Madam Speaker, there are two issues here tonight. First, there is an erosion of democracy. Something that has been running rampant here a way too long and a way too fast, and the Liberals do not seem to care or recognize that at all. By not accepting the committee's recommendation, it is totally unacceptable. This is the way democracy is set up. We have the committee structure. It is meant to work. I do not think the minister should do anything but accept that.
Second, it is a continued waste of large volumes of Canadian taxpayer dollars, $400,000 alone by the Governor General. This is not an argument tonight about whether the Governor General should exist or not, although that is an argument that a lot of people in Canada are talking about, it is a waste of dollars that we are talking about.
I relate back to a comment from my colleague across the floor on the gun registry. There has never been a bigger financial lie told to the country than the gun law. My question to the hon. member from the Bloc is on the value and quantities of these dollars, and how we could have spent them. It is a figure that is fast approaching $2 billion, and as my colleague said earlier, we have not saved any lives.
We have taken the dollars and wasted them. There are items about which I would like to ask my Bloc colleague. How many MRIs does she think the dollars, between the Governor General and the money wasted in the gun registry, could have bought? How many nurses salaries could it have paid for? How many students could have had their tuitions paid?
I know that doctor shortages in my riding of Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound are atrocious, as bad as any place in the country. Just think how many doctors could have been hired for rural Canada. Dare I say, rural Canada? After all, we know that rural Canada means nothing to this government.
Does the hon. member think that the money we could save here, the $400,000 and the money wasted in the gun registry, could have been spent in much better ways?