Mr. Speaker, indeed my constituents are outraged and it is palpable. We hear it in conversations with people in terms of the dollars that we will probably never get back. The money has gone down a dark, black hole, down a drain where we probably will never be able to get it back. At least those with a more pessimistic side would say that.
Certainly we should pursue everything with full force and to the full extent of the law because there are people who are culpable. Maybe small amounts can be brought back. Certainly we want to send a strong signal in the days ahead that nobody in a public office should be using and abusing the public trust in that manner.
Our farmers are going under and there are people on the take, if you will, who are squandering hard-earned tax dollars made by the sweat of the brows of farmers and other hardworking people who pay taxes. They are using it for these kinds of things. People want to be done with the gun registry and the mounting costs in respect to that. They want to be sure that there are no more scams like that in Quebec or anywhere in the country for that matter. They want to be sure that HRDC scandals do not ever occur again.
We need to have things in place. We want to have those dollars retrieved but I have to confess I am not very optimistic about it because with some of the individuals the paper trail is not there. It was all verbal, there was not even a handshake. I do not express a lot of optimism, but certainly we should learn the lessons for the future as this should never, ever happen again.
It has put other programs in jeopardy, such as health, education, and certainly as we are speaking of today, agriculture. For beef producers in my friend's province of Alberta, it is the most distressing time of their lives.