This omnibus budget bill is not just large and complex because the economic problems are complex, as he suggests, but actually because it has become all too common. I think it is an affront to Parliament and an affront to democracy.

This administration has chosen to throw in things that have nothing to do with the budget, things such as adding additional judges to Alberta and Quebec. That is something I support, but it does not belong in a budget bill. There are changes to trademark law; changes to the Hazardous Products Act and to the workplace hazardous chemicals regime; and substantial and devastating and anti-constitutional provisions under the Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act, known as FATCA.

I would ask him if he would not be willing, within his own caucus on that side, to argue against the use of such monster bills in the future?

Larry Miller:  Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague across the way for her question, for her kind comments on my private member’s bill that went through the House unanimously, and for her support on that.

We ran on a commitment to do a lot of things. If she were fair and would express honestly, she would agree with my next comment. At the end of the day, it would not matter what we had in our budget, the folks across the way would be more than likely to vote against it. That is what opposition does, which is unfortunate in this place, but it is the way it is.

The things we have in the bill are very important to Canadians and our economy, and I fully support them.

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He has done a fine job in bringing forward his own bill to ban bulk water exports, and in that spirit I ask him if he feels like joining the opinion of the majority of us on the opposition benches, who find it regrettable that the good measures he mentioned in his speech are thrown into a omnibus budget bill that includes many different elements that really would have been better served by being studied separately. They include such things as changes to the Canada Labour Code, changes to our Immigration Act, changes to the Mackenzie gas pipeline fund, and changes to the treatment of the Dominion Coal lands—in fact, selling them without having a proper hearing in this place.

I wonder if he might agree that it would be better for democracy if proper bills came forward individually.

Larry Miller: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her fine comments and especially for pointing out the many good things that are in this Bill C-4 that we are talking about. I am not going to repeat them. They are almost too numerous to allow following up on all of them. However, I thank her for recognizing that.

Again, in the House we do not always get everything that we want, but she and every other member here, on all sides of the House, have a chance to debate what is in this bill. At the end of the day, with all of those good things that she herself mentioned, I look forward to her supporting the bill

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