Mr. Speaker, I have to take some umbrage with the latter comment by the hon. member opposite, who I have the greatest respect for and who I think has the highest degree of integrity.
However, we have found, throughout this entire affair that has been going on now for some months, that there have been incredible efforts undertaken by his government to not only deny that the problem existed but to then point an accusatory finger across the way at the opposition.
It would be ludicrous for me to suggest that there was not a political element to all this. However, when it comes down to the facts of the case that are before the Canadian public, we have the auditor general himself saying that 85% of the programs were flawed in one form or another. We know that when we talk about flaws we are discussing things like companies getting more money than they applied for, companies applying for money under numbered companies and then did not set up the company in the way that they were supposed to or create the jobs that they were supposed to. Therefore, there is a very serious undertone to the motion that is before the House.
The hon. member should not simply shrug his shoulders and say that there is a process in place that is doing this work. He should admit that the problem is there. This motion is worded in such a way as to perhaps give Canadians some confidence that this problem will be dealt with in a very open and transparent way, which is again just a word when it comes to this government and is not in fact the practice.
I think Canadians would like to see—and it applies to opposition members as well—the government stand before the Canadian public and say that it was wrong, that it made a mistake and that maybe, based on the information it had at the time, it did something that it would have done differently in retrospect. Canadians have now come to expect that from the government.
Will the member please elucidate to us why it is that the government is not prepared to admit that the problem is there and that it will do something in a substantive way to give Canadians confidence in the future about this?