Mr. Speaker, I was not on the order to speak. I was following the debate and listening to members' comments, especially those coming from the opposition members. I decided to stand and make some comments on the overall comments that have been going back and forth.
Most of us here, including the member who spoke earlier, have been around this honourable House for two if not three terms. I came to the House in 1993. We all came here to try to serve our nation.
I know on the Liberal side, we made commitments in our red book. We wanted to turn the corner; we wanted to get the country back on track. We wanted to get the people back working. We wanted to give the right signals to our youth by setting the groundwork for them to have a good future. We wanted to eliminate the deficit, which we did very early on. We wanted to create a good healthy economy, which we did. We wanted to create jobs, which we did. We wanted to cooperate with the provinces, which we have been doing. I will reflect on that in a moment as my hon. colleague said that all we are doing is squabbling, that we want to grab power from the provinces. I am going to touch on that point.
What has hurt me more than anything else is it is unfortunate that we in this House are doing damage to what my good friend said, the credibility and respect. We are supposed to be held at a high level of esteem. It is unfortunate, my good friends, and I say this to the official opposition, and I understand the politics of it that those members take it out to their constituents and the optics are what they are. They come here and talk about the boondoggles and they talk about CIDA, but what they do not say is that it was those members' request for funding and we brought them up during the campaign. They know when they stand in the House that they are protected and have immunity and that they can make innuendoes and say whatever they want to say, which passes through the media, but they could not say some of that stuff outside.
For example, they stood in the House and ranted and raved about the money that was lost after Sheila Fraser, the Auditor General, brought it up but they had not even read the newspapers. They referred to the editorials. Had they read the newspapers properly and had they been honest enough, what Sheila Fraser said was that the bureaucracy, the civil servants, should have been much more careful and should have paid proper due diligence. She did not blame the minister of HRDC, or the minister of CIDA, or the Minister of Public Works because the minister puts out the program. The minister does not go around handing out cheques. He or she does not go around looking at the contracts. He or she leaves that up to the administration and the staff to administer the programs. Along the way if due diligence had not been done, and I agree it has happened, things slip through the cracks.
It is unacceptable that members come to the House and say things publicly in front of the cameras and send this message back to their ridings because it is doing harm to this institution. It is degrading this institution. Members know that all of us have come here with the honourable intention to serve our country and to do the best we can. Most of the members who have come to the House have left good employment, good paying jobs to come and serve. They did not come here to earn a salary or take shortcuts. They say to read the editorials. I am saddened today because I read yet another story and the opposition tried to portray it falsely. They did not even bother to look at the facts as opposed to making statements.
Nevertheless, on the ethics counsellor we all know that going back to 1993, this party and the Prime Minister have said we are going to have an ethics counsellor. The message we are sending out is that by trying to raise the bar even higher we are concerned and we will do whatever we have to. There is a system. There is a process.
One of the members from the official opposition continuously digs, and so he should. What I ask him to do is to portray the facts as they are and not say that the minister faulted here. Let us dig a little bit deeper. Let us go below the surface.
Members of the former Reform Party which eventually changed its name to the Alliance Party came here with a holier than thou attitude. We know what has happened in the past when we talked about ethics. We did not stand up and say that they said one thing, then reneged and today they are doing another. That is not what this institution is all about.