Madam Speaker, I very much enjoy the member for Winnipeg North's spin on how he thinks the proceedings in the House of Commons are going. He lives here quite often and does quite a lot of work. He carries a lot of water for the current Liberal government. I know he takes pride in that.
There are some things that I will probably take issue with, but I understand how much work the member does, and that he carries the water for the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister's Office, all while taking on some of the slings and arrows that no one else on that side of the bench wants. I remember another Liberal from western Canada who did that. That Liberal had been elected for 25 years, and he was Mr. Ralph Goodale.
The member across said that he had been elected for 20 years. There is only so long someone can carry the water for Ottawa before going back out to western Canada and western Canadians asking, “When are you going to start being a voice for us again?” Mr. Goodale went through that in the 2019 election. I would like to give some advice to my learned colleague across the way: There is only so much water a person can carry before that bucket spills over, leaving their constituents to think that they are not being supported any more.
This process to go through $57 billion of spending over the last four and a half hours is very interesting. The member stated that we as the opposition always want to create chaos to make it appear that the House is not functioning properly. I say that there is nothing further from the truth. I think we are working as team Canada. We want to contribute.
We contributed with the CEWS, the emergency wage subsidy, when the government first brought it in. We talked to our constituents across the country. They told us it was not going to work for businesses. We also went to members of the opposition. I believe that is one of the reasons why the benefit increased from 10% to 75%.
Members on this side have helped with the team Canada approach and have added some constructive criticism. That in turn has helped Canadian businesses to keep employees longer. It has helped people get through the pandemic, but more often than not, when we put ideas forward, there is a feeling that we are left without teammates.
When it comes to us working as part of team Canada, the Liberal member suggests that we be constructive and bring forward ideas. We continue to do that. I remember asking questions of the minister responsible for economic development and employment in July.
The member has said there was a full Parliament, but there was not. It was a COVID-19 committee. Once again the spin and the rhetoric does not match the words coming out of the member for Winnipeg North's mouth because there was no full Parliament. We know that. When he is says that, the member is trying to mislead Canadians.
He has also said that this has been the most open and transparent government in history, which could not be further from the truth. I remember during the start of the pandemic, when we were having our COVID-19 committee meetings, the Prime Minister was in his cottage hiding under his bed because he did not want to make a decision for Canadians. He would pop out every day like a cuckoo clock when the media was there to give his two-minute statement, take three softball questions and then go back into Rideau cottage. I do not think that was showing leadership when Canadians needed it the most.
The member of Parliament for Winnipeg North sits there and says that there has been great leadership and the government has shown Canadians that it has been there every step of the way. I know that constituents in Regina—Lewvan do not feel that way.
I know the hon. member also said, “When standing in this House you should say and speak of what your constituents would want you to say”. I am sorry to say, Madam Speaker, that if I did that you would ask me to leave because sometimes my constituents use colourful language to describe how they feel the Liberal government has left them behind time and time again.
The member said that we are talking too much about prorogation. I think that over the 10 or 15 years he was on these benches, in the corner, he talked about former prime minister Harper and his government proroguing Parliament. The opposition at that time could not scream it loud enough from the rooftops, but this is a different situation. This is a Liberal government. This is just another case of “Do as we say, not as we do. It is is respectful for us to prorogue Parliament because we are going to do a reset”.
The member keeps saying that we are going to turn the page, but he does not finish his sentence. What did the hon. member want to turn the page from? Why do we have to turn the page? The election was not very long ago. The government is only a year into its mandate. What does the page need to be turned from? There was a throne speech. Why did we have to have another one?
Both throne speeches are the same. The Liberals have the same recycled promises they will never follow through on. They have been promising child care and day care probably since I was in day care, so they have never really followed through on that one. The problem we see on this side is there will be 50 billion to 60 billion dollars' worth of spending, so forgive us if we do not think we should just write blank cheques to the Liberals.
I should have said this earlier, but this will be a shorter speech because I will be splitting my time with the member for Perth—Wellington.
Forgive us if we do not feel the Liberals deserve a blank cheque. I have another sports analogy about this and it concerns teammates. Lots of time on a sports team there are unforced errors. We feel it is the unforced errors of the Liberals that have caused the slow response to COVID-19. They all knew that on September 30 we were going to need new programming in place because CERB was ending.
However, we see unforced error after unforced error, including the WE scandal, the Prime Minister's chief of staff's husband getting a contract for $84 million, the Prime Minister's friends and family benefiting from the WE scandal, and Frank Baylis getting the contract for ventilators that were never certified. All these scandals backed up their agenda. They had to prorogue Parliament because, as the member for Winnipeg North said, we had to turn the page.
It is not the Conservatives' fault we are sitting here debating 50 billion to 60 billion dollars' worth of spending in four and a half hours because the Liberals did not have a plan for Canadians. They have continued to leave Canadians behind throughout the whole pandemic.
As the new shadow minister for economic development, I see the one thing missing from the throne speech, in which they said they are going to turn the page, is that the words “private enterprise” were only mentioned once, because the Liberals think private enterprise should help develop the COVID-19 app. There was no mention of releasing private enterprises' ability to spend money, to ensure they are able to hire more people and to help regain our economic advantage in the natural resources sector.
The member for Winnipeg should know that across western Canada there are 20 billion dollars' worth of private investment ready to go. The Liberals are building a pipeline that a private company was going to build. If the Liberals would have got out of the way, they would not have had to spend $4.5 billion on a pipeline and another $10 billion to help build it. The private sector would have done that, and we would not have had to waste public dollars.
The private sector gives money to help all these programs they want to run. When we have a throne speech that mentions private enterprise and private business once, that is not a plan for an economy of the future. That is not a plan for Canadians.
What Canadians wanted from the government in the throne speech during a pandemic was some hope and stability. They wanted to know, after COVID-19, what does Canada look like next? They did not want a bunch of ideologies. The problem right now with the Liberal government is there are no public servants on the front benches. There are a bunch of radical ideologues who want to change what Canada looks like to fit their picture of Canada.
That is not what Canadians want. Canadians want to go back to work. Canadians want to help their families get ahead. Canadians want to know that after we get through this COVID-19 pandemic together, there is a future for their children.
I have three young children. After I leave Ottawa and go home, they are going to ask me what I did at work. I want to say that we tried to make sure we had time to talk about our future, and that our future has hope and optimism for our children. I do not want our children to think that what they have seen over the last six months is what Canada is going to look like for the next six years. It is our job to ensure that the next generation has the same chance to succeed that we had.
As we go through this bill, we hear from the other side of the aisle that the Conservatives do not care, that Conservatives do not want to put forward ideas and that Conservatives do not want to make Canada better. It is all just untrue. It makes us feel pretty upset that the Liberals talk about wanting to have a team Canada approach, but our teammates continue to make unforced errors. They make sure they do not take advice from this side of the House that would make sure Canadians can get back to work and ensure we have success going forward.