Mr. Hec Clouthier

I beg your indulgence, Mr. Speaker.

When the member wants to take a run at our Prime Minister—and our Prime Minister can quite easily defend himself—but when he starts to talk about $2 million and $3 million, which he has no proof of, let us look at the scenario.

The Leader of the Opposition gave over $20 million in grant money to golf courses, tuxedo rental shops and limousines in his own riding and over $14 million has not been accounted for. Let us not start taking a run at our Prime Minister because of something that he may or may not have done.

Let us talk about health—

Mr. Hec Clouthier

Tell us about the flat tax.

Mr. Hec Clouthier (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence, Lib.)

Mr. Speaker, talk about the beam, beam me up, Scotty. I do not know where this member just came from.

I do not know where to start. I do not know whether to call him a well practised prevaricator, because he is at variance with so many truths on this side of the House, or whether to say he suffers from selective amnesia. He stood up and said that he was going to tell the parliamentary secretary of finance where his party was going to make the cuts. The cuts under that party's flat tax plan would mean that we would have to make cuts of $25 billion.

I do not have the mathematical expertise of the hon. member for Elk Island. I am just a farmer and a lumberjack from the upper Ottawa Valley, but I have itemized this. He has $7.5 million, so he is only about $24,996,000,000 shy.

First, he did make a rather caustic remark about me being in harness horse racing. Yes, I am very proud of the fact that I have my licence for harness horse racing. I have probably seen more horses' asses than most people, so I know them when I see them. I am looking upon them now because if that party expects the Canadian public to buy its tax plan, it is treating the entire Canadian public like a bunch of horses' asses, excuse the language.

Mr. Hec Clouthier

You need to drag it again, that's gone.

Mr. Hec Clouthier (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Lib.)

Mr. Speaker, today would have been the birthday of perhaps Canada's greatest political icon, Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

I am proud to say that Mr. Trudeau and I share the same birthday, October 18. I am also proud to say that I am a strong believer in Mr. Trudeau's value system. He cared about all people. He cared about their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties.

Pierre Trudeau believed that we could not grow as a country if we were burdened by old conflicts and old antagonisms of race against race, region against region, language against language and ego against ego. He inspired us to build a free, fair, just and responsible society. His hope and confidence, his compassion and decency, his understanding and compromise, his style, his intellect and his passion lifted his people and Canada to a higher destiny, a new plateau of excellence.

Thank you, Mr. Trudeau. You are one of the brightest stars in this country's firmament.