Madam Speaker, the answer to that first of all derives directly from the controversy which erupted with the then minister of public works and government services. It was a scandal in which contracts in Quebec were being let which obviously were not done properly. They were not properly tendered. Money was paid for work that was not done. That was subsequently documented and proven.
I think Canadian taxpayers have the right, in fact even the obligation, to rise up in protest and revolt when their hard-earned money is spent for some unknown reason in such a frivolous and unaccountable way. We have many taxpayers in this country who are struggling to make ends meet, yet they are obliged to pay their taxes month after month or every two weeks, whatever their pay schedule is, and they deserve to have full accountability.
When the minister was involved in giving money that for all intents and purposes could be said to be a straight funnelling of money to the Liberal Party the way it appeared, I think the government actually admitted that this is what happened. Otherwise, the behaviour of the government in sending the minister off to Denmark is really bizarre. He was a sitting member of Parliament. He was a cabinet minister. Why was he suddenly pulled out? Not only was he pulled out of cabinet, he was pulled out of Parliament and pulled out of the country. Why that urgency to get him way over there in Denmark? I think it was that the government did not want him easily available for investigation because when the facts became known it would be very damning to the government. That of course is a supposition we make, but we come to conclusions based on the behaviour of people. I have said the same thing about O.J. Simpson. His bizarre behaviour in that Ford Bronco is unexplainable if we assume he is innocent.
That is what happened. The government, taking quite a bit of flak on this issue, then decided, “Now is the time to make it look as if we are doing something”. I really almost hesitate to draw this charge, but I cannot help but be suspicious that it is just a considerable amount of smoke and mirrors designed to give the perception to the public that this is a government that has a much higher standard of ethics than it actually has.
Now, that puts me into a little bit of a dilemma. Do I want ethics to be improved? The answer is yes, absolutely. There should be a code. The Prime Minister's code for cabinet ministers should be public. The inquiries with respect to complaints on that should be made public. If the person charged is guilty, Canadians have the right to know. If the person charged is shown to be innocent, Canadians have the right to see the evidence and the basis on which the conclusion of the evidence was reached. It is not sufficient for the Prime Minister to stand up in the House here on questions and simply say that nothing has ever been proven, because of the fact that the investigation has been stonewalled or whatever, but that is what happens. The investigation is not concluded and then in fact it is accurate to say there were never any charges that actually stood.
I believe that the timing is tied in with damage control for that specific instance to try to give the appearance of doing something tangible to improve ethical behaviour in government. Of course it is also leading up to the next election, which the Liberals will of course use. This is one thing that really frightens me. They have made such a mess of the bill that even though it uses the word ethics, it is way too weak, so we are obliged to not support it because it is all a façade. It does not go deep enough, it is not solid enough, and the commissioner is not independent. Unless those things are fixed, we have to vote against it.
I can just see these Liberals in the next federal election campaign saying, “We are the ethical ones. We brought in the ethics package. We have the ethics commissioner now, a 10 year old promise, and the Canadian Alliance voted against it”. It is going to be a real challenge for us to communicate to Canadians that the reason we voted against it is due to the fact that it was not adequately handled.