Madam Speaker, I recall specifically when the Canada Information Office was set up originally under the heritage minister. The reason this minister is now in charge of the Canada Information Office is that it was not managed at all well by the heritage minister and in fact the CIO was getting into some difficulty.
I want to state clearly and unequivocally that my party and I, along with the NDP and the Progressive Conservatives, share the same beliefs as this minister and the government. Canada is the greatest nation in the world. We must do everything we can possibly do to keep it fully intact. I have some difficulty, though, with the way in which the CIO has conducted itself over its brief history.
First, the CIO has never explained its involvement in the missing $4.5 million for Options Canada. If that money were wrongly spent, if that money were put into a wrong place with respect to the referendum question in the province of Quebec, and if there were some malfeasance on the part of the government, I would suggest to the minister that it is in the interest of the people of Canada who are federalists for the government to come clean about the $4.5 million rather than continue to sweep and sweep and sweep it under the rug.
Second, the difficulty the government has created with the Canada Information Office is that many of the contracts and much of the ongoing activity have been conducted in a way that does not befit what we are in Canada, which is a democracy. In a democracy the people depend on the people in the Chamber to hold the government accountable for the affairs of the government and to be as transparent as possible.
I suggest in the strongest way possible to the minister that even if we can get him to clear up the history of the Canada Information Office, which I do not have a lot of hope for but I am asking for, from this point forward there must be proper transparency of the Canada Information Office. The country needs openness and transparency because democracy cannot be true democracy without openness and transparency.