We want to know the facts and I think the reputation of the Minister of Public Works and Government Services, to whom I am the parliamentary secretary, speaks for itself. He is an honourable member of parliament. He has served his constituents well. He has served the House well. He also has friends in all corners of this place. Members will acknowledge that. We do not need to prove this member's integrity. It is unquestioned in this place. That is an uncontested fact.
We have a culture, a situation where members of parliament come to the House on behalf of their constituents and often on behalf of companies that reside in their constituency or in their region. They come here and lobby on their behalf. I know that the former leader of the opposition, the member for West Vancouver--Sunshine Coast, wrote a wonderful letter to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services saying that there was this thing going on in Victoria, I think it was, and the sponsorship program was an excellent instrument to promote Canadiana et cetera. He supported that program and asked the minister to ensure that due consideration was given to funding that program.
That is not wrong. It is not wrong for a member to do that. We understand that our job is to represent our constituents and often to represent the interests of the industry and businesses in our area, but not to unduly influence or somehow do anything wrong. This is part of our job.
I only have a minute left so I want to close by talking about language. I have heard some words here that make me feel uncomfortable. I have heard words like corrupt. I am not a lawyer, but I thought that if someone was corrupt that meant the person was involved in an illegal act. I think that if we ever use the word corrupt in this place it should be preceded by a report, a charge being laid and someone being convicted. We have to do this. We have to respect the presumption of innocence.
I have also heard about kickbacks and that bothers me as well. We have a political system that is funded by political donations. The political donation process is there and it is transparent, but it is there to ensure that ordinary folk like us can raise enough money to be able to run in elections and to carry on our political work as members of parliament. It is an important process. The fact that someone gives money to someone and subsequently has some relationship with that person does not necessarily go hand in hand, because we do have a public process.
I ask all hon. members to seriously consider the rhetoric that we use to make sure that we show due respect to all members of parliament.