Mr. Speaker, my colleague touched upon some very important points in his speech.
Although it has not been mentioned in debate today, I think back to something which I mentioned in this place and I will mention it again. It goes back to 1997 when I was a newly elected member.
I remember a news story of an incident regarding a Liberal fundraiser named Pierre Corbeil. Somehow he got hold of a list of companies in Quebec that were receiving government grants or were about to get approval for government grants. He basically went to those companies and shook them down for donations to the Liberal Party of Canada. They had to come up with a donation of $10,000 to the Liberal Party of Canada. If they did not give this donation to the Liberal Party, they would not receive the grant. This is what was alleged, charges were brought forward and he was convicted of influence peddling.
I remember at the time thinking that this was a very strange occurrence but it seems that it possibly was the tip of the iceberg. This has gone ahead through the courts, the individual has been charged and that is good. However as time has gone by we have seen time and time again these kinds of dubious contracts given out to people who have donated to the Liberal Party. They have received government grants and then they have given money back to the Liberal Party of Canada.
I ask my colleague, how is it that Canadians could possibly trust a group of people that have engaged in this kind of activity for nine years now to be the ones to clean up that scandalous behaviour? Does he not agree that the people of Canada, the taxpayers whose money is being squandered in this way, would want to have a new government to come into place to take care of these issues? In other words, how can the people who have been the instigators of these schemes be the ones to now say “Trust us, we will clean it up”?