Mr. Speaker, it was ironic hearing from the Conservatives that at least their ads had produced something. We all fondly remember the Canada job grant, where the government spent millions of dollars on a program that did not exist. It encouraged Canadian companies and Canadians to apply for what? Nothing. All that money went down the drain, but the Conservatives are happy with what it was intended to do. What it was intended to do was to gloss over their bad economic record and say that they were doing something.
Of course, where Canadians get frustrated, and they were equally as frustrated when the Liberals did it, is when taxpayer money is used to fund a campaign or advertising blitz that is not cheap, especially during playoff time in Canada, to promote messages where partisan parts of the conversation are also promoted at the same time.
The Conservatives are defending themselves by holding up the Liberal record on misspent advertising revenue. As New Democrats, we say it is not much justification to say that the Liberals were bad and there was a sponsorship scandal but they at least have not done that. What the Conservatives have done is to try to perfect the beast, to make it even more insidious and lead people to more cynicism.
My question for my friend is on whether her consideration of the motion on the third party, to validate whether advertisements are partisan or not, is to turn it over to somebody like the Auditor General, someone clearly non-partisan, who does not have a stake or a role in any of the actions of any of the individual parties.