Mr. Speaker, I will probably wind up being the last speaker before we break for Christmas so I want to make this speech about the Canada that could have been and the Canada that should be.
First, we should look at the problems the government is embroiled with. When I look at the bill, I see that it is all about taxation and priority. I look at the terrible tax and spend record of the government where it gives away hard-earned Canadian tax dollars to regimes that abuse their own citizens, abuse their children and do all sorts of nasty things with slave labour conditions, et cetera. Our government rewards those people for bad human rights practices by taxing Canadians in order to give aid to thugs.
Second, the Liberals suffer from elitism. They have a cabinet that disregards a lot of what their own backbenchers have to say on things. I think of the Minmetals deal. I know the cabinet is in favour of it but I also know a lot of people in their caucus do not want to see Canada's resources sold to a regime, which uses slave labour and has committed egregious human rights abuses, so it can go ahead and further its agenda.
Third, the Liberals suffer from top down problems as well. We have the Prime Minister's handlers who abuse and mistreat MPs and disregard them. I have heard complaints from many of the MPs across the way on the green buses as we travel about this place. They suffer from that too.
That brings me to my fourth point, which is the arrogance that is suffered on the other side. I look at the sponsorship scandal and how the Liberals can stand up day after day and defend tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars that were spent to advance their own aims and own little political agenda and how they lined the pockets of their friends and gave payola to their cronies.
Fifth, they suffer from broken promises on the other side. The Prime Minister promised there would be 5,000 new troops for the Canadian Forces, but he stood in the House today and on many days in the past defending the fact that they will not be putting those soldiers forward. We have many people, some being my former staff, serving in Afghanistan who are overworked, tired and do not have the equipment and the government chintzes them right, left and centre.
Sixth, the Liberals also suffer from being out of touch. They want to give the Governor General all sorts of ridiculous amounts of money so that she can gather dozens of her friends and fly to Russia to try to twist Vladimir Putin's arm. Can hon. members imagine the ludicrousness of that. The idea that government wanted to give Adrienne Clarkson, our Governor General, millions of dollars to twist a former KGB agent's arm on the idea of Kyoto by bringing artists to Russia is obscene.
I want the hon. minister who is heckling across the way to think of the millions of dollars that were spent on that and what that could have done for Canadian kids and for housing. It would have gone much further than housing the Governor General in Russia.
I come to the seventh point and that is the failed policies of the government. Over the last 30 years, we have seen the government pull funding from things that are core functions of government only to waste it on things that are non-core functions of government. I think of the RCMP. The Liberals have sucked money out of the RCMP and have deprived the RCMP of the resources to crack down on crime and do their jobs. To what end?
That only covers seven of probably fourteen points that I have, but my time is up. We will continue in the new year and I hope the priorities of the Liberals will change over Christmas.