Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to take part in these adjournment proceedings and specifically relate back to a question that I had asked in the spring session, a question that was prompted, I guess, by some of the selective amnesia on the other side of the chamber. Maybe I will use my four minutes to provide a bit of background as a reminder.
The question I had posed was about the banking system which, at that time, the finance minister was taking great credit for the situation that we found ourselves in here with the meltdown in the United States, south of the border. Our banking system was in relatively strong shape and he was taking the bows and being very self-congratulatory about that.
History shows that a great number on the other side, some now in cabinet on the other side, were some of the greatest champions of the deregulation at the time. They wanted to see the banks go global. They wanted to see them grow. They wanted to see them take on the face of Citibank. That is exactly what those people on the other side were advocating and pushing for.
However, it was successive Liberal governments that did not yield to that type of pressure, that did not yield to compromise the regulatory regime that had been in place, and it was our past prime minister, Jean Chrétien. In retrospect, in hindsight it was absolutely the proper decision to make at the time and, fortunately, Canadians are the benefactors of that strength, that wisdom and that courage that he showed in ensuring that regulatory regime stayed in place.
That is nothing new. History shows that with regard to his decision on Iraq. The people across the floor thought that we should have been there with the Americans but, no, at that time, Prime Minister Chrétien stood his ground and made the right decision, and I think Canadians know that fully now. One on one, I think they on the other side of the chamber might even admit it.
I could go on and on. There was the G20. When I look at the Prime Minister just back from his talks last week, one would think that he invented the G20. However, when Paul Martin was putting forth the importance of developing a G20 including those developing countries, he was vilified by the current Prime Minister saying that multilateralism is so yesterday and that it was a sign of weakness in this nation.
Time after time, issue after issue, whether we look at income trusts or broken promises to widows, there have been problems. The reason for the non-confidence motion today is that we do not get straight answers from the government. There is no recollection of its history and no regard for fact.
I will pose my question for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. When can Canadians expect to get truthful answers, facts, from the government--