Mr. Speaker, I absolutely believe that the government should be held accountable, including every minister of the Crown who touched this project and allowed the cost overruns to continue. I am not a lawyer but in law it would be called aiding and abetting a criminal act. They aided and abetted $998 million of public money to be hidden and circumvent the parliamentary process.
It is not uncommon to have cost overruns in any capital project of 5% or 10%. Many members in this place would not disagree with that statement. If someone planned to build a house tomorrow, most contractors would say there is a 10% margin of error for capital cost overruns. However, I do not even know what the percentage is of $998 million versus $2 million. Is that 100,000% greater or something like that? It is a phenomenal number.
Yes, there will be cost overruns, but a criminal act has occurred. The main estimates are supposed to be put through the Parliament of Canada unless there are unforeseen costs, then they are put in the supplementary estimates. The Treasury Board supported this.