Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague's comments. I am happy that she is happy that the House is supporting the motion. She seems to see it as some sort of historic event or extremely important decision today. If I can help her with that, quite frankly it was an easy decision for the government to support a motion coming from the official opposition which reiterates and supports the policy that the government has been following for two years.
Does the member not understand how easy it was for us to support a motion from the critic of the Alliance that reiterated the exact policy that we have been following?
The member said that her constituents were real Canadians and that she supported them. My constituents are certainly real Canadians, as are yours, Madam Speaker, as are all Canadians real Canadians. I would like to emphasize that.
She mentioned that her constituents wanted to know what they could do to get the government to understand. Would she explain to her constituents and to the House today why, a year ago when this file was breaking at the very critical time, her party went many weeks with no trade critic? Her constituents should know that her party was so engaged in its internal divisions at the time that the former leader, who again seeks to be the leader of her party, did not appoint a trade critic. Incredibly, the official opposition of Canada had no critic to develop this file at one of the most important times in the history of this country. That is a provable fact.
I asked the former leader earlier today to address that but he ducked it. Would the hon. member like to explain why her party showed such a lack of preparedness by having no trade critic? I think her constituents need to know the answer as much as the other members of the House. I am anxious to hear her answer.