Mr. Speaker, the member raised a couple of interesting points to which I would like to respond.
The first one was about the implementation of this $4.5 billion ad hoc deal. The concern we have is that when the government went through the original proposal with Bill C-43, there were all kinds of discussions and consultations. The Liberals were very clear when we talked to them after the budget that there could be no tinkering, that there could be nothing done with this budget, that it would be absolutely unreasonable, it would be reckless. The finance minister said that there was no flexibility in looking at trying to change in the budget. I find it somewhat ironic today as we stand here to debate this additional ad hoc deal. We all know that the real reason this has happened was just to save the political hide of the Liberal Party, for it to continue to stay in power.
I guess the real question will probably be what will happen next when the NDP is done propping up the Liberal government. Will there be more reckless spending? Will the honeymoon be over and will we be back at the table?
The next point the member mentioned was that so many people support this bill, that so many people are in favour of it and they have done a good job. What we have in Canada in terms of where we are right now and where we have been for the last 12 years is missed opportunities. We have had tremendous opportunities. We could have done a lot better than we have done so far.
The analogy I use when I talk to people is that they have a case of beer in the fridge, but what they do not realize is they could have had a couple of cases of beer in the fridge. At some point in time we will have missed our opportunity and they are going to open the fridge and there will be no beer in there at all and then they will be very disappointed with what has happened.