Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General confirmed the Bloc Quebecois' worst fears. The former prime minister, in complicity with the former finance minister, shamelessly misused public funds.
After having applied a code of secrecy to an incorrect response by his government, according to which his companies had obtained only $137,000 in government contracts, when he knew the contracts were worth in excess of $161 million, and having hidden a few lines in more than 400 pages of legislation to exempt his shipping company from paying more than $100 million in taxes, the Prime Minister would now have us believe that he did not know, when everyone else knew for years, that his government managed the sponsorship program in violation of all the rules.
In feigning ignorance, the Prime Minister is condoning corruption. The Bloc Quebecois will be there during the next election campaign to make sure that the public inquiry is not used as a smoke screen for the former finance minister's irresponsibility.