Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Red Deer for his impassioned defence of the environment and the concern that he has showed over this appointment. It is bad enough that Mr. Murray is a failed Liberal candidate and that he was unable to succeed at becoming an MP. Because of that, he is looking for something else.
However, the blame really needs to fall on the Liberal government. Once again, Mr. Murray is a pawn. It is true he is a Liberal and he has tried to run for the Liberal Party, but he has not been successful. However, the blame has to fall in the Prime Minister's Office.
I want to make a couple of comments and then ask the member for his reflections.
We see a history of manipulation from the government frontbench. We saw it last week with the Senate appointments, particularly Alberta Senate appointments. Elections have been held in Alberta to elect senators to come to Ottawa. The Prime Minister has blatantly spit in their faces by saying that he will not abide by that. He will not pay any attention to them.
We see a history of manipulation with the ongoing inquiry. We are going to see more shenanigans this afternoon with the federal government's attempt to derail the Gomery inquiry as the Liberals panic over the revelations that are taking place with their involvement in Quebec and the sponsorship scandal.
We have also seen a history of manipulation with the environment file, particularly with Kyoto. It has been very frustrating. We are how far into Kyoto now and we have no plan. We still have nothing announced. It just does not take place. The member talked about the cost of electricity and fuel going up if we were to implement the plan.
Earlier on the former environment minister left the impression that fuel would have to be in the range of $1.40 to $1.45 in order to change consumer activity enough so the government could implement a plan. That was bad enough at the time. Now it looks like it will be quite a bit higher than that.
We see manipulation on the issue of carbon sequestration where the government has stepped forward and said that it wants to take those carbon credits for itself.
I am from a rural area. Carbon sequestration is important to farmers and to agriculture. They were hoping they would have some opportunity to claim those carbon credits for their farms. It looks like the government has stepped in with its manipulation to try to take that away from the farmers as well.
We have seen the manipulation on this issue, particularly with the budget that has arisen in the last week. The government is trying to change the definition of toxicity in a sneaky way by sliding it into a budget bill so it can manipulate the Canadian people once again.
Does the member think that the reason the Prime Minister has appointed such a weak candidate is so the government can continue this history of manipulation in the environmental file and so it can manipulate Mr. Murray in the ways it needs to go in order to achieve some of the dishonourable goals it has set for itself?