Mr. Speaker, as the federal member of Parliament for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, I am pleased to represent the interests and concerns of my constituents as their representative in the Government of Canada.
I would like to acknowledge the hard work of my Conservative caucus colleagues on the finance committee as we debate Bill C-31 as reported from their committee. A line-by-line review of any legislation is a tedious yet very necessary process. This is how we make good legislation better.
As I reviewed the committee testimony as well as the previous debates surrounding the budget implementation bill, there seemed to be a considerable lack of understanding on the part of the opposition in the complexity of running a G7 economy and the measures necessary to keep an advanced industrialized economy running efficiently.
More important, the type of interventions promoted by the Liberal Party in finance committee demonstrate how far the party has shifted to the left under the influence of the disgraced former Ontario Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty's advisor Gerald Butts.
Residents of Ontario, who are suffering from paying the highest electricity rates in North America, will recognize the name Gerald Butts as one of the authors of the so-called Green Energy Act—