Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Winnipeg North as we enter into this debate.

If I could be allowed a bit of latitude outside of the realm of the motion, I want to do something that is not that common in the House and pay a compliment to the government.

Upon assuming his new duties as the Minister of Justice, my colleague from Nova Scotia announced that the government would be undertaking a review of the federal action on the Fenwick MacIntosh issue, which many in the House are familiar with. It devastated a number of constituents in my riding. The Minister of Justice was very much aware of this case long before he took on this responsibility. One of the first times I had an opportunity to talk about the case was with the minister, who was in opposition at the time. This was the first file that he asked for upon coming to his new portfolio as justice minister. After a review of that file, he directed the department to go forward with the review of the federal responsibility in the case. I want to acknowledge him here on the floor of the House for that, and that is where I will stop flattering the government.

The essence of the motion is really about trying to split off aspects of the omnibus bill and unbundling some of the bill as it goes forward. The government announced in the throne speech yesterday that it was going to move forward to unbundle cable packages, and it is only fair that it come into the chamber with that same kind of spirit and unbundle some of the aspects of this omnibus bill.

We hoped that the Speech from the Throne yesterday would articulate a clear vision of what the government wants to accomplish over the next couple of years. We thought the vision would be obvious, but it would really only allow us the opportunity to maybe delete Vision television from our cable package. What we witnessed here yesterday with the Speech from the Throne was a really strange undertaking.

We in the Liberal Party are comfortable and supportive of many aspects identified in the motion. Our leader has gone on record on a number of occasions, speaking in favour of aspects of the motion: the oversight on the economy and the portion of the motion that identifies the oversight we want to see. We have taken initiatives already, and our leader has led the charge on that with full disclosure and proactive disclosure. We are comfortable with the aspects of the motion that identify that and we think they are worthy of going forward.

With respect to the initiative on the study of murdered or missing first nations women, we had hoped the throne speech would be the occasion to call for a full public enquiry. It is something with which we would be comfortable.

My former colleague from Winnipeg, Anita Neville, has long been an advocate and has on numerous occasions spoken passionately on the issue in this chamber. I was always inspired by how passionate she was when she would speak on the issue. Unfortunately, we have not seen any action on that particular issue from the government. That is an obvious disappointment, and this is one aspect of the motion that our leader and our entire party support.

Having listened to Shawn Atleo speak recently about this, I know it is an issue that grips not only first nations communities. All Canadians are aware of the horror of the issue. Therefore, I hope the government will go forward with a full inquiry. As the motion is written here, we are very supportive of that aspect.

With regard to the reconstitution of the committees, one of the most frustrating aspects since coming to the chamber and serving as an opposition member in a majority government is that I am only one member on a committee. What happens a lot of times is that a committee will embark on a particular project with the greatest of intentions, but we really do not get to a lot of the tough, core issues that are of most concern to Canadians in many of the 18 committees that grow from the House, because anything that could reflect in a somewhat negative light on the government is not allowed to go forward. Therefore, we are doing work that, yes, has purpose and is of benefit, but there are other things we could do that would be more beneficial for a greater number of Canadians and for Canadians who are really finding it difficult out there.

In my own human resources and skills development committee, certainly the issues around employment insurance and the changes that have been made would have been very worthwhile. However, we are not getting the opportunity. Then when we do undertake a study and witnesses come forward and offer testimony that is brought forward and reaffirmed by witness after witness, if it does not fit into the government's narrative we do not see it in the final report. I talk to people on other committees, and they say time after time that when they get to the essence of an issue that testimony is missing from the final report. We can put in a dissenting report, but if we want to move forward and do the best we can for Canadians, we need to come together and work around the political stripes and the ideologies. That is when this place functions at its best.

Therefore, in reconstituting the committees, unless there is that spirit of doing the best work we can to represent the greatest number of Canadians—those Canadians who are facing hardship, those who do not have a voice—then we should be compelled as lawmakers to do just that. There are many Canadians out there who are having a tough time of it. When we see the unemployment rate for young Canadians at twice the level of the national average, that has to be of concern. When we see the underemployment rate of young Canadians at almost 25%, that has to be of concern.

If I could, I will wrap up with this. The most recent statistics state that the number of Canadians working for minimum wage has doubled since the Prime Minister has taken over. We see more and more Canadians who have become a whole new category of the working poor. I think that is troubling.

I would hope that, once we get the committees reconstituted, we can look at some of these important issues. There are many aspects of this motion that we are very excited about and want to support.

Rodger Cuzner

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