Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for the hon. member and it is a salient point. What I am suggesting is that a minister, a parliamentary secretary, or a person in government, with a greater ability to influence the decision to fund a certain project or to send money in a certain direction, has a higher degree of responsibility.
Clearly when it comes to the decision within his or her own department to make a decision that affects a friend, a relative, a close party person, that ethical standard is hot because there is not the ability of an opposition member or even a backbench member outside of cabinet to affect that delivery. That is why it is important, particularly in the private dealings that ministers have with persons in business, in their employ, and in their own family, that they meet a higher degree of standard. The problem is we do not have those clearly defined standards for members or cabinet ministers, as the hon. member knows.
The point is, yes, there is a difference between the ability to actually deliver as opposed to the ability to influence through lobbying when it comes to a minister of the crown crossing over that line, particularly within his or her own department after a decision has been made. There has been evidence of occasions where a decision has already been taken, and senior bureaucrats and heads of elements of a department have been lobbied directly by ministers. That is when it crosses the line; that is when one is out of the grey and into the black.