With a donation to the party, of course. Bill C-61 is awful. For a given violation or offence, a penalty of $2,000, $1,000 or $500 can be meted out, or it can be waived entirely, at the discretion of a public servant who will decide if we are guilty or not and who will assess the degree of guilt depending on whether we belong to the right party or have contributed or not to the election fund. What are we to understand? Where are those great values of openness which the Prime Minister and his colleagues advocated in 1993? Why invite criticism so blatantly? The government could have simply recognized that the amendment makes sense and realized that it was about to make a big mistake. Why not be open to openness? Why not demonstrate openly that they are what they pretend to be? No, that was not meant to be.
Liberals will fight tooth and nail and stop at nothing to reject the amendment moved by the opposition parties concerning the ethics counsellor. It is already bad enough that there is only one counsellor. But if he is going to advise us, it would be perfectly normal that we appoint the counsellor or at least suggest or refuse nominations. All those powers are taken from us, but we are told the ethics counsellor will be our counsellor. Do you not find all this very strange? I wonder where such an attitude is leading us.
When the Pearson airport issue was raised, I told the House that cancelling the contract would cost at least $250 million. The transport minister, in the House at the time, jumped from his seat and said: "That cannot be. It will cost $25, $30 or $35 million at the very most. It is unthinkable that it could cost more than that". Legal proceedings have already cost us $444 million and the matter is not settled yet.
No, they are always the only ones in step, like in the army, they are always the only ones to know the truth and to understand everything, especially the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell with all his phone numbers. They are the only ones who are right. Do you not find this frustrating in the long run?
We are simply asking them-since I do not want to call them hypocrites because apparently it is not a parliamentary expression-to stop burying their heads in the sand. They are all for women when we debate women's issues, but they are against women when we talk about the budget. It is always the same thing. The left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. While the right hand was saving money, the left hand was putting us $600 billion in the red. That is what the Liberal Party is all about. We talk about the old approach and a renewed approach, but it is one and the same.