Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the fascinating pitch the member made. About halfway through I found my feet were starting to get wet and then I had to start tucking my pant legs into my socks because of the crocodile tears that were spilling over on the floor of Parliament from the member.
When I hear him talk about the toothless revisions of the Investment Canada Act, I am astounded. Of the 11,000 sell-offs of Canadian corporations that happened, under which party did they happen? They happened under that toothless party, the Liberal Party of Canada. That party stood by and told us that we did not need national protection, that we did not need a national standard. The Liberals stood back and allowed a massive sell-off of so much of our corporate sector.
To come in the House today and to have the gall to stand up and say that the sell-offs of Falconbridge, Inco and Abitibi and other main Canadian companies are somehow due to income trusts is not only an abuse of the facts, but it is selling the intelligence of the Canadian people short. Canadians well remember that it was the member's party, when it was in government, that did nothing about toughening up the Competition Act and allowed so many of these sell-offs.
It was his party, under his prime minister, that created the concept of the flags of convenience. It was the former prime minister whose company had Canadian workers fired on the high seas and hired Filipino and Korean replacements, and had tax havens set up in the Barbados so that a man who was the prime minister of Canada did not have to pay his proper share of taxes.
I want to ask him how he has the gall to stand here now and talk about strengthening Canada's corporate sector.