Mr. Speaker, I am extremely pleased to reply to my colleague, the member for Gaspé, on this issue.
On a number of occasions, the Liberals were heard telling us in the House that the whole issue of family trusts, the scandal of the century, was not their fault. They were not the ones who did it, it was the Conservatives. To help the Liberal members opposite, because they are going to be asked about this during the upcoming election campaign, I would like them to recall that it was in 1970, when Pierre Elliott Trudeau was in office, that 21 year family trusts were introduced.
In 1991, the Conservatives took over. Having opposed the idea in 1970, they simply continued the family trust system.
What must be remembered is that, on December 23, 1991, the day before Christmas at approximately 11.30 in the evening, very industrious employees of the department headed up to Parliament Hill and went to their offices.
Why? So that two rich Canadian families could move $2 billion out of Canada without paying a cent in taxes. Do you know what kind of a present this represents for these multibillionaire families? It represents a minimum of $500 million that Canadian taxpayers, the unemployed, single parent families and fathers who have trouble making ends meet at the end of the week because of taxes and the way the Liberal government is spending public money, all had to make up through the taxes they paid.
That is the scandal. And what have the Liberals done since 1993? They have covered it up. They have done everything to prevent us from finding out what really happened on December 23 at 11.30 in the evening. The Liberals took part in this cover up.
We in the Bloc Quebecois, as the official opposition and as watchdogs, asked questions here in the House. We wanted to get to the bottom of the matter once and for all in committee, and the member for Beauport-Montmorency-Orléans did an excellent job in this regard as chairman of this committee in really trying to get to the bottom of this cover-up by the Liberals, who did everything they could to prevent us from getting answers to legitimate questions everyone had about this scandal.