Mr. Speaker, pretending to not see an ethical issue is ignoring it or covering it up. We cannot go on with that vein of reply.
What has also become clear over the last two weeks is that the government's mechanisms and procedures for dealing with breaches in its code of ethics are simply not working. The heritage minister was caught in an obvious conflict of interest, yet the ethics counsellor was powerless to act. The Prime Minister only consulted the ethics counsellor as an afterthought and his report remains a deep, dark secret.
If this government is serious about restoring integrity to government and is unwilling to act itself, will it at least free the hands of the ethics counsellor and make him directly accountable to this Parliament?