Mr. Speaker, the minister wants me to speak up a little. Okay, I will speak a little louder for the minister so the minister can hear every word of well-deserved criticism for that member and every other member on that side of the House.
Speaking of this side of the House, if there was the leadership that there should be from the leader of the official opposition to work with the other two parties, to use the fact that we on this side represent the majority of Canadians and majority of votes in the House of Commons, as my colleague from Winnipeg Centre has said, without the vote of somebody on this side of the House or MPs staying home, the Conservatives could not pass anything. We have that control. We have that opportunity. The threat of an election momentarily is suspended. Now is the moment to strike.
Instead, we have the Liberals wanting it both ways. They stand up and criticize. Heck, they could be using some of our speaking notes as they make some of the same criticisms we do, which are really good arguments I might add, but they have no intention of really doing anything. They just want to bark a lot. It is not even that much barking because we are the ones who have to put forward the speakers to keep this bill going. If we folded, this debate would be over.
It is as much with sadness as anger that I look at this situation, particularly since we do not have the imminent threat of an election, as the counterpoint to where we are. We do not want a revolution. What we want to do is bring democracy back to the House. We want this bill split. If we had the support of all the opposition members, the bill would be split.
In fact, the bill would not pass if the majority in the House of Commons stood united, but it is not, and so we are doing what we can. I readily acknowledge it is not nearly as much as we would like. We are the fourth party with the smallest caucus but probably with the greatest determination to stand up to this undemocratic budget bill.
If government members want to sigh and roll their eyes at what they think is just a big waste of time, fine. We have already heard from the government. It is the Conservatives' bill; it is their plan. What we would like is for virtually every opposition member to stand in his or her place and not only speak against the bill but commit to march into the House and exercise the greatest right and privilege that members of this place have: their precious vote. Just the threat of doing it would be enough to get the ball rolling to make changes.
However, as long as the official opposition continues to play official lapdog, the government knows that as long as it puts up with all the speeches from the New Democrats, it will ultimately get its way. The Liberals have given a wink and a nod that they will speak against it and some of them will vote against it, but do not worry, not enough to really do anything, not enough to make a difference, not enough to bring some democracy to this process. Theirs is not that kind of commitment, just the kind that they can put on a news release and base some speeches on.
There is very much to be said but I know we will all get another opportunity to go at this again this afternoon. I look forward to that opportunity. More than anything, I am hoping that during the course of this debate I will see a real official opposition acting like an official opposition and joining with the majority of the House to do the right thing for the majority of Canadians that this side of the House represents.