Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the comments by the member for Arthabaska, and I have a question for him.
I have read all the editorials, especially in Quebec. Members will forgive me for reading the French ones in particular, but I assume the English language newspapers are saying pretty much the same thing. Throughout this whole business of handing out contracts and favours, the Prime Minister has been saying that he is an ordinary MP and that he is doing his job as an MP.
The editorial writers are saying that this is not true; he is not an ordinary MP. Democracy imposes him on us every three years and four months, or thereabouts, but once elected our Prime Minister is a dictator. He has the discretionary, decisional power to hand out money without being accountable to anyone. Can he claim to be an ordinary MP like I and all the other MPs on this side of the House? Is he not something more? That is the first part of my question.
The second part is this. In a divorce proceeding would it be considered normal for the mother of one of the parties seeking divorce to also serve as the judge and award child support, assign fault, and determine access? It seems to me that one could say that this is not transparent, even if the mother-in-law in question were mine—she is very fair—and if she perhaps had a tendency to favour me, which I am not in any doubt about. One might wonder whether her ruling was an impartial one.
During the election campaign did the ethics counsellor not come up with his decision a bit too quickly, before he had all the facts? Does this not leave him open to criticism for the simple reason that he was appointed by his friend, that he is acting for his friend, and that his decisions favour his friend? I would like to hear what the member for Arthabaska has to say about this.