Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to join in the debate on Bill C-48. I realize we are getting close to question period, so I will try to make my remarks brief and make the most of this opportunity.
I honestly believe that people watching today, whether they are present physically or watching on CPAC, are in for a bit of a treat. Not only has the debate been of a very civil tone today--and it has not always been civil in recent days; last night was something that no one should be proud of--but they are also having an opportunity to watch a minority Parliament work as it should.
This is an interesting lesson in history. It is an interesting observation. What we see in Bill C-48 is the manifestation of the cooperation that has typified this minority Parliament. The NDP has used its political leverage, as a good opposition party will, to advance our agenda with the ruling governing party. It is almost a civics lesson in how it is supposed to happen. I have never been more proud to be a New Democrat. In the eight years that I have been here, the last six months have been the most gratifying and satisfying in my short political career.
I am here today with my colleague from Ottawa Centre who has lived through the experience of minority Parliaments before, with great success I might add. It gives me an enormous sense of pleasure and pride to stand today with my colleague from Ottawa Centre present in the House to relive that experience. I honestly believe, without any partisan politics involved, that minority Parliaments are good for Canadians. History and the empirical evidence bear that out. We are experiencing that again today with Bill C-48.
My colleague from Edmonton--Sherwood Park made a very good speech. He started it with an interesting observation, as he often does, about the role of an opposition party in a parliamentary democracy. I think he would agree there is another role for an opposition party in a minority Parliament, and that is to advance the agenda of that opposition party to the best of its advantage within the rules. It is a good thing for Canadians that there is more diversity in the intellectual dealings of this House, in that the ruling party, by the nature of a minority Parliament, has to do more consultation and more cooperation. Consultation in the strictest sense of the word means accommodation of what the government members have heard as well. There cannot be consultation without accommodation of the points being heard.
We are proud to stand here today and say that the ruling party, the Liberal Party, has accommodated the legitimate concerns of the New Democratic Party. That has manifested itself in Bill C-48, and I am delighted to be able to say that. I say it with great pride and modesty as well. Canadians have made their views known. The whole neo-conservative agenda, well, I will not even go into that. I do not want to be partisan today.
In the few moments that I have, I rise simply to celebrate the fact that we have managed to turn the political agenda back to the interests of ordinary Canadians, all within the context of a balanced budget. I want to emphasize that again and again, because last night, laying in my bed watching CPAC and watching some of the speeches by the Conservatives, I felt like putting on my suit and tie, coming down here and challenging some of the misinformation. They would have people believe that our agenda of adding some social spending to this year's budget in some way is going to break the bank. Everything is within the context of a balanced budget and that is in fact the historical record of most NDP governments.
I do not have to remind Canadians that the most wasteful, spendthrift government in Canadian history was the most recent Conservative government. That is when the national debt ballooned to $500 billion.