Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Let me just say that I find it very interesting that every time the question has been posed in the House—I believe Mr. Barrett posed it more than once—as to whether the Prime Minister ran his appointment of Mr. Carney, supposedly as an adviser to the Liberal party, past the Lobbying Commissioner....
The refusal of the Prime Minister and ministers in his government to answer such a straightforward question provides the answer to that question, which is that the Prime Minister didn't run Mr. Carney by the Commissioner of Lobbying, presumably because he would not have liked the answer from the lobbying commissioner. It is almost a certainty that the appointment would not have been given the green light. It wouldn't have been given the green light because what the Prime Minister and Mark Carney—carbon tax Carney, conflict of interest Carney—have done is set up an arrangement that, at the end of the day, is the antithesis of open and accountable government, which is what the Prime Minister touted himself as championing upon being elected Prime Minister. It is the antithesis of, I think, the standard that Canadians would expect.
It's not just anyone. We're talking about the former governor of the Bank of Canada. We're talking about the former governor of the Bank of England. Someone advising the Prime Minister on economic policy and other matters ought to be subject to the Conflict of Interest Act and ought to have their conflicts disclosed. The fact that the Prime Minister has very conveniently shielded carbon tax Carney, conflict of interest Carney, from that is problematic. That's why we do need to hear from him.
I guess I understand why the Liberals are blocking our efforts and why they want to change the channel. It's because they want to talk about anything other than the conflicts of interest and corruption that surround Mr. Carney. However, as Mr. Caputo noted, the entire agenda of the House of Commons has been sidelined because of all of the corruption and scandals involving this government, not only in relation to Mr. Carney but also in relation to their obstruction of a clear and unambiguous order of the House to turn over all documents relating to the billion-dollar green slush fund, a scandal that occurred under the watch of the Minister of Industry, a scandal that the assistant deputy minister described in a secret audio recording as the largest scandal since the sponsorship scandal.
Now there's another scandal, another finding of a prima facie question of privilege involving the shady business partner, the Minister of Employment, Randy Boissonnault, and his business partner coming to committee and telling the committee that the Randy in the text messages implicated in a half-million-dollar shakedown was some other Randy, but very conveniently, when he was ordered by this committee to identify that Randy, he refused to do so because everyone knows the Randy in the text messages, the Randy involved in the half-million-dollar shakedown, the Randy involved—