Mr. Speaker, the soon to be leader of the Liberal Party, the member for LaSalle—Émard, has always been a fan of making promises with no intention of backing them up.
In the 1993 red book, which he penned, he made such lofty promises as improving Canada's health care system and scrapping the GST. So what did he do as finance minister over the next 10 years?
First and foremost, he gutted $40 billion from the health care system. He put Canadians on life support while he intentionally took actions to increase waiting periods for critical surgeries and cancer treatment.
The GST? Ten years later, we are still paying 7%. Another broken promise.
So what does that mean today? Will he slay the democratic deficit, as he is now promising? Will he actually be able to find the province of Alberta on a map of Canada? Or will he, like the current Prime Minister, forget that there are Canadians west of Sudbury?
The best judge of a person's character is his past, and this member's past says he has no problem breaking his promises.