Mr. Speaker, I find the Minister of Finance's speech interesting. I am not surprised that the government is in favour of a national common securities board.
I do find it interesting, however, that the minister does not underline the fact that the only province that seems to be in favour of it is the province that he has been bashing for the last several weeks and months: the province of Ontario. He has bashed that province to the point where he is actually telling the world, “Don't invest in Ontario”.
This is a minister who, when he was in the provincial government, achieved one of the largest deficits provincially, after having run on a fiscally sound policy. He is now bringing the federal government and Canada to the brink of a deficit again, at a time when our economy is slowing down.
I find it interesting that this is the same minister who is dissing my Liberal colleague for his private member's bill on the RESP, claiming that it is going to bring Canada to the brink of a deficit.
A good fiscal finance minister would have, as elementary as A, B, C, taken the list of all private members' bills and costed out what it would cost if in fact the bills became law, and would have had budgeted for it in a contingency plan. But this minister, who wants to bring about this common securities regulator, and it is quite interesting, does not have the A, B, C elementary intelligence to establish a contingency fund on the basis that some of the private members' bills, or all of them, may come to fruition. Anyone who manages a household budget takes into account every eventuality that may come to fruition.
So, I would like to--