Mr. Speaker, first of all I want to acknowledge that the member is one of the most highly respected members in parliament. He has been here a long time. He has seen governments come and go. He represents a minority party where he singularly seems to find ways to be re-elected. That is a compliment to the work he must do in his constituency.
Since he has seen all different types of governments, all different types of members in this place, would he agree that these accusations are tantamount to a hijacking of parliament? We do not hear questions or debate on issues around health care or Kyoto. With the odd exception of a question or two from the NDP, we are not hearing about any of those issues. We do not hear about agriculture. We do not hear about Afghanistan.
We do not hear about the things that matter to Canadians when members get outside of the beltway. I wonder if the hon. member would have a comment that when members are outside of the beltway this kind of nonsense does not play with Canadians. It simply serves to deflect the real business of parliament, the real business of government.