Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to add a few words to this debate on what has been happening today for Canadians watching.
The government has moved a motion to ensure the budget gets through Parliament today. Canadians may be wondering what the rush is and why the government is so determined to get the budget through today. The simple answer is that if the budget does not go through today and it does not get to the Senate for it to consider and, hopefully, pass, then important spending measures would simply disappear, which is an important and undesirable consequence.
The budget was introduced on March 19. Members of this House have had three months to attack it, to rail against it or, conversely, to laud its virtues and the good things about it. There has been plenty of time for everyone, not just members of this House, but Canadians themselves to look at this budget. The budget has been out in the public domain for quite a while.
This budget should have passed the House a few days ago in order to give the Senate reasonable time to consider it, study it and make its determination on it. If this budget does not pass the House, there will be no royal assent and the budget will fail, as will the important spending measures in this budget implementation bill for Canadians.
If the spending programs are not endorsed by Parliament, by law the money will need to go toward paying down the debt. These programs, which Canadians are counting on, and a lot of my colleagues have gone through the list many times, programs for the environment, for education, for the provinces and for a whole range of good, proper and appropriate things, will not be implemented. In the next budget there will be less money to work with and there will be other priorities so these spending measures could well be lost altogether. The government cannot allow that to happen. It is, therefore, urgent that this budget pass and go over to the Senate before the Senate rises for the summer as well.
Getting the budget through is fundamental to the government's interests, and I do not think anyone would question that. I think everyone recognizes that fact. The Liberals agreed that if they could have all the witnesses they wanted at the finance committee to look at this budget, that they would not impede the budget going through the House in time to preserve these important spending programs.
However, as events unfolded, the Liberals saw an opportunity to cause grief to the government by continuing to attack the budget. I understand that is a well-nigh, irresistible opportunity for the Liberals in the official opposition so they broke the agreement to let the budget go through the House.
Here we are today and the government needs to get these measures through. This is an urgent matter. It is not something that would be nice to get through or that we would really like to get through. It must go through or these measures will be lost. Limiting debate through time allocation, which we are debating today, is the only way to save these important spending programs.
I do not understand the Liberal hypocrisy of saying that the government should not be limiting debate. There has been plenty of debate in this House on the budget. I might add that the Liberals used closure and time allocation as a matter of course when they were in government. Almost every single major government bill put forward by the Liberals had time allocation limiting debate. They pushed their legislation through. More than one-third of their measures were pushed through that way and yet they are crying foul when, on a clearly urgent matter, the government is using the only tool available to get the budget through.
The government is not doing this alone. The majority of the members in the House want the budget to go through, including members of the opposition. It is not just the big bad Conservatives doing this. The majority in the House recognize that we cannot lose these important spending programs.
The Liberals know they cannot defeat the government's budget through the front door so they are claiming they should be allowed to defeat it through the back door with these delaying tactics, but that is just not so. They said that they would not use these tactics and yet they are using them. We now need to limit debate, but not in any unreasonable or arbitrary way because there has been plenty of debate, but we need to get the budget through the House so it can go to the Senate and then Canadians can have the programs they have been counting on.
We heard a lot of hues and cries from over there because new program spending for festivals was not released two weeks after the budget came out. However, the same people who are asking us for the money are not supporting the budget. There is so much hypocrisy that it is hard sometimes to even sit still and be quiet about it.
My friend who just spoke has one interpretation of the Atlantic accords and what they should mean, but he knows there are other legitimate interpretations in the Conservative Party, among the experts who he cited and in his own province. There are legitimate differences of opinion. That is not a surprise. That is what happens in a big country with a lot of experts and people looking at many different factors. These are very complex programs.
He says that we need to find a way to resolve these differences of opinion. I agree and the government agrees that we need to find a way but how will we find a way if we close the door, walk away from the table or refuse to be part of the discussions? Sadly, that is what my friend did. I have the greatest respect for my friend but we cannot resolve differences or find a way to bring people with different opinions together if we just throw it aside and say that nothing will happen my way so I will walk away.
As the House knows, voting against the budget is a public statement of non-confidence in a government. How can someone be part of an organization in which he says publicly that he has no confidence? If I am a member of a law firm and I say that the firm is not doing a good job for its clients, does anyone think that law firm would keep employing me, paying me money and letting me be a partner when I am saying that it is not a good law firm and I do not have any confidence in it? It cannot be that way.
The member, unfortunately, is not sitting on our benches and is not part of any discussions that might be taking place in order to resolve the very differences that he says we must resolve. I might remind the Liberals opposite who say that this should not have been done and that someone who says that he or she has no confidence in the government should still be sitting on government benches, their party just a few months ago kicked somebody out who dared to give the Prime Minister of Canada some advice in an area in which he had some special expertise. He helped the Prime Minister of Canada and, therefore, was kicked out of the Liberal Party.
Another member of the Liberal Party was kicked out because there was something in the budget that his constituents had been asking for quite a while. The Liberals did not give it to them but it was in the Conservative budget and the member felt that he had to vote for it. He was kicked out.
We then had the Liberal leader saying that a member would be kicked out if he or she supported the two measures that the Liberals had put in and, even though the Liberals decided they did not like them, members had to vote the way they were told.
The fact is that we do not want anyone to be kicked out of any party. What we want is for all members of the House to realize that we are here to do a job for Canadians. If there are differences of opinion we want to resolve them in a timely and reasonable manner.
We want to get this budget through. We want to continue to work to bring people together to give them the programs they need and deserve. I urge members of the House to vote tonight for the budget and let us get on with doing the job that we are here to do, which is to help the people of this country.