Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Jonquière for her kind words.
I believe this fight has been the fight of the whole Bloc Quebecois team. I want to acknowledge the efforts ,particularly of the leader of the Bloc Quebecois, the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie, our House leader, the member for Roberval, the member for Quebec, the member for Rosemont, who exposed the matter of the company being moved to the riding of Saint-Maurice, members of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, and more specifically of the opposition parties, who presented a unanimous report asking for an independent public inquiry.
This is quite an accomplishment when parties such as the New Democratic Party, the Canadian Alliance Party, the Bloc Quebecois, the Progressive Conservative Party, members who represent all sorts of trends in society, are asking for the same thing. They felt it was fitting to have one position on the issue of an independent public inquiry.
I know people in Quebec and Canada can rest assured there are still members who are concerned and represent their interests here in parliament.
Now for the solutions. I believe the government, or the Prime Minister, should appoint as quickly as possible a new minister at HDRC, someone who has not lost all credibility in the recent chain of events. The new minister should be given a mandate for a specific period of time to preside over the dismantling of the department and launch an independent public inquiry to get to the bottom of the whole situation.
The new minister should have a limited mandate, for six months, and say “Yes, I am going to dismantle the department. Yes, we are going to shed light on past events. I know that at the end of this period, my mandate will be over. I might be given other responsibilities, but I will have done what I had to do.” It will not be as tempting to look out for friends of the party and to avoid getting to the bottom of things.
I think we need these kinds of solutions. I think people expect us to do these things in a parliament such as ours, to show them that, unlike this government, we are not puppets of the Liberal Party of Canada or those who fund that party, but that we are simply here to work for the people of Quebec and Canada, for those who elected us and who will re-elect us—and by us I mean members of the Bloc Quebecois—in the next election.
We have waged this battle in a very open manner, using all the parliamentary tools available to us. We will continue to do so until we get all the relevant information in this matter.
In closing, I will give a concrete example. As long as the government is unable to produce a single invoice after having been asked to do so over a period of several months, as in the case of Placeteco, we will continue to maintain that this is proof of a serious lack of transparency in this government.
People are expecting a drastic change in direction, which does not seem to be happening right now. I think the Liberal government will have to answer for that in the next election, in a few months.