Mr. Speaker, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster has a lot of complaints about the bill, but he has not made it clear whether the New Democrats will actually be voting in favour of or opposed to the bill. If he can make that clear, it would be much appreciated by the House.
I was not planning on asking a question, but for a New Democrat from British Columbia to get up in the House to lecture any political party on either transportation policy or fiscal and economic policy is laughable.
When the New Democratic Party was in power in British Columbia for a decade, it took us from the fastest growing province in Canada to a have not province. From being a have province with everything booming and growing, coming out of Expo 86, growing in the late 1980s, growing into the 1990s, what happened in British Columbia? We elected New Democrats and our economy went south, and it went south in a huge way.
We became a have not province. We ended up being on the receiving end of benefits from Ottawa and that was because of New Democratic fiscal and economic policies. New Democrats are in the House and have the gall to lecture any political party in the House on fiscal and economic policy. It is laughable.
Given that we are debating transportation policy, I want to say to the member, who delved into provincial politics for 90% of his speech, that the New Democratic Party, his party, was in power in British Columbia for 10 years. There were only two transportation policies even remotely on the radar screen in British Columbia at that time. One was the Island highway, but because of NDP dropping the ball, bungling, scandal and pathetic management, it caused that highway to be twice as expensive as it would have been, which would have freed up hundreds of millions of dollars for other projects. However, his party failed to do the proper homework in developing that project.
The second transportation project in the entire decade of NDP rule in British Columbia was the fast ferry fiasco, the joke, where over $400 million went to ferries that did not work at all. They were an environmental disaster, a mechanical disaster, and turned out to be a fiscal and economic disaster for taxpayers in British Columbia. That was $400 million that could have gone to substantive policy changes including: the Kicking Horse Canyon and the lives that have been lost there; improvements to the problems with the Sea to Sky Highway; the problems in the northeast sector; rapid transit; and all the things he is talking about. He is great at pointing out all the problems, but when it comes to New Democrats having the opportunity to solve problems, his party failed miserably in British Columbia.
Would the hon. member stand up and explain why his party was so pathetic in government?