That is a very good question that is being posed. Many would suggest that nothing has changed, it is still Stephen Harper. Many would argue it is Stephen Harper behind the curtains. He is still the driving force with the Conservative Party. There is no change.
Every so often Conservatives give a special invite to that circular table. One of the individuals recently there was Jason Kenney from Alberta. There are some interesting individuals at the top of the leadership.
Imagine the discussion. Doug Ford says, “Just wait a minute, Mr. Leader of the Opposition, I need more time to figure out this environment thing”. As Canadians from coast to coast to coast wait for the Conservative Party to tell us what the plan is, we have to wait for Doug Ford to give instructions to the current opposition leader. Sadly, I do not think that is the limit. I believe that Canadians would be surprised at the degree to which the Conservative Party really takes its direction from individuals like Stephen Ford.
That was a Freudian slip: Stephen Harper and Mr. Ford.
The point is that we would like to see more transparency coming from the Conservative Party. At some point its members have to start telling Canadians what they are proposing. It was not that long ago that the current leader of the official opposition said the deficit would be four or five years. Before long the Conservatives are going to adopt the same policy in regard to what we are talking about on the deficit.
It is important for Canadians to realize whenever we talk about deficits that the Conservatives like to give advice, but when Stephen Harper became the Prime Minister of Canada, he inherited a multi-billion dollar surplus. Before the recession, he had already squandered it and turned it into a multi-billion deficit.
Year after year of Stephen Harper Conservative rule in Canada, the deficit was accumulated in excess of $150 billion. Is it any wonder we do not take advice from Conservatives when it comes to managing the deficit, let alone the economy? We have been able to do in three and a half years what took the Conservative Party on the employment file almost 10 years to do. We know we have to invest in Canadians. We have to invest in infrastructure. We believe in Canadians, not just serving the rich.
Conservatives say they support tax cuts. That is balderdash. When they had a chance to vote for tax cuts, what did they do? They voted no. When they had the opportunity to say the rich in Canada, that one per cent, should pay a little more, they voted no. It is a Conservative Party that caters to its friends. The middle class of Canada is no friend of the Conservative Party. I believe that we have a government that will continue to work—