Mr. Speaker, I have always been in favour of increased accountability, ever since my earliest days as a councillor, as a mayor and as a member of Parliament, so I have no problem with that.
My questions though were very straightforward. Will the government help the softwood industry now? The help was needed yesterday. Can we honour agreements that were made in good faith with other territories and provinces?
The member has asked me if I support a particular aspect of a government program. Just because I am in opposition I am not going to take a position that is contrary for its own sake. I have only had a chance to read it very briefly but there are a lot of very positive things and I will support them.
I am asking also for a bit of reason in terms of some of these things. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is absolutely frantic to know what is going to happen to some of the infrastructure programs. The smaller municipalities in my riding are very desperate because they cannot finish their budgets for this coming term.
I do not think my questions were unreasonable in terms of asking the government to honour those commitments. Even if we just did two before Easter, perhaps we could save the forest products industry by Holy Thursday. With that announcement, the minister would make most of the country very happy. Perhaps we could also have a definitive response regarding municipalities and future funding. To his credit, the Prime Minister has actually put in writing that the GST rebate would not be removed, so full marks there. Just keep going, check off the other three or four and we will be doing well.