Mr. Speaker, my colleague sits on the heritage committee, which I sit on as well. I participated in the hearings on the court challenges program. I must say that as the hearings went on, I saw members on the government side beginning to feel more and more uncomfortable with the position that they were forced to defend. As a matter of fact, I almost felt bad for them because they were grasping for arguments that would be refuted by witnesses or other members until they really had no leg to stand on.
The reason they have no leg to stand on is that this is not a rational, well-founded policy decision. This is a decision that was made on the basis of emotion. It is a decision that was made by a Prime Minister and a president of the Treasury Board at the time, who is today the Minister of the Environment, who had been burned by this program in the past.
When the Prime Minister was the president of the National Citizens Coalition he was burned when he took the electoral financing act to the courts. He was burned by the anti-poverty league as well. The Minister of the Environment, who was a Harris Tory at one point, tried to shut down a French speaking hospital in Ottawa. That is why they made that decision. It is not based on sound policy. It is based on emotion and vendetta, and they should be ashamed.