Madam Speaker, I rise with anticipation of what may be a lively debate in the future. We are talking about the expenditure of billions of dollars. Although it has not been mentioned a lot lately, the deficit and the continuing debt will be passed on to our children.
It only stands to reason that opposition members would hope for accountability and transparency from Conservative members in these discussions. I can just see the Auditor General and her staff working overtime in years to come analyzing these expenditures to ensure that taxpayers receive value for their money. We simply do not know.
This is not a question of the NDP wishing to delay assistance to workers and their families in this country. I remind the House that not long ago it was the Conservative government that prorogued Parliament. We did not throw out Parliament. Before that, it was the Conservative government that quit in the middle of governing, It said that it was tired and did not want to govern anymore so it called an election. Nobody asked the Conservatives to do that. They Conservatives spent $300 million, money that could have helped a lot of autism cases in Canada, helped a lot of veterans, helped a lot of students with the cost of their education, helped a lot of seniors and could have cleaned up the environment. Instead of using that money for important issues, the Conservatives called an election.
After the election, the Conservatives painted a picture of no worries. I can hear that song in the background. They said that Canada would not go into deficit, that there would be no recession in Canada, even though everybody else in the world was having financial troubles. In fact, they said that they had provided a stimulus package with their GST cuts and everything else. They said that Canada was in great shape, that no one needed to worry because we were in great shape. They told everyone to sit back and relax.
The Prime Minister told everyone that this was a good buying opportunity. Thank goodness he is not a stockbroker because a lot of people would have lost their shirt and their underwear if they had listened to him.
However, the idea of a coalition scared the living daylights out of the government and all of a sudden Canada had a $34 billion deficit. The Conservatives said that the money needed to go out to Canadians right away, even yesterday, but it would go out without any accountability. That is what amazes me.
I had the privilege of sitting in this place with Preston Manning. Preston Manning and I may have disagreed on a lot of issues but the one thing he and I agreed on was the fact that accountability was important to the taxpayer.
I have heard a countless number of Conservatives over the years say that people should never vote for the NDP because we are a reckless bunch and have no idea how to handle the economy. Who were the top three, most fiscally responsible premiers in the history of this country? They were Allan Blakeney, Roy Romanow and Tommy Douglas. I am taking this information from a Conservative Party report. Who were the three worst premiers of all time? They were Joey Smallwood, Grant Devine--and where did half of his cabinet go--and John Buchanan of Nova Scotia. We are still paying off the debts of those premiers.
We now have a Conservative bunch of people over there and they are not bad folks really. I have said many times that there is not one Conservative, Liberal or Bloc member who I would not want as my neighbour. However, the Conservatives are twisting themselves into pretzels that we cannot even eat because they have completely reversed every one of their principles. It is incredible to think that those members can sit in the House and try to bully us into what they think we must do. When they were in opposition they were very good at attacking the Liberals.
I well remember the HRDC boondoggle. I do give the member for Calgary—Nose Hill a lot of credit for her excellent attacks on the human resources minister when she said that accountability was paramount. Now we have a government saying no, that we need to get it out right now. It is asking us to forget about accountability, forget about transparency and to trust it.
I wonder what the investors of those trust agreements thought. I wonder what those veterans, when Mr. Harper, on September 9, 2008, promised those allied veterans that we would--