Mr. Speaker, I will start with the last question first. We talk about integrity and specifically about the member for Davenport who is the dean of this House. The Prime Minister has his henchmen out after him. That is a known fact. That member is not even seeking the Liberal nomination because he does not have a chance against the Prime Minister's machine and is running as an independent. Those are the facts. Those are the actions. How is that showing any kind of ethics?
Yes, the government cancelled the sponsorship program after it had its hands in the cookie jar--it might as well have crawled right inside the cookie jar. It is great after it had been caught and exposed; however, the Prime Minister had this report for months.
I want to emphasize that this scandal did not happen yesterday. It did not happen six months ago. This has been going on for five years while the Prime Minister was the CFO of the government. Did he do anything then?
One cannot just blow off millions of dollars and not notice it. Where is the accountability? If he did not know, then we must ask the question, is he competent? It is a fair question. Who is doing the checks and balances? Are cheques written out willy-nilly? There is not even a paper trail quite often, but it is okay to just send out the cheques. Those are the facts.
Yes, he has called for an inquiry. We seem to be getting a new inquiry every single week. When are we going to get an inquiry for the recent scandals in British Columbia? Oh, I forgot. That is on the other side of the Rocky Mountains so it does not matter. We can forget about British Columbia because we do not really care about those people out there. When that scandal broke, the Prime Minister responded that it had nothing to do with him. The police had not asked him any questions about it and he did not feel that he needed to respond.
There are a number of top lieutenants in British Columbia who are legislative assistants in the legislature earning $60,000 a year and flew to the Prime Minister's coronation in Toronto on private jets at a cost of $65,000 paid for by the Liberal Party of Canada. Where is the inquiry into that?
How about the tens of thousands of memberships that David Basi, one of the Prime Minister's top henchmen, signed up? CTV cameramen went door to door asking if people in my riding belonged to the Liberal Party of Canada. People were shocked to find out they were on the list. A few had been called but had not paid for memberships. These are the indisputable facts.
He can talk about what is in print but what is in print is diametrically 180 degrees opposite to the actions of the government. Liberals do not deserve one seat in the House of Commons. I remind them to look back at what happened in the last British Columbia election when we saw a government which spent half a billion dollars on fast ferries. They had no respect for taxpayers' dollars. They were reduced to two seats because they did not deserve to represent the people.
Neither does this government. It is time that Canadians look up. I look forward to the election when Canadians will have an opportunity to express their thoughts of this government on the ballot.