Madam Speaker, to say that Canada was a basket case is an embarrassment to me as a member of Parliament. It never was a basket case. The government had a deficit and cut health care in the country by $20 billion which affected every poor Canadian. That was not compassion. That was the government wanting to help its friends.
Let me go through some of those areas. The government cut the heck out of the military. Where was the compassion when it sent soldiers away with uniforms that were the wrong colour, things that did not work, and boots that did not fit? Where was the compassion in the Liberal Party? Its compassion is for Groupaction, an agency in Quebec, where its friends got money and grants and kicked it back to the Liberal Party. That is where its compassion is. Do not talk to me about compassion in this party.
Let us talk about money. I will tell members right now what we would cut. We would cut the scandal in GST fraud. All the money that has been ripped off there, which the minister keeps denying, will come up before the next election. We would not have had the billion dollar boondoggle of HRDC, having spent millions on computers still sitting in warehouses. That is where the compassion is in the Liberal Party, giving its friends contracts for computers they never use.
We would not have spent $1 billion on a gun registry after telling the Canadian public it would cost $2 million. Where is the compassion about a gun registry that does not work? Some 90% of the registration is not working properly. Ask any major police force in the country if it really helps and they will say no. We can always find a Liberal police chief somewhere in the country who will write a nice little letter so the minister can rap it off his sleeves. The Liberals keep on wasting money on the whole damn program.
Liberals talk about compassion. There is no compassion in that party over there. Let us talk about Groupaction and that whole scandal with 13 police investigations.
The Prime Minister talked about having a government that would not be like the one before it and would have no scandals. We have more police investigations on that side now than there ever were on the other side. The previous government might have had a couple of big scandals, but the Liberals have major scandals. They have taken money and gone through agencies, and that is correct. That is why there are police investigations. That is why there have been charges laid and convictions.
Liberals talk about compassion. We would not have cut that $20 billion out of health care. They ruined the health care system in the country, then gave Mr. Romanow another $25 million to wander around and tell us what we already knew.
A parliamentary committee is talking about democracy. Democracy should be happening right in the House of Commons. We should not be hiring Mr. Romanow to be telling us what to do in health care. We should be dealing with elected members of Parliament in committee telling the government what should be done, and the government should be listening. But no, the government likes to hire the Romanows, have a committee somewhere, investigate, and look into things.
That is not compassion. They do not even answer the questions. Let us give food service workers a $3,000 cut-off. These kids that are going to school are putting money into EI that they are never going to collect. Does that make them think that government is fair and equal? No, it does not. That is not compassion to our young workers.
The food services industry is the largest industry in the country. The industries of lumber and building cars do not equal the food services industry. It is the largest employer with 1.02 million employees. It has been begging the government to do what would help it with its businesses and employ more people. It employs a lot of young people who are working their way through high school or college, or helping families who do not have a lot of money.
There is no compassion there. The Liberal government is not a government of compassion. It is a government of helping its friends.