Mr. Speaker, I find it astonishing that a former member of the House is not familiar with the Standing Orders. I find this strange, since the hon. member has been a member of this House for nine years.
That having been said, I will proceed directly to the motion by the Leader of the Bloc Quebecois. I will use my brief 10-minute speech to describe the vision that haunts me when I put the terms “transparency” and “Liberal Party of Canada” together. It is certainly not the most appealing image and that is why I want listeners to know right off the bat that I intend to be very critical but realistic in my remarks. This is the sad price people must pay when hoping to gain more insight into the government they are dealing with today and, unfortunately, for a few years to come.
For over a week now, members have been trying to shed light on this dark side of the Liberal Party organization and, more specifically, the federal government. For over a week now, members of each of the opposition parties, particularly the Bloc Quebecois, have been trying to find out about this transitional fund scandal in the last election. Unfortunately for them, the Prime Minister has decided to dodge the embarrassing issue and take refuge behind the RCMP investigation. No matter, the Bloc Quebecois is there to ask the real questions and that is why we are presenting today an opposition motion on this extremely important matter.
Rather than go all over what has already been said by the leader of the Bloc Quebecois or other Bloc members who have taken part in the debate, I am going to denounce once again the unhealthy situation in which the Liberals have landed themselves. Indeed, who would not do a double take on hearing of certain odd doings like those engaged in by organizers of the Liberal Party of Canada, who had the lists of grant applications in their possession before they had even been approved? These are confidential lists. Who would not protest when we know that these same lists were used to blackmail potential contributors to the coffers of the Liberal Party of Canada? Could that be described as democratic? Nothing could be more ethical, we might say.
Let us now look at the issue of ethics, which I deeply care about and worked very hard for during the 35th Parliament. We discussed the famous Liberal code of conduct on several occasions in this House. Originally, the code was supposed to restore the government's integrity and image. This instrument has definitely, and unfortunately, not been overused. The Liberals were so concerned about projecting a positive image that they forgot that a code of ethics is not a makeup kit. Its primary purpose is to deal with conduct related issues that can hinder the proper operation of our democratic institutions.
Obviously, the Liberals do not use their code often, assuming they even know it. The scandal surrounding transitional funds shows without any doubt that the Liberals tricked us when they drafted this phoney code. How can the government claim to be acting in compliance with a code of ethics when it stubbornly keeps on its payroll people who are said to have deliberately tried to corrupt entrepreneurs for the sole purpose of bringing money into the party's coffers? Why was Pierre Corbeil not immediately suspended? Why is Jacques Roy, an assistant to the President of the Treasury Board, still working for the government in spite of the fact that his actions are currently under investigation? Mr. Roy is still working for the minister.