Mr. Speaker, I accept what you say. I was not clear. I was not mentioning whether someone is here in the House right now. I just mentioned that it is impossible under our rules to ask the member for LaSalle—Émard a question during question period, for example, because he is not part of the cabinet. That is what I meant by not being in the House. I should be clear. I am not talking about this instant. I am talking about day after day, week after week, month after month, when decisions are being made by him and his supporters. I do not mind that, as it is the way democracy works, but when the decision maker sits outside of cabinet, then this place does not work as well as it should.
I am just saying that the member for LaSalle—Émard is not available to us to ask questions of day after day. He is not appointed to any committee in the House of Commons. We can never talk to him or find out what he wants to do in a committee structure, where we could relate to one another. He is not a member of a committee. He is not appointed to any task force or special committee or travelling group of parliamentarians where we or Canadians could ask questions of him. There is no official way to get at him, yet he controls the apparatus of government. That is what this motion is about today.
Once one controls the apparatus of government, it is time to switch leaders, folks. It is time for them to say they accept that the member for LaSalle—Émard is the next prime minister between now and the next election, that he calls the shots, that he is the leader. Good on him, but that therefore would mean that he should be accountable for what he does.
He says he wants to address the democratic deficit. We cannot even ask him the first question about anything. He completely avoids democratic accountability. Completely. How is that improving the democratic system here in Canada? There is nearly a crisis, he tells people somewhere in the country, but he will not come to the House of Commons. The system is set up in such a way that it is impossible to even ask him about his priorities there.
Let me go further on why it matters and why we should we care about this. It matters, for example, on the issue of Kyoto, which has been raised. Again, leaving aside whether we think Kyoto is the best thing since sliced bread or an apocalyptic agreement signed somewhere overseas, leaving that aside, the government says Kyoto needs to be implemented and as rapidly as possible, while the member for LaSalle—Émard says he needs more consultation on this subject. He is not sure that it should be implemented that way. In fact, he has some concerns about how it will affect the business climate and wants to consult broadly before he implements a Kyoto implementation plan.
What are people supposed to do with that? Do they want to invest $2 billion in the tar sands or not? Do they want to renovate their homes or not? Do they want to buy a fuel efficient car or not? Do they want to have research and development funds available or not? Are they sure? They cannot be sure. They cannot be sure because someone other than the current cabinet and Prime Minister is in charge behind the scenes.
Whether it is Kyoto or another business plan, an industrial development plan, a shipbuilding subsidy plan, whatever it might be, how can we choose what to invest in when the person calling the shots and making the plans is not the person who can answer the questions here in the House of Commons?
We get conflicting reports. We hear that Kyoto now is in danger of not being implemented. We hear that we will not be able to meet our targets. Does the member for LaSalle—Émard think that is good or does he think it is bad? Does he think we are going to have to double our efforts or cut them in half? No one knows because we cannot ask him a question. The business climate is affected. Decision making is affected. Investment decisions are affected.
It also matters because the personal decisions of Canadians are affected. As an example, this side of the House has been fighting for months to get the government to be fair on the pensions paid to war veterans' widows. We want the VIP pension applied to all of them who deserve it. We think it is a relatively small budget item, but it is not small in the lives of those widows, I can tell everyone. They need that supplement. We think they deserve it. We think we should follow through on committee recommendations to make it universal for all those who deserve it. What does the member for LaSalle—Émard think? Who knows? We cannot ask him. We cannot find him. We cannot put it to the government, which he in essence is running, because he is not in the cabinet.
He is not sitting over there answering the question whether or not a pension for VIP recipients is a good idea? It is a personal thing to tens of thousands of widows who need to know, not next year, not after the next election, not six months or a year from now. They need to know before Christmas. That pension may only be $200 a month, but to a pensioner $200 a month is the difference between a can of dog food and a decent meal. What is the matter with the government? This matters.
Personal decisions are being affected because of indecision in the federal government. It is because the member for LaSalle--Émard is not sitting in this place where he can answer these questions and make decisions. If he does not want to give widows a pension, then let us find out. Let us put it on the list of things for the campaign trail. In the meantime, let us not leave those widows hanging.
Personal decisions are being affected by this. This has gone on long enough. Let us get the member into the Prime Minister's chair, hold his feet to the fire, and let him be accountable, not just for the issue of widows' pensions, but for all decisions affecting people in a personal way. I am talking about everything from GST rebates to how we handle tax breaks for certain citizens. Student loans is another example. All of these matters are being held in abeyance while we wait for the Liberal Party to get its act together and transfer power to the Prime Minister who would call the shots.
This matters because of transparency. We have been asking questions in the House over the last while, and while they probably can be answered, they are not being answered by the current government. We have asked why millions of dollars in assets that were on the member for LaSalle--Émard's disclosure of assets, when he was finance minister, have mysteriously disappeared. They are gone. He did not sell them. They have been conveniently left off the list. The company that conveniently received millions of dollars in government contracts was conveniently left off the list.
We tried to chase this matter down by using the rules of the House. We put an Order Paper question. We asked, how many dollars in contracts did the member for LaSalle--Émard's companies, the CSL empire, receive from the government? The response was $137,000. It is public knowledge that at least $25 million in contracts had been given to him and his companies. This is again about transparency.
I would like to ask the member for LaSalle--Émard a question, but I cannot. I can rhetorically ask a question, but I cannot ask him personally. Maybe there is an explanation. I do not think so, but maybe there is something he could say about how it happened, maybe he forgot, maybe he signed the wrong paper. I do not know what his excuse might be.
Day after day these revelations come up and there is no transparency. We cannot ask about them; we cannot get clarification. We are left with responses from the government that do not jive with the facts. That is not transparency. That is not open. That is not democratic. It is not what Canadians expect.
The country always needs a vision of where it is going. That vision comes at election time. We are putting together, I hope, a big conservative option for Canadians that will detail a vision of the country and will excite them. It will be one that will be positive and one that they could vote for. We cannot just have a vision of the country at election time. Without a vision, the people perish, it says in scriptures. That is not just a theological expression of belief.
It is the fact that without explicit direction from the top on everything from accountability, transparency, democracy and fiscal accountability, where are Canadians supposed to go? What is the emphasis of the government? What is the passion that it has for the country? That is hard to see in this place.
The Bloc Québécois brought this motion forward today. I agree with it in that it is not an expression of non-confidence in the government because that will come at election time. It is an expression, a desire, almost a begging, to give us the Prime Minister who will call the shots so that we can get on with painting a vision for all Canadians for the 21st century.