Mr. Speaker, Canadian democracy is alive and well. We see it functioning here today. I have been in the House all day. I am participating in the debate concerning the morality of the cabinet members of the federal Liberal government and the examination by the auditor general into practices concerning financial activities of the government that have the taint about them not only of conflict of interest and scandal but of actual criminal activity to the point where it has been referred to the RCMP. That is why this day is so important. We are spending it on corruption and allegations of corruption in the cabinet.
The backbenchers want to keep their jobs. Like any good politician they want to get re-elected, so they are going to try, as they have been all day long, to make up excuses why it is the opposition and everyone but them who is in trouble or is corrupt and is not making this place work.
I was really amazed today that the Prime Minister stood and in essence said that the end justifies the means. I never thought I would hear a prime minister say that. He said in regard to Quebec separation that perhaps some mistakes were made. He was talking about dumping in hundreds of millions of dollars to address a problem without any guidelines. In fact cabinet ministers appear to have used that opportunity to shovel money to their friends, the people who donate to their political party.
Let us examine what the public works minister did. The public works minister was the former Francophonie minister. He was the government House leader when I came to this place in 1997. In 1998 Groupe Everest and the top political aide, Mr. Alain Pilon, launched discussions about a public advertising campaign for the 2001 Francophonie games.
Around January 15, 2002 the former House leader became the new minister of public works. Remember that he already knew the president of Groupe Everest and that they were having discussions in regard to an ad campaign for the Francophonie games.
Around March the current public works minister and his family stayed at a Quebec lakeside mansion which is owned by Mr. Claude Boulay, the president of Groupe Everest, the advertising firm. We can see the linkages coming around.
I may use in the next few minutes some terms that are used in police work. I spent 30 years as a member of the RCMP, including 16 on commercial crime, fraud, theft, influence peddling and also money laundering.
In May it became public that the public works minister and his family spent two days at the mansion. During the week around May 13 to May 20, the public works minister said that his family paid for the stay at the mansion. The pressure came on and more questions were asked by the media. Then the House resumed and the public works minister provided an affidavit that has a photocopy of the front of a cheque that was supposedly used to pay for that stay.
When looking at activity from a policeman's point of view, one looks for a course of conduct that is dishonest, or in essence is wilful blindness.
The minister by this time was starting to sweat bullets. He and his family got together, and Mr. Boulay. They were worried about what would happen with this. They said “Let us put these guys off in the House of Commons by showing them the front of the cheque. They are not smart enough to know about the back of the cheque”.
There is the first incidence of wilful blindness or attempting to obscure the facts of the case. I am not sure I am going to be using the word misleading here, just to keep things straight.
That is the first case of a wilful blindness to the facts in an effort to throw the House of Commons off the trail. If we look at the cheque, there is a high likelihood it was not written at the time the public works minister alleges it was or on the date that is shown on the cheque. If the mansion was a legitimate business, the business would have cashed the cheque right away with its normal deposits. I do not think that the mansion is a regular business. I am not sure what it was, but the--