Mr. Speaker, first, let me say that Canadians are sick to death of scandals in their government. Canadians are sick to death of the energy of this place being diverted and redirected to deal with a very egregious, a very heinous situation no doubt, but a situation that clearly diverts attention away from the issues and concerns that Canadians have to deal with on a day to day basis.
They cannot figure out what happened to their elected representatives who chose to come to this place to speak about health care and the crisis in medicare and to speak about the stress that families are facing in trying to juggle work, community and child care responsibilities. They cannot figure out where their elected representatives are on pollution, on environmental degradation or on weaponization of space.
Canadians are sick to death of this situation, this scandal ridden place, and so are we on this end of the House.
My colleagues in the New Democratic Party have tried very hard to call on the government to deal with this scandal quickly, effectively, with teeth and with clear resolution so we can get back to the main issues of the day. We make that call again. Deal with this horrible chapter in the history of Canadian politics promptly, efficiently, with truth and with resolution so we can get back to the issues that matter.
The real scandals of the day are how the Prime Minister could be underestimating our surplus, lowballing it by $80 billion over 10 years, or how the government could be breaking every promise it ever made in the red book time and time again.
Yesterday a group of women gathered on the Hill from across Canada. These women came to participate in the NDP women's economic summit. They came to talk about serious issues affecting their day to day lives, such as the stress that women face in trying to cope when the government has done nothing but cut the rug out from under them, when the government has hacked and slashed every program that has meant anything to women and working families.
They wanted us to stand up in the House and say that the only thing the finance minister was consulting on was the debt to GDP ratio. Why is he not consulting on the 50,000 day care spaces the government promised 10 years ago? Why is the government not consulting on the 20,000 units of affordable housing that are needed right now to deal with the critical housing situation, and the very serious situation of homelessness at a time of severe winter climate conditions? Why is the government not talking about creating quality jobs for women so they can provide for their families and still keep their mental health intact? Why have issues of importance dropped off the page by the government? Why are we now dealing with another scandal?
It is imperative that we deal with this scandal here and now so we can get back to the issues at hand.
It is interesting that the Conservatives are getting a little defensive in the House today about the fact that we have been trying to suggest that we are not dealing with simply a little individual problem here and there, but a systemic problem, a problem that goes back throughout the last decade of Liberal rule and beyond that to the previous decade of Brian Mulroney Conservative rule.
How can we not deal here and now with the kind of corruption that existed back then, clearly identified, documented and discussed in Parliament over the last two decades?
The irony of the Conservative motion today is that the Conservatives, in their previous manifestation, established the standards on the benefit of patronage appointments and the pouring of public funds into the pockets of their friends.
Did Canadians not throw them out of office on this as their verdict on the issue years ago? Canadians see worse health care, more expensive tuition, and a more polluted environment today than 10 or 20 years ago. Why? Because for 20 years Brian Mulroney and the present Prime Minister said they cared and were concerned, but they did not act on those concerns. Instead, they listened to their corporate friends and geared their decisions in their favour.
It is interesting that the Liberals got elected because of Tory corruption. Now the Tories want to get elected because of Liberal corruption. We are here today to end this cycle. We must get to the systemic root of the problem. What do we do? We call on the government to deal with this horrific scandal, identified by the Auditor General, in an expeditious fashion.
We want to remind Canadians what the Liberals did over their holiday break. What did they do when they heard from the Auditor General about the depth of this scandal, about a sea of money for nothing contracts? We heard about the Liberal scandal. We are talking about public funds going to back Liberal candidates for a Liberal electoral action plan. What did the Liberals do when they heard about this? They tried to rewrite history.
As I said in the House on a couple of occasions, it is interesting how the Liberals are very clear when they are very caught. How can they stand opposite us in the House with straight faces, face to face with Canadians, and expect Canadians to swallow the idea that this was a surprise? How can they look us straight in the face and blame it on the public servants? How can they look us straight in the face and blame it on someone in the past administration and never take full responsibility for what is at hand?
Is it not interesting that the Liberals want to treat Gagliano like an embarrassing relative, but where was the present Prime Minister, that outspoken moralist, when Liberals were out buying elections in Quebec? Who was signing the federal cheques for Mr. Gagliano? It was not Jean Chrétien, was it?