38th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION
EDITED HANSARD • NUMBER 120
CONTENTS
Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Mr. Ed Komarnicki (Souris—Moose Mountain, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the finance minister spoke in this House when he was talking about his budget. He said he had consulted many Canadians and had arrived at a balanced budget. In fact, when the Leader of the Opposition spoke to him to see if he would make any changes to the budget, he said only technical changes, not substantial changes.

Yet when the government was faced with a non-confidence vote, it was prepared to spend $4.6 billion to buy the support of the NDP members, simply for the purpose of staying in government. In addition to this, we found that constitutionally when a motion of confidence is raised in this House, directly or indirectly, there is an obligation on the Prime Minister to call a non-confidence vote of his own. For a week, without any constitutional authority to continue to govern in this House, in my mind, he used the levers of power and the levers of government to buy additional votes simply to stay in power.

Furthermore, the member has indicated that he has visited Saskatchewan. He should have visited Saskatchewan more recently, when there were 49 auction sales in my constituency and 179 auction sales in Saskatchewan. Farmers are going through the greatest crisis of their lifetimes. Husbands and wives and sons and daughters are working to try to survive on the farm. It is the greatest crisis they have ever faced.

Meanwhile, this government is throwing around $4.6 billion. It is making a deal with the NDP and spending $4.6 billion but with nothing for the farmers of Saskatchewan in that deal when they are in the greatest crisis of their lives. Why is that?