Mr. Speaker, the member from Mississauga has made his way back here. We would have loved to have asked him a few more questions but we ran out of time.
At the beginning of his speech he said that he hoped members would be able to say at the end of his speech how he had changed the tone of the debate today. I would love to be able to say that but if we go back and read Hansard , he did not improve the tone of the debate at all.
I probably got carried away in my description of those talking points earlier. It is just that I am repeatedly offended by the government's defence of its actions and that it has come to the conclusion that the only defence is a good offence.
The Prime Minister is intent on retiring, sooner, hopefully, rather than later, being able to say that he has never had a minister resign under his watch. Well they do not resign. They get shuffled off. They get sent to the Senate. They get sent to Denmark. They get sent to the back bench. They get sent to be chairman of the justice committee. The Prime Minister wants to be able to stand at the end and say that none of his ministers have had to resign under scandal.
I do not know what it would take to get a minister of the government to resign. The Liberals have blinders on. They are determined they are right. It is like they are telling everyone who has anything to say to them “look at the prime ministerial rules around here. The rule says that we are never wrong. I have told that to my independent ethics counsellor. My independent ethics counsellor knows that the number one rule in this House is that we are never wrong. Therefore, if we are never wrong, we cannot be wrong”.
It is a beautiful circle and it comes from having an ethics counsellor who no doubt pleads with the Prime Minister from time to time to do something but he says “Check the number one rule. We are never wrong”. The Prime Minister wants to leave his office as being the man who never had someone resign.
However that is not an honourable situation. It is because the whole thing is cooked, the malaise has set in and it is pervasive now on the entire front bench.