Mr. Speaker, on all of these issues it is important to remember, as the hon. member across the way pointed out, the need for us all to work together to advance the interests of all Canadians.
In so doing, I would like very briefly to mention on behalf of all parliamentarians our congratulations to the 10 finalists in the As Prime Minister Awards, who were just congratulated here in the House, in the Parliament of Canada, and who have succeeded in bringing forward terrific new ideas for the future of our country. They are: Ashley Androsoff, Paul Beaudry, Sean Keating, Jason MacLean, Alim Morali, Yongxin Quan, Cameron Sabadoz, Juda Strawczynski, Tian White, and Wendy Yu.
I would also like to congratulate the member for Vaughan—King—Aurora for creating this opportunity for young people to contribute their ideas and make proposals for improving our country.
We have before us a very important motion.
This motion shows that the Conservative Party is the only party that defends the interests of all Quebeckers. Quite obviously, the Minister of Transport has forgotten his province. It is also true that all parties here are working together to find a just solution for the farmers. It is really sad and unfortunate that the Liberals do not want to cooperate with us to solve this real problem. They have elected to be totally partisan and to place their partisan interests ahead of those of Quebeckers.
I am proud to be here as a Conservative.
Let us review this situation. We have farmers who have had their property expropriated by the Liberal government to propel forward a boondoggle, a massive waste of taxpayers' money and what has turned out to be a complete failure. This of course is the result of the tradition of waste and mismanagement in this Liberal government.
Today we propose, in working with our opposition colleagues, to bring justice to this file, to redress the injustice that has been done to the farmers of Quebec around the Mirabel airport, the farmers whose land was expropriated and who now would like to restore their way of life.
But there is a broader question at work here.
The Liberal government has abandoned the interests of Quebec, and those of the farmers, too.
They are against the interests of farmers and this is a prime example: their failure to acknowledge the essential nature of property rights.
Property rights are a core principle of human liberty and that party across the way has continuously denied that right. It runs to the very core of any free and democratic society that if any man or woman works to cultivate and then enjoy the ownership of property, that right is inalienable. That right ought to be protected. It is the core of any free society that we should have property rights. The government thoughtlessly abandoned that key principle of a democratic society when it expropriated this land in the first place.
Where do we go from here? The Conservative Party has put forward a motion which would redress this egregious injustice and allow the land to be sold back to those from whom it was expropriated and those who wish to buy it back.
Of course the Liberals cannot support this motion for political reasons, because to do so they would have to admit that they were wrong in the first place by expropriating it. And of course they will not admit they are wrong. They never do.
They did not admit they were wrong when they lost a quarter of a billion dollars in the ad scam. They did not admit they were wrong when they harassed farmers and sports people with a $2 billion gun registry that cost taxpayers a thousand times more than it was supposed to. They did not admit they were wrong then. They did not admit they were wrong when a billion dollars went missing at the HRDC department. It was a massive HRDC boondoggle. They did not admit they were wrong then.
I see that some hon. members are so afraid to admit they are wrong that they would rather escape from the problem all together.
That is why I am proud of the fact that we are working with other opposition members on this motion. I do not hesitate for a second to say, “Yes, there are other opposition parties that support this motion because it reflects the interests of both farmers and Quebecers and ultimately Canadians”.
It is also interesting that the transport minister, one of the founding members of the separatist Bloc, would stand in the House and allege an unholy alliance merely because the Bloc Québécois and the Conservative Party, along with the NDP, are supporting the same motion. In fact, the only thing unholy is his party's utter disdain for property rights, for basic decency, for honesty and for redressing what has been a terrible injustice to these farmers.
This evening I will be speaking to a group of farmers in my own constituency. The Ottawa Federation of Agriculture has invited my leader, with me, to address their concerns. They are angry that the Liberal government refuses to support their aims to reopen the border to live Canadian cattle. They are angry that the government has not sufficiently defended the system of supply management that keeps their quality of life in place. They are angry that while commodity prices go up, taxes continue to go up and the Liberal government seems to have no interest and no agenda for rural communities.
That is why the Conservative Party will go to them with a real rural agenda to support the aims and goals of supply management, to fight to get our borders open through strong bilateral relationships with our most important trading partner, to scrap that billion dollar boondoggle, the gun registry, and divert those dollars into security so that we can really protect the way of life and the public safety of our people.
We are going to be fighting for farmers tonight at that meeting. I wish some Liberals would come along to fight for farmers, but unfortunately there are none across the way who have any interest in doing so.
That brings us back to this motion. Farmers who had their property expropriated now merely wish to have the right to repurchase it at a fair value to resume the way of life that was so terribly interrupted by the interference of the Liberal government and its predecessor Liberal governments.
We see that there is no sympathy for those farmers on that side of the House. Earlier today one of my colleagues asked the transport minister why he never speaks of the farmers whose land was expropriated. He speaks of all of the great things he wants to do with the property, all the grand schemes he has. Why does he never address the plight of the farmers who were displaced from their way of life? He stood in response to that question and he continued to avoid that question.
This government has never acknowledged the suffering it caused, the families that were torn apart, the businesses that shut down, even the deaths that were caused because of the immense burden of stress forced on people after they learned that their way of life would be tragically and brutally interrupted.
We have a chance to begin to right that wrong. I am asking you, Mr. Speaker, to join with all of us as we attempt to redress the wrong that was done.
We have here a motion that unites all the opposition parties to redress that problem. In fact, in one moment of non-partisanship, I ask that someone on that side of the floor stand and reveal to us that they will change their position and they will support this motion, they will admit they were wrong and they will right this injustice.
Mr. Speaker, I--