Mr. Speaker, I noticed my colleague referred many times to his surprise at the government's intransigence on this issue but it would speak to a very clear pattern. This is the wrong government at the wrong time. We have a Prime Minister who is habituated to conflict and not working together.
When this $3 billion fund was first raised and opposition members said what kind of accountability, what kind of oversight will there be, the Prime Minister's initial response was not to say that he would talk about it and explain it. He said that he would bring Parliament down and go to an election immediately unless the opposition bowed down. That is the wrong kind of messaging in a time of economic crisis and yet that is the pattern we have seen again and again.
The Prime Minister broke his own election law in September and said he could not work with the opposition because it would not work with his agenda and yet he had not met with any of the opposition about the agenda. He came back after the election for about five days and then he had to prorogue Parliament because his so-called economic stimulus package was so ideologically toxic that we were almost in a constitutional crisis.
Now we are here once again with the Prime Minister who uses buccaneer-style politics to say that if he does not get his way, if he is asked for any accountability, any oversight, if opposition members do any of their work, which is what they are supposed to do, he threatens to bring down the House.
Does my hon. colleague think the Prime Minister is even capable of taking us through a crisis like this given his predilection for conflict?