Yes, they have hit the record on time allocation now.
He said, “What is boondoggle? Give me the definition of that. Tell me, is there money that has disappeared?” I remember that great happy day when the Prime Minister came out of his office to the scrum. The HRDC minister was in the scrum trying desperately to answer questions. She was having a hard time answering. We all remember that. The Prime Minister whisked past her and turned around and came back, “I will take this from here, I will look after the questions from here, dear” in that patronizing way and shuffled her off down the stairs in humiliation. He said, “I will look after this now. What is boondoggle? Give me the definition of that. Is there money that has disappeared?”
As a matter of fact, there probably is. Even though we were not accusing the minister of money being missing, it is turning out from some RCMP investigations that some of the money really has gone missing. It is certainly not $1 billion. A lot of the cheques can be traced but there is some money that has actually disappeared. I would say “Yes, Mr. Prime Minister, on February 5, 2000, maybe some money has disappeared”.
And what is the definition of boondoggle? It is when a minister acts irresponsibly so that she is not in full control of her department to know exactly where the money is going and why. That would be a definition of boondoggle.
He said in Hansard on February 9, “Of $11 million of so-called problems there was an overpayment of a little bit more than $250”. I hardly think so. Maybe it was that at the time, but of course only 459 files had been looked at out of 60,000. Now there are any number of RCMP investigations, many of which are in the Prime Minister's riding.
Then he said, as Andrew Coyne cited in the Ottawa Citizen on February 22, “Listen, we are the government. I don't see why we can't get credit for what we do. I hope we do so. There is nothing to be ashamed of, we do it all the time. I am the government”. Remember the quote from 1993, “Any file from Saint-Maurice that comes across any cabinet minister's desk, you bet I will be there for them. You get the cash”. He must feel like Regis Philbin on Who Wants to be a Millionaire ; just pass out the cash.
Here he is again, “We ought to get credit for what we do. I hope we do. There is nothing to be ashamed of, we do it all the time”. At least he admits that the Liberals do it all the time. It is absolutely unbelievable and shameful and it ought to stop very soon.
He said, “I think it happens to you at the end of the month to see that you have spent a few more dollars than expected”. Spend a few more dollars than expected. This seems ridiculous. In the London Free Press , February 19, 2000—