Mr. Speaker, I have three comments. One, I am definitely not ashamed. Two, I would ask the member, a former minister of the Liberal government, to stop whining in the House. It is really getting sickening. It was not the NDP, it was not the Bloc, it was not the Conservatives who threw his party out of power. It was the people of Canada who threw his party out of power because of his party's corruption and incompetence. I could go down the list. It really is revolting the amount of whining that goes on in the House by the Liberal Party on that issue. It is time that the Liberals focused on what really happened.
As I was listening to the member I could not help but think of George Orwell's 1984. The member is rewriting history from his own perspective and his own desire of what he thought he would like to have seen go on.
Let me assure him and the House that the consultation process, so-called by the former government, around this issue with the city of Windsor and the county of Essex was almost totally meaningless. Whenever there was any discussion, it was ignored by the Liberal government. I will use one example. At one point the Liberal government dumped on the municipal council of the city of Windsor what was called a nine point plan. It was supposed to be the solution. It was a joke. It had been repudiated by council long before it was ever presented formally, point by point. They said it could not be done for this reason or for that reason, but they went ahead, both the provincial government in Queen's Park and the federal government. That is one example. That was repeated over and over again.
The fact that this legislation will have some mandatory consultation available to the minister is definitely an improvement, but it does not in any way reflect the quality of what occurred under the former Liberal administration. The Liberals did not consult in any meaningful way with the community that I come from.