Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the minister for his comments, but I am not sure where he is hearing the negative comments about Quebec. He is certainly not hearing it from this side of the House, not from us anyway. The question is not whether Quebec society wants to clean up the corruption. The question is, is the Liberal Party prepared to clean up the corruption?
The problem has been and the reason that the Auditor General has been front and centre is because this scandal involves the Liberal Party and their supporters. She did not say anything about Quebec. We are not saying anything about Quebec, but it is saying a lot about the Liberal Party of Canada.
That is why the member today left the Liberal Party. He said that he has been convinced over the last three or four years that it has not improved. In fact, he says it is going downhill within the Liberal Party itself. He says the problem is getting worse over there, not better. It is not a matter of public financing of political parties. It is a culture that is created when wrongdoing is winked at and accepted.
I would like the minister to answer a specific question which we asked in the House before. In this scandal, as the minister says, there have been aspersions cast upon the ministers from Quebec and it is up to them to stand up and clear the air.
The Prime Minister, for example, received a letter from the president of the Liberal Party of Canada weeks before the Auditor General started her investigation. The question we have been asking is, when did this minister and other ministers hear about the problems that the Auditor General's report details?
When did he hear about it? Did he hear about it before the AG started her investigation or was he surprised a week ago when the report came down? What appears evident again is that there is a culture that has made this acceptable in the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party may want to ferret it out now, but it is certainly there. We need to know, when did the minister know and what did he do about it once he found out?