Listen to those Hollywood cowboys shout. They are talking about the Plains of Abraham again. They want me to go back to the Plains of Abraham. These people forget what francophones did for Canada. They forget that the reason we are not the fifty-first state of the United States is that the francophones joined up with the British, who conquered this country and entered into a relationship that was to form a new country.
I know it is a very sore point and that these complainers like to play rough and tough. That is their whole attitude. You see, their friends are very rich, so one of their priorities here in the House is to cut taxes. In fact, what they would like to do is close the whole government down. They could not care less about immigration or citizenship or the poor. They could not care less about families or the poor worker.
I almost forgot to remind the House that when health care is on the agenda, they would like their friends to take advantage of our health care system and make our hospital and health care system more like the one in the United States. Down there, private companies take the money and prevent people from getting the medication and the kind of hospital care they need, but everything is based on systems à la Ross Perrot or Newt Gingrich. These people have no interest in the common good.
The members of the Reform Party, those Hollywood cowboys who, as they say, want to lynch anything that moves, believe only in the rich and protecting the rich. They do not believe in the middle class and especially not the poor, except when they feel like giving some money to help people who are in need, to make their consciences feel better.
As you can hear, during my speech, the Reform Party members just keep shouting. Can you imagine one of this gang of tough guys sitting in your seat as Deputy Chairman? They would just spend their time shouting at us. They would not spend their time saying that we have to improve the circumstances of the average citizen. They will not recognize what the Liberal government has done since 1993. They do not believe in all this. They believe in the law of the jungle. They want to see the deficit completely eliminated within a very short time. They would like to take us back to the time of the depression and cut everywhere.
This afternoon in committee, we were talking about government cuts in public service spending. I really felt uncomfortable, because a lot of public servants have lost their jobs. Reform Party members told me that if they formed the government, public servants would really get the short end of the stick, because they want to close the whole government down. They want to cut everything. They would like to fire all public servants, then turn around and give all these
jobs to their friends so they can make a buck at the expense of Canadians.
The worst scenario we could have during this session would be to have a member of the Bloc-but at least Bloc members are often reasonable-but Reform Party members are never reasonable. Can you imagine a member of the Reform Party as Deputy Chairman of the committees of the whole House? Do you want to work with someone from the Reform Party? Absolutely not, no one could work with them.
They would sit over there with their whips-and we must not forget the rope too, since someone needs to be hanged from time to time. As for those accused of something, not someone found guilty, they deserve a royal thrashing.
I would be greatly disappointed if the government were to decide to have a Reformer as Deputy Chairman. Theirs is an anti-people party, a party for the strongest, one which believes that he who yells the loudest get the most. For anyone who is sick or poor, theirs would be the last party in the world to vote for.
