money? It will sniff it out. Maybe it will get it from the flyers who go from point to point.
In my province of Alberta I have the pleasure of having a number of WestJet employees in my riding. They have visited me on a number of occasions asking me to fight hard against this kind of thing. We have a lot of flights going back and forth between Edmonton to Calgary. It is about a two and a half hour drive in good conditions, maybe three if one stays within the speed limit. Under Bill C-49 the flights would be $24 extra for those who go back and forth on them to do business. They would not do it any more. They could not. It would cost too much. They would drive.
Who would be affected? Maybe government members would be happy if WestJet joined Canada 3000 and the other five or six small airlines that went belly up. They would probably smile because they would have destroyed another one.
Thank goodness WestJet is bound and determined to stay strong and be competitive. The little competition it has exists in spite of and not because of the Liberal government. The government's proposed action would have a drastic effect on WestJet's situation and the Liberals know it. They ought to be ashamed for allowing it to go forward. However in their usual democratic process they will pop up in their seats like a bunch of sheep and puppets and do as they are told by the Prime Minister and his cronies. That is the way we operate in Canada. Lord help us.
In the meantime we have a serious situation across the country not just in the western prairie provinces but in Ontario, Quebec and many other areas. Once again in the budget there are zero dollars for agricultural assistance in spite of all the severe droughts we have had over the last three years. If we had another one this year it would be worse than we could imagine. What would it do to the number one industry in the country, the industry that provides more jobs and opportunities in small communities than any other? The government says it will provide zero dollars for extra assistance. What kind of outfit would think that way?
Yet the government can put $500 million into building cottages for bank robbers, thieves, sexual predators and murderers. That is the Liberal way of thinking. I do not know how much longer the taxpayers of Canada will put up with such nonsense. I do not know why they continually put people like that into positions of authority, people whose priorities are way out of touch with the normal people of our land who work daily to maintain our standing as the number one highest taxed country in the G-8. That is something to be truly proud of.
We have people who throw money this way and that way. Some $500,000 went to a company to provide a report. No one knows what the report is, where it is or what it is all about. The company that got the job to do the report had donated $70,000 to the Liberal Party. Is that not convenient?
We should not worry. It is only tax dollars. If we run a little short we will tax the airlines and put it under security measures. The U.S. can do it for $2.50 per head which is a whole lot less. We must do the same thing for $24 a head. However we must factor in that we have a government that does not care that the Canadian peso is hardly worth much any more.
What do Liberals care about? Is getting elected the most important thing? When will they start caring about victims of crime and doing things for them rather than building cottages for those who perpetrated the crimes against them? When will they do something about people working for minimum wage or maybe a little more who cannot afford to rent a good place? They are jamming together in warehousing situations and trying to exist under a high tax and high gouge government.
I have a hope before I die. Because I am getting pretty old that could happen any time. As long as we put up with people like this it might happen sooner than I want it to. I hope the day will come when Canadians wake up across the land and tell the Liberals enough is enough. I hope they tell them they are throwing money around like it does not mean anything for all these flowery, fuzzy, good Liberal things while they ignore farmers who are our number one industry, victims, homeless, and those living in poverty in the cities. It does not make sense to me. One day the Liberals will pay the price.