Mr. Speaker, I serve with the member on the finance committee and I have a great deal of respect for him but I am absolutely astounded by some of his remarks here today.
The fact is that he was here in the House, as I was, when Parliament was prorogued in the past by the Liberal government when there was a full slate of bills on the order paper. When Prime Minister Chrétien prorogued twice when I was in opposition, I did not hear any complaints from the member at that time.
In terms of dissent, it is interesting that the member equates not funding an organization with not allowing that organization to speak. An organization has every right to speak and every right to raise funds, as groups, such as Results Canada, do, which I know that he and I both respect.
With respect to funding, though, the member is constantly telling me how we should be spending less as a government. If he does not think that cuts to those certain groups should have been made, I would like the member to stand in his place and state explicitly where he or the Liberal Party believes this government should actually cut funding instead of the funding to the groups that he has outlined.
I would also like the member to address the issue of dissent. This Prime Minister, as a member of a centre right government, actually appointed to our most important foreign post perhaps the most successful centre left politician in this country at the provincial level, Gary Doer, to represent us in Washington. If that is not an example of a Prime Minister reaching across the ideological aisle to ensure that we are well represented as Canadians, I do not know what is.
I would like the member to comment on those things and perhaps retract some of those outlandish statements he made in his speech here today.