Mr. Speaker, I will be debating on the amendment. Let me tell members very bluntly, I will never apologize for fighting for the interests of my constituents just because they happen to live in the national capital region.
That member should be ashamed of himself for suggesting that people who live in the national capital region should not have effective representation on the floor of the House of Commons.
He wants to talk about history, so let us talk about history. The land that he discusses, which is held by the federal government, by the National Capital Commission, was confiscated at a third of market value.
I can recommend to him a good book called The Spirit of Nepean by D. Aubrey Moodie, the founder of the community of Nepean, wherein he describes how this land was originally confiscated.
Now, as a result of that, we have a hospital that sits on federal government land, is paying rent, and has paid almost $1 million in rent thus far. It is the only hospital in Canada that is forced to pay rent to the federal government. It is the exception.
Excuse me, but the people of Nepean--Carleton are not asking for special treatment. The nurses who work on their feet 12 hours a day are not asking for special treatment. The patients who wait in line for treatment, for ankle fusions, for hip replacements or for cancer treatment, are not asking for special treatment. They are asking for fairness. They are asking for the same degree of treatment that every other hospital in this country gets.
I see here today that there is an unholy alliance forming between the Liberals and the separatist Bloc Québécois. We have seen the separatists rise and use some sort of historical injustice as an example of why they should continue to perpetuate a modern injustice in the House of Commons.
The separatists say they were mistreated in Quebec by the National Capital Commission, and perhaps they were, but they then use that as their justification for perpetuating another injustice on a hospital near my constituency. The Liberals have used this sense of historical indignation, this hysteria that has propelled the separatist Bloc to its current stature. They have used that as a method of building an alliance with the separatists to defeat my motion and to oppose the hospital.
As with any injustice, one can find a bureaucratic excuse, a rule or some regulation that is hidden deep and dark under the dusty books that the government would never otherwise open. The Liberals can find some excuse for mistreating the hospital so they point to a regulation that was passed, the Treasury Board guideline that was passed some years ago.
And do members know what? It turns out that it is a good regulation. Generally speaking, governments should charge market value when they rent to commercial enterprises or other organizations. But this is a hospital. The vast majority of hospitals across this country get dispensation from provincial or municipal governments. They get their land for $1 because those governments understand the need to support institutions that provide health care to the local citizenry.
Here in the national capital region we have a unique problem where our hospital sits on federal land and has paid nearly $1 million thus far. It is the only hospital to face such an injustice.
I am simply asking for the cabinet and the Prime Minister, who himself has been the number one obstacle to this hospital's advancement, to merely do what they can do this Tuesday at their cabinet meeting to render my motion irrelevant. He could decide this Tuesday to give the hospital its land for $1 a year. He could do it through order in council. He has the legal authority to do it.
If he does that, I say here and now that I will withdraw my motion from the House of Commons and I will applaud him for having done so. That is the kind of non-partisanship I am willing to engage in on behalf of my hospital.
It is funny to hear the Liberals talk about all these rules that get in the way of helping a small hospital. What rules have stopped them from intervening to give a half a million dollar severance to their close friend, David Dingwall?
The rules did not matter when it came to handing out illegal contracts to the ad companies in Quebec, did they? Those rules did not matter. They broke all the rules. When it comes to shovelling money into the pockets of Liberal cronies and Liberal friends, there are no rules.
But when it comes to helping a community hospital, a hospital that serves 400,000 people, many of them seniors, people who are ill, vulnerable and in need, then there are rules. Those rules can see no dispensation from that gang of Liberals.
What this debate has made very clear, especially because we have heard from two Ottawa area Liberals, one from Ottawa—Orléans and one from Ottawa West—Nepean, is that there are two Ottawas. There is the Ottawa of downtown Parliament Hill where the cronies and the lobbyists make all the decisions to pocket the dollars of Canadian taxpayers and help their friends, where we look out for the interests of well-connected Liberals, and then--
