With respect to the motion, yesterday we did hear the finance minister's acknowledgement of receiving in excess of $40,000 in sponsored travel or as a gift from a third party agency, and we heard that he did repay that yesterday before he gave his testimony at the finance committee. In and of itself, the travel as well as the failure to disclose are multiple areas on which I have written to the Ethics Commissioner to ask for an examination of those facts.
The problem we're faced with as parliamentarians is that we have a member of cabinet who places himself in situations that make it impossible for me to give him the benefit of the doubt, with his having been found guilty of breaking the act on a previous occasion, and on this occasion, in my opinion, giving a cavalier response to a very serious situation.
In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and on a number of occasions, all parties have given unanimous consent in the House to support unbelievable amounts of money, incredible measures in support of Canadians during the pandemic. This has to be done in the context of having confidence in the people who are executing these actions. The integrity of the institutions and the integrity of the offices we occupy have to be preserved. The occupants of these cabinet positions are there temporarily. They will be replaced by someone else. That next person may be from the same party or another party, and then that person too will be replaced. They are caretakers and they responsible for ensuring the public's confidence.
We have a large sum of money in that $40,000 figure that was not paid by the minister when he was travelling. The organization he was travelling with said last night that the reason it offered these trips was to showcase its work and to solicit support.
Given the lack of judgment in this situation, as unfortunate as it may be, and as contrite as the minister might be, at this time when we're almost certainly going to be back in the House looking for unanimous consent on support for Canadians, when the situation is viewed through that lens, I don't have confidence in the Minister of Finance. I will be supporting this motion.