Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to ensure that I was speaking to the right issue.
I listened with great interest to my colleague's speech. We talk about the fact that the Conservatives hold themselves out as being great financial managers and then all of a sudden where is this money? There is the issue of where the money is, but there is also the issue of what else could it have been spent on and are there problems here?
What if the money had been spent on something like the eco-energy home retrofit program at $934 million? However, it was not spent there because that program does not exist, but that might resonate with folks. However, if they found out that the $23 million had been spent on media monitoring of Conservative backbenchers, I do not think Canadians would actually accept that this was an appropriate way to spend the money. Therefore, it is really important that we know where this money went.
I want to ask my colleague a question.
When the Auditor General appeared before the committee, he was asked whether it was possible that the $3.1 billion might not necessarily have been used for programs approved by Parliament. The Auditor General responded that he thought he should say that there was a chance of that because he did not have enough information to answer the question fully.
I think this is an important point. There is not enough information to respond, to know what is happening with the money.
I wonder if my colleague would agree with that assessment of the Auditor General at committee.