Mr. Speaker, I feel like I am going to have to play the part of Columbo on this question because we have to do some investigation on the out of his depth analogy.
I find it really quite remarkable that the member for Markham—Unionville stands and says it is “debt dumping, stupid”. He is right, it is debt dumping. Quite frankly, I do not understand why the Liberals took so long to deal with it. I have many quotes here.
We are going to determine who exactly is out of their depth, and I want to ask a question about the Liberal plan on foreign investment.
The Financial Post said, “Rarely has a political news release contained as many bad economic ideas as the Liberals compacted into their call yesterday for a national frenzy over foreign investment”. The Edmonton Journal said, “It was a lame attempt to exploit public angst about foreign takeovers”. The National Post said, “typical case of politicians meddling in a world of which they know little”. I think it is speaking perhaps of the Liberal Party and that it does not know much about this.
When he talked about people being out of their depth, who is he really talking about? I think he is talking about the Leader of the Opposition, because clearly this is bad policy. Clearly, it is bad for Canadians and it will lead to less overall investment and less overall for Canadians. That is the Liberal plan.
I would love to know why the member stands in the House all the time and says that we do not understand. According to experts across the country, it is the Liberal Party that does not understand. The only problem is it is so far beyond its understanding that it does not even know it does not get it.
I will try to get to the bottom of this. Why did this bill sit around since 1999, and it is now 2007, and it took the Conservative Party to bring it to the House for a vote to make it law? Why did the Liberals not deal with it? Were they out of their depth? Did it matter? They did not get it done and I would love to understand why.