Mr. Speaker, I see that the hon. member once again fails to argue from principle. Her point seems to be that if we are going to have a common securities regulator, the headquarters should be in Montreal. That means the member is in favour, I guess, of a common securities regulator. What we are down to now is where will we locate the headquarters.
Mr. Crawford's panel recommended that the board of directors of the new common securities regulator should decide an appropriate place for the location of the securities regulator. The board is composed of 14 members: 10 from the provinces, 3 from the territories and 1 representative from the Government of Canada. But I thank the hon. member for her support in principle of the idea.
I also thank her for her support in principle of the budget which, as we know, passed through this House a week ago Tuesday.
I regret her American-style rider that the Liberals tried to add to the budget the next day, on the Wednesday, this congressional-type tactic, this Homer kind of tactic. It is kind of like arguing that the securities commission headquarters is the most important thing. It is what I have grown to expect from the hon. member, this kind of lack of vision for our country and looking at small items rather than looking at the big picture.
But in the budget there is a big picture; that is, a balanced budget by a Conservative government in Canada. And we will maintain a balanced budget.
The member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine may not be interested in a balanced budget. She may want to have deficits. She probably wants to go back to the good old days of March madness where the Liberals just loved that they had surpluses and they blew the money every March all over. They did not give it back to taxpayers. No. They spent it on their pet projects all over the country, many without parliamentary approval.
I know the member is chattering on because she is very concerned about her idea. Maybe she wants to put the headquarters of the common securities regulator in Montreal. Maybe she wants to put it somewhere else. But she does not speak to the principle; that is, the national interest of Canada in global capital markets.
If she listens, maybe she will want to consult a former finance minister, the member for Wascana, who said:
I don't believe that the passport system is an adequate response. It still leaves us with a system that is largely fragmented and certainly less sophisticated than that in virtually every other country in the world.
That was the view of the member for Wascana, the former minister of finance in the Liberal government, and obviously a view not shared in respect to where the headquarters should be by the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine.