Mr. Speaker, I listened attentively to the comments made by my colleague from Newfoundland in this prebudget debate.
It struck me that well past the eleventh hour and we might say that at midnight the clock struck and the Prime Minister decided to quit dithering for a moment, sit down with the premiers of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia and actually work through a deal. Now he wants to be applauded and credited with driving home this bargain deal that he wants to talk about.
It strikes me, and I think my colleague was referring to this, that two things are abundantly clear. One is that a near crisis could have been averted if last fall the Prime Minister had simply honoured the commitment he made last June and said, “I made a commitment to Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia and I am going to honour that and proceed on that basis”, but he did not. The second thing I want to make clear is that if it was not for a minority government, I do not think we would have seen the Prime Minister actually held accountable for the promise that he made.
Has my colleague from Newfoundland and Labrador heard similar sentiments expressed by the people of that great province? Do they recognize that it was through his efforts as well as those of many other colleagues and our leader that really held the government's feet to the fire and made the Prime Minister own up to his commitment and finally put his money where his mouth is?