Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank all those colleagues who voted to hear me speak this afternoon. I appreciate that a lot.
The Liberals, at least the few who bothered to show up for work today, denied my motion earlier today to respect the rights of all members of Parliament and their constituents by holding the votes on the budget bills, Bill C-43 and Bill C-48 which we are discussing right now, on Monday so that all members of Parliament could be here to cast their votes and represent their constituents. We on this side believed the motion to be in the spirit of Canadian compromise.
Obviously we believe and have stated unequivocally that we believe this is an illegitimate government as of Tuesday night when in our opinion the Liberals fell to a motion of non-confidence when they were defeated in this chamber.
As we have seen today, repeatedly, the government House leader would like to arrange the votes on Bill C-43 and Bill C-48 when it is convenient for the Prime Minister, when he happens to be in town and when he says he can be here. We say that is wrong on two counts.
Therefore we certainly would like to see, and we have said this repeatedly all day long, that those votes be held on Monday, not on Thursday of next week.
The Liberals also refused the motion to split Bill C-43 that was put forward by the leader of the official opposition, the Conservative Party of Canada, so that we could pass as expeditiously as possible those parts of Bill C-43 that deal with the Atlantic accord to provide needed help for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia.
For those two reasons and probably, if I were to really give it much thought, many more, I move:
That this House do now adjourn.