Mr. Speaker, I received an email from a colleague with regard to an editorial in the Halifax Chronicle Herald. One of the paragraphs struck me as being reflective of the problem that we are addressing today. It states:
It’s not that the general public understands the intricacies of the equalization regime or the offshore deals Ottawa made with Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador in 2005. But in their gut, folks do understand that the Harper government has broken faith with Atlantic Canada by failing to deliver all that had been promised.
When the media report on the issues of importance of the day and reach the conclusion that this is a broken promise, it is hard to understand how the government and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans can get up with a straight face and say, “We didn't break the promise. We're in fact giving more money”.
It is so puzzling how the public and everyone has assessed this, and it is objectively determinable what the facts are, and yet a minister of the Crown comes into this place and says something totally different and somehow figures that if he says it often enough people might believe him.
There seems to be a very disturbing pattern of saying black is white. I could give many examples. Whether it be on income trusts, Kelowna or Kyoto, there are so many areas where the government seems to want to just say to people whatever it wants even though it is not fact based.
I wonder if the member has some concerns about the believability of the information that the government seems to be putting forward to the House on matters of importance to all Canadians.