Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for the question because it is a question that is very specific. It does address one of the big issues that we have had with this whole process in terms of how information is provided to members.
Like many new members, when I was elected in 1997 the first thing I tried to do was make myself familiar with what was available in terms of government programs and support because we get people coming to us all the time and the first thing they want to know is what federal funds they can access. I think all of us make it our business to try to find out about that.
I want to say that I have a good working relationship with the local HRDC office and staff. It is important that I know what they are doing, that we know what the priorities of the riding are and so on.
I remember when I heard about the transitional jobs fund that I actually checked to find out whether or not we qualified. The information was that Vancouver East did not qualify because of these regions. Then we heard about pockets that exist. The issue of how those rules were made and how that was communicated is a mystery to me in terms of one member of parliament absolutely not being aware that certain areas could qualify under different kinds of rules.
Again, I think it begs the question about who makes the decisions, how are those decisions followed through and whether or not we have rules being made after the fact in order to cover up where those disbursements were made. This is what we want to get clear. We want to have fair rules for everybody. We want the rules to be transparent. We want the rules to be clear so that we can say to the government that public confidence can be restored in the way these programs work.