Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is right. The member for Toronto--Danforth is a good parliamentarian. I know he has great respect for the House. He always does his best to hold his own government to account in many situations and he should be commended for that. In this case however I believe he is trying to defend the indefensible.
My colleague is right. The government does not reveal too many situations. We uncover situations where public servants are effectively asked to sign off on contracts or grant oral contracts that anyone with any conscience at all knows are ethically questionable and possibly illegal. Sometimes it is hard to determine these things. Sometimes situations come close to meeting the criteria for what might be illegal and sometimes there are grey areas but my friend is absolutely correct.
If we want to stand up for public servants tonight let us do that by saying that we will put in place a system that will stop politicians from using public servants as their way to reward their political friends.