Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's comments but she is a member of the opposition and I would have expected that as a member of the opposition she would be doing her job in this chamber by opposing the government, as opposed to attacking us.
It astounds me that the NDP consistently attacks the Conservatives when in fact we are the opposition in this House and we are not in control of the levers of government. It just astounds me why she would go out of her way to attack us, as opposed to holding this government to account. I would suggest to her that she ought to do that.
However she made a number of statements here that cannot go uncountenanced in this House.
The real issue she needs to understand is that the $4.5 billion side deal that was cooked up in a hotel room is fiscally irresponsible and, more important, the way in which this money is to be spent is even more irresponsible. The spending increase in this budget represents the single largest spending increase over the last two or three decades in this country.
Furthermore, the Liberal government, over the last five years, has increased program spending on a per capita basis by 5%. It therefore is a fiscally irresponsible deal.
Furthermore, the way in which this deal was cooked up is completely ad hoc and does serious damage to the confederation. This deal is on less than two pages in Bill C-48 and it is totally vague on what it will do for the country. These side deals do serious damage to confederation.
When we look at these side deals, such as $1.6 billion for this, $500 million for that, $900 million for that and $1.5 billion for that, these are not part of any ongoing program arrangements or part of the equalization formula. These are simply one-off deals. These one-off deals do serious damage to confederation and the member's party has agreed to this.
In agreeing to this damaging deal, a deal that does serious damage to confederation, is the member also in agreement with her colleague and ally at the Canadian Labour Congress allowing the first non-leader of the NDP, the first separatist leader ever, to appear at this convention? Does the NDP agree in allowing the first leader from a party other than the NDP to address a tri-annual convention at the Canadian Labour Congress? Does she agree with that?