Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague the Conservative House leader on many things and this is one on which I certainly agree with him. This is a government that is in deep trouble. Members know it and they are looking to their spin doctors to see what they can do to convince the public they really have a concern about something.
I know my colleagues from all parties in the House, even some Liberals, were wishing the government had some answer for the softwood crisis. We are leaving here to go home for the summer at a time when over 50,000 people are unemployed and struck hard because of government inaction on softwood lumber. We are going home at a time when there are people in the agricultural industry suffering because the announcement today is mainly a rehash of many old things for agriculture. It will do nothing to help farmers.
All opposition parties, although we are going home, will be spending a lot of time this summer at barbecues telling Canadians exactly why we are there and what is happening in this House. From my trips just in the last few weeks, all Canadians have had an interest in what has happened with the government that prided itself on integrity and a Prime Minister who said he would do certain things. They still have not forgotten the promise to get rid of the GST or to do something about free trade. He has lived with these, he is happy and he has used all the tax dollars. However, they are starting to think that this is a Prime Minister who has talked about integrity and has always bragged about ministers not having to resign. In the Liberal Party no one has had to resign, they just have waited for a cabinet shuffle.
It is like the member for Vancouver Centre who should have been fired for what she said in the House. He just let her sit there for awhile, then shuffled her off to the backbenches so he could still brag that he had never lost a cabinet minister for any reason. The story is getting old. Canadians are getting tired of the fact that for about three Sundays in a row new scandals have broken on grants, or loans or contracts and documents that have gone missing. People do not expect that from their government. They expect much more openness. They expect that mistakes will be made, but in this case there are too many of them. There are too many of them going to the same basic firms. The government should call an independent judicial inquiry. That is what Canadians need.
I was smiling at the government House leader today when he was shaking his head at the questions. I read Hansard like others do. I remember those days, and he should, when he was in the opposition. He was up demanding, yelling and screaming for independent judicial inquiries on issues against the former Conservative government. He should not be surprised that we are doing that.
When we come back in September, I can guarantee that there will be questions again on these same issues. We will be demanding answers to these issues and we will keep that up until we get some.