Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This morning, as Mr. McTeague was going on about accountability measures, I had something come back to me from my first term as a member of Parliament, which I'd like to put on the record and have the minister respond to. I was at the time sitting in Room 112-North in Centre Block, and I remember that Eleni Bakopanos, who was a Liberal member for the government at the time, put forward amendments to go ahead and change the way political parties were financed in this country. I remember, Mr. Chair, you were there at the time and you gave her a hairy eyeball, looking at her as though she should be quiet and desist from proceeding forward with her line of questioning and speech.
I didn't know quite what was going on, but then Mr. Boudria, who was at that time the Liberal House leader, and his staffer, Mélanie, who still works for the Liberal Party, proceeded to replace every single Liberal member who sat on the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. Then what happened was the Liberal Party, the government at the time, forced through public financing of political parties. And then subsequently, of course, the Liberal sponsorship scandal all unveiled. It turns out that what it was doing was covering over the tracks of the Liberal Party of Canada with regard to their kickbacks, with regard to money that was siphoned through Chuck Guité, with regard to brown paper envelopes being passed around in Montreal to prop up failing Liberal candidates in the province of Quebec.
Mr. Minister, Mr. McTeague's questions this morning with accountability bring those issues back to my mind. I would like you to speak to the issue with regard to accountability and how what you're doing with regard to the money that's going out to fund the GO Train and various projects to stimulate infrastructure in this country is fundamentally different from the Liberal sponsorship scandal and what that party was up to with regard to slush funds and taxpayer dollars wasted to promote their own partisan interests.