Mr. Speaker, I appreciate parts of the hon. member's question which I thought were important to hear and I appreciate the comments she had.
However, when people watch the House of Commons, one of the things that frustrates them so much is that they look to us to be deliberative in the nature of our discussions. Unfortunately, we are all guilty from time to time of being political, when we should be deliberative.
We all know that question period is the time when the government is to be held to account. We also know that the only way to get it held to account effectively is to put pressure on government members by being effective and strong in our questions and getting media coverage so the public will be concerned and put pressure on the government as well. We recognize that and it is not surprising that question period will be a time when we have that kind of heightened atmosphere.
I do not think it is reasonable, unfortunately, to expect a deliberative process to take place during question period, but I would think that more and more we should look for it in debate here in the House on bills, for example. We should try to be more deliberative.
To get into the question about why we voted or did not vote on the question of the mini budget, for example, I think we know the answer to that. That is clearly trying to be political. It is making a political attack, a partisan attack, and my hon. colleague knows full well that in the past there have been times when the NDP has not voted to avoid an election.
We also know, we have seen the polls, that the likely result, if the polls are accurate lately, would mean a very similar House. We would have $300 million spent at taxpayers' expense to have an election to have basically the same result.
I would not be all that surprised if Canadians said that they have all kinds of reasons to be unhappy with the government, and being reminded of that in an election, they might make a change, but the chances were at that time that we would have the same results.
My hon. colleague is being unreasonable and being a little bit partisan and political when it is an appropriate moment for us to look at the bill, to look at how it can be improved, and focus on this very important issue of youth justice and how we can work at it. That is the key here, not being partisan.