An hon. member across the way says that is not true, that that does not make her a good minister at all. I bow to the judgment of the hon. member who is now basically saying that she is not a good minister. Far be it from me to argue with him on that point.
The second thing the hon. member said this morning was that the government was filling a need. This program is supposed to be about job creation. There is job creation at its pinnacle. The government is filling a need. First it creates one and then it fills it. It creates it through its oppressive tax regime so that companies need help just to survive. That is terrible. It is absolutely unbelievable.
Finally, in response to some of the other comments that have been made in the House by the government, I want to say that I am not necessarily opposed to all of these programs. I will be the first to say that my riding has done very well. If hon. members would button up long enough, I would tell them about the success of the program in my riding.
Why is it a success? I have worked with the HRDC people in my riding. They are good people. There have been no scandals or cover-ups. Criteria have been laid down. The first one is to determine if there is a need and if it is going to provide real genuine benefits. We do it to ensure that we never give a subsidy to anybody who is going to use it to compete with a company that is not subsidized.
What kind of things have been going on in the minister's riding? Companies have been lured away from a neighbouring riding. That is good job creation. Funds were used to get a company in the garment district into the Prime Minister's riding. That is an interesting conflict. What about a much needed subsidy for a really oppressed company that is struggling to survive and make ends meet, Wal-Mart? Is that not interesting.
Now we hear all the cries from the other side. The crocodile tears are coming down. It is a sorry sight to see the few Liberals who are crying out here because they have been caught manipulating the system.
If the Liberals have an inquiry into this, the kind of inquiry they want is one that they control. They want to appoint the person who will make the inquiry. They want a draft report to see if it is appropriately done.
The government should take responsibility for its mistakes when it makes them. Nobody expects it to be perfect. Heaven forbid, we certainly do not expect the Liberals to be perfect, but when they make a mistake, they should own up. They should say “yes, we made some mistakes but we are going to correct them. Let us move on. We are sorry and we will not do it again”. Had they done that, it probably would have been okay but no, they had to deny it, blame others and cover it up. That is not the way the government should respond to the waste of Canadian taxpayers' dollars.