Mr. Speaker, without being too derogatory or dismissive, that is probably one of the most inane questions I have ever heard. Of course our expenditures are logged here in the House of Commons, just as those of all members of Parliament are. We are not getting on a $100 million jet as members of the government are.
The member opposite should be fully aware that we are not talking about expenditures of members of Parliament or even members of the government. We are talking about massive, colossal waste by government departments, mainly public works. The sum is astronomical.
Two hundred and fifty million dollars would have paid the salary for eight years for 556 police officers. It would have bought over 8,000 police cruisers. Two hundred and fifty million dollars would have paid for between 100 and 200 installed MRI machines in the country. It would have paid the salaries of over 196 full time nurses, at a salary of $50,000 for the next 25 years, according to StatsCan.
There would have been 30,000 full time university students studying at an undergraduate level with that kind of money. It could have gone toward their tuitions. Every university student in the province of Nova Scotia could have been given a bursary toward their education, amounting to over $8,000, with that kind of money.
Two hundred and fifty million dollars would pay for more than two years of construction, rehabilitation and maintenance for the province of Nova Scotia's highway network. Nova Scotia will pay $106 million toward construction and rehabilitation just next year alone.
Those are the kinds of priorities that could have benefited from that kind of money, and what has it gone to? It has gone to Liberal-friendly firms for political gain, for partisan perpetration of power, to hold on to that grip with unbelievable ferocity.