Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my hon. colleague's question.
It will give me an opportunity to be more specific. Mr. Corbeil, who was referred to earlier, is an organizer for the Liberal Party of Canada. He arrived in our region shortly before a Liberal convention. Were those seeking the nomination at the time informed of the situation by Mr. Corbeil? That is one question. Were the individuals looking to run under the Liberal Party banner in our region involved in this fundraising scheme?
There is also the question of whether this was an isolated case. One company was kind enough to notify the minister and complain about a practice it found unacceptable. I applaud that company's courage in deciding to make such a move under the circumstances, because we must not forget that its application had not been approved yet. It took a chance by complaining to the minister about the harassment it had been subjected to and about what was a rather questionable practice.
I am talking about asking for cash donations, which cannot be traced. In the words of a former minister, there could be no paper trail. They asked for cash because they did not want any connection to be made between the favours granted and the contributions collected by the Liberal Party. Nobody is fooled by what is going on.
I will conclude by saying there are questions being raised that need to be answered. I hope that this situation can be cleared up in the local Liberal associations, where individual candidates may have been involved as part of the nomination process. I hope they were not involved, but it is up to them to provide answers. Everyone from our region who is watching the debate today will have noticed something. Our Liberal colleague, the hon. member for Abitibi, who is in the House today, did not speak on this issue. He remained silent and his silence speaks volumes.