She yells across that we are a disgrace. I am proud to be a disgrace if that is what she thinks it is because I want to ensure that the people of Canada find out why there are kickbacks from the government.
The public works minister must wince when he recalls those words of his rat pack partner. How many Canadians winced when they learned the Liberals were using the church as an avenue of recourse and refuge to solve their little cheque crisis?
I saw the piece of paper that came out yesterday with the date of when the cheque was written and how many hands it passed through. Is it not amazing how it ends up in the hands of a priest a few weeks later and no one knows whether it has been cashed or not? It is reprehensible behaviour and tantamount to blasphemy to launder money that way.
How low will the government go? There is no answer. The Prime Minister personally demonstrated time and time again that the bar could be stepped over. Is it any wonder that his cabinet ministers were not aware of the existence of any bar? Unless and until he rises to announce that a committee of the House will be assigned the role of recruiting a full time ethics commissioner who will report only to the House, Canadians will continue to believe he does not know that the definition of transparency does not include the word opaque.
We have asked many times to have an ethics commissioner who would report to the House of Commons, not a counsellor who writes answers for the Prime Minister in question period. We want someone who reports to parliament, who is totally independent of everyone in parliament but reports to all of us.
We are heavy hearted. We are saddened that no matter what the Prime Minister announces when he stands to speak, the reputation of himself and his party is tarnished so badly that not even a gallon of Brasso will bring back the lustre.
I will leave him with the thoughts of William Shakespeare, and again I paraphrase. The evil that men do lives after them. Whatever good they intended is interred with stories about loans, grants, untendered contracts, barrels of pork, patronage appointments, toothless ethics counsellors, wastage of hundreds of millions of tax dollars through Liberal friendly firms, broken promises, hypocrisy, $10,000 a head meet the Prime Minister Montreal weekends--