Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. There ought to be standards and rules that are even more strict. Yet even the existing ones are not being respected. That is what is worrisome.
The ethics counsellor has said so. The Prime Minister has not changed the counsellor's role and the fact that he will remain answerable only to the Prime Minister.
Returning to the expression “to raise the bar” the Prime Minister has used, the word bar could refer to a wooden bar or a drinks bar. Perhaps the Prime Minister was referring to an “open bar”, with free drinks for all his cronies.
To raise the bar means an open bar for friends of the Liberals. It is exactly that, Mr. Speaker.