Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague and I remember Bre-X. Many people in my riding lost money in Bre-X, people who invested because they thought this was a good investment. It was heartbreaking for them.
What is similar is that this was a bubble, like Bre-X, that was allowed to grow out of control. We know that it went from a relatively obscure form of investment to $200 billion in capital holdings in just a few years. That is $200 billion that was not being paid into taxes.
We have seen so many financial players who were about to switch over to income trusts and the Liberals made the decision at the time to go for cheap votes and refused to deal with it. The member for Wascana helped create this bubble beyond what it was and average people were hurt because of a government that was committed to short term political votes rather than a long term commitment to the economy.
If my friend says that he wants the old country of Canada back, what about the $200 billion-plus of money that was diverted away from taxable income that would have helped average Canadians like the average Canadians in my riding who are seeing more and more costs downloaded to them because there is not a proper tax base?