Mr. Speaker, the ethics commissioner said “If I had been informed prior to the introduction of the present bill or its predecessor, Bill C-69 introduced in 1996, we would have discussed the best way to resolve the question of introducing the bill in the name of the Minister of Finance”.
My question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. How does he explain that, for two years, the Minister of Finance appeared to be in a position of conflict of interest and that, throughout that period, neither he nor anyone in the government thought it wise to seek the opinion of the ethics commissioner?