As my colleague from Vancouver East has just said, they never learn.
We sit in committee talking about deputy minister responsibility. What about government responsibility? What about ministerial responsibility? What about prime ministerial responsibility? What about paying attention to those warning signals, the early detection signs? When the opposition raises these questions in the House, why are we given the brush-off? Why are we always told, “Oh, it is in hand, it is okay, we fixed the problem”? Why does the government never want to get to the bottom of the issues?
That is the real issue at hand. We are going to keep searching for the truth at the committee. We are going to do whatever we can to find the answers to the sponsorship scandal. The real burning question is, what has happened to the government that it can ignore, brush-off and dismiss warning signs that cry for attention in the House or out in the public?
In the cases of the sponsorship file and the Health Canada Virginia Fontaine scandal, there were audits. There were early warning signals. In every instance, every cry for attention was ignored by the government.
It is time for government members to stand up and say that some bad things have been going on and that they will take responsibility. They should say that when they came into office in 1993 they did something to send the wrong message and set the wrong tone, because they allowed a few self-serving individuals in the bureaucracy to think they could take advantage of the system.