Briefly, Mr. Speaker, I would like to pursue for a moment the comments made by the member for Winnipeg South in which he expressed dismay that too many Canadians do not think of their government as being their friend, as being on their side. I could not agree more with the member that this is a lamentable fact.
But would the member not agree that in part this results from a sad record of the current Liberal government far too often acting not in the public interest but very much to advance private interests, which is not at all the purpose of having a government in place?
I want to commend the member for his candour in saying that he actually would not trust government currently with such an identity card. Therefore, I find it somewhat contradictory for him to say that we should nevertheless see this in the context of ensuring that governments are more accountable, and with certain restrictions, then, he in fact would be in favour of moving ahead on that basis. I wonder if I could ask the member to respond.