—when we finally see what has been transpiring under the Liberal government, blowing through its deficits.
However, we'll get back to the matter at hand. We are debating a motion that will absolutely prevent us from doing any work. I did joke that this was a Liberal holiday from accountability and that they want to be able to pause their accountability, to pause their ability to be held accountable for the failures of the Liberal government.
I find this interesting as well. If we want to go back to the very first point about the CEBA, we can recall what was happening when the CEBA program was being dreamed up. I will point out first that I do find it very troubling that the Department of Finance failed to accept responsibility and that the Minister of Finance tried to blame the pandemic, saying that it was all the pandemic's fault and that the pandemic made her do it. However, the Auditor General was very clear that the pandemic does not excuse one from their accountability. It doesn't excuse one from the importance of following sound rules.
As the Auditor General mentioned today and again last week with the EDC officials, there were points along the line, even at the very beginning, where, if there were a more urgent situation to make things happen and to change things around, those things could have been corrected. There could have been added guardrails and procedures put in place as they went along, which could have prevented that.
It made me think about this: Why wasn't finance focused on those issues at the time? What the heck was going on at the Department of Finance at that time?