Here we go, Mr. Speaker. It was Sir John A. Macdonald's fault, if we want to go right back to the very beginning and blame it on some Conservative. That seems to be the ploy here.
Let us be factual. We could go out and find some third party endorsements and try to pat ourselves on the back. There is no getting away from the fact that this government has been mired in the most corrupt and scandalous behaviour that the country has seen arguably in its history. It has misappropriated funds. There have been police investigations going on inside government departments. A Quebec Superior Court judge excoriated the departmental officials of BDC for the persecution they perpetrated on the head of a crown corporation.
The hon. member opposite knows full well that his government has an absolutely abysmal record as a manager of taxpayers' money. We have seen scandal after scandal emanating out from under the cabinet door. We have seen all sorts of examples of how the government has no respect for taxpayers' money. It has no respect for hard-working people who are at this very moment filling out their income tax forms to send to Ottawa, knowing full well that this government has lost $100 million in one program, in one department.
The hon. member opposite can try to pump up the stats and suggest that those outside the country somehow have some begrudging admiration for where our economy is, but the truth of the matter is that our numbers have been tumbling in world rankings in the United Nations. Our country is losing credibility every day because of the abysmal management skills of this government and this Prime Minister. If the Prime Minister somehow ran his own personal shipping empire the way he handled the government's finances, he would have a couple of ships tied up in an old harbour somewhere, rusting out like the economy is under his watch.
The member really has no credibility to stand here and try to read from some newspaper article about somebody who said something good about his government's management skills. The proof is in the pudding. Canadians sitting at home filling out their income tax forms know full well where their trust should lie when it comes to this government and the management of their hard-earned dollars. They look at the gun registry, the HRDC scandal, and this horrible waste of money under the sponsorship program. Those facts, not some chronicled response by some individual speaking on specific elements of the economy, speak for themselves.
The truth is there. Canadians know it. They are not going to buy this attempt to somehow roll back the clock and point the finger at somebody else.