Madam Speaker, as I listened to the parliamentary secretary give his address on Bill C-43, I was glad to hear both the tone and the content with which he enlightened us about the merits and benefits of Bill C-43.
He will probably remember that the initial NDP reaction to the first Liberal budget that was put forward was less than enthusiastic. In fact, we voted against that original budget. It did not strike us as addressing the needs and priorities of Canadians as we had identified them as New Democrats.
Certainly, the information reaching us, in terms of the priorities of Canadians, differed dramatically from the nature of the budget cobbled together by the Liberal Party. Luckily, and this is the magic of a minority Parliament, a good opposition party can use a minority Parliament to advance its own agenda. It is the advantage of a minority Parliament in terms of benefits to ordinary Canadians. A successful opposition party measures its success if it achieves its agenda.
Thankfully, through negotiations with the government of the day, the NDP, as an effective opposition party, did manage to convince the ruling party that some of our priorities were the priorities of Canadians. To the credit of the Liberals, they listened. It is the magic of a minority Parliament at work.
Even though we are debating Bill C-43 today, which has many of the core elements of the Liberal government budget, would my honourable colleague not agree that the budget process as a whole benefited greatly from the cooperative exercise that took place? There was an effective opposition party using its political capital and political leverage to achieve the agenda that it stands for, which is social spending, the reduction of poverty, affordable housing and a clean environment.
In other words, would my colleague agree that it was a good thing that, by using our political leverage, we have convinced the government to use taxpayers' money in the interests of taxpayers, to use taxpayers' money in a way that Canadians were asking? Would the parliamentary secretary care to expand on that?