Mr. Speaker, what we are talking about here is a matter of proportion. Certainly we encourage free enterprise. Free enterprise is also the freedom to go broke. Without that discipline free enterprise does not work. At some point a very large firm may go bankrupt but because of its strategic relation and size in the economy, the government has to intervene and cannot let that firm go broke even though it is in the private sector and is operating that way.
It is somewhat the same nature of the proportion and size of what we are talking about here between two levels of government. Within the family it is not the federal government's money, it is the taxpayers' money. We must not let this kind of dispute become a personal matter between two camps within a political party. We are talking about the national business here and one finance minister replacing another and one person's ego over another. The nation's business is far too important to allow those things to have a play.
I draw the parallel to, at some point, the size of a company. Even though it should have the discipline to go broke if it does not operate properly or is not successful, the issue is proportion and sometimes the government has to intervene against the principle. I am also saying it is the proportion and size of what we are considering here, that it is inappropriate for the federal government to even suggest at this point that the money will be clawed back through a system of withholding payments to a province.
It is far too strategic for the national family for this to be contemplated. I am calling upon the federal government to end this dispute right now.