Madam Speaker, it is always interesting to respond to an opposition day. This is an opportunity for the opposition parties to put forward their policies, ideas and alternatives so that the Canadian voters, whenever they have an opportunity to decide who they might like to support in a given election, would know what these folks stand for.
What do we have today? We have an opposition motion that fundamentally says that it cannot take yes for an answer. It is an interesting proposition.
There has been a discovery of an error. It is astounding. The revenue department has discovered that starting in 1972, believe it or not, there were overpayments in some of the transfers to four provincial governments. I will acknowledge that while it started 30 years ago, the lion's share of the amount occurred between 1993 and 1999.
The minute the error was discovered it was reported to both the Department of Finance and the auditor general. No one tried to hide it, sweep it under the rug, or put it in a brown envelope and seal it in a safe. No one pretended that it did not happen.