Mr. Speaker, I appreciate some of the work that the hon. member has done over the past in his private member's legislation.
I have a very specific question concerning the justification for the moral high ground that has been presented in this debate from his party. When it comes to the ethics of both patronage and the protection of civil servants, if one were to step back in history to when the Conservatives, God help us, were last in power, the amount of patronage that flowed from within the prime minister's office was extraordinary, breaking all records and the scandals that came from that.
However during this very debate a colleague of his stepped forward and said that he had no problem with patronage appointments and thought they should continue with some mild justification that they should be connected to merit. Whereas the moral high ground would firmly place us to say that all positions in crown corporations, wherever the government has any authority on the decisions and the decision makers in our country, should be based entirely on merit, not so much on which party's allegiance one holds and whether one has been contributing significantly to the party that happens to be in power at the moment.
If Canadians are expecting the government to exhibit a certain amount of fairness in the way in which it conducts its business, and Lord knows we have been missing that, extraordinarily, for at least the last 20 to 25 years, how is it that the Conservative Party is able to stand up, with such a shakey record at best when it comes to the issuing of patronage, and in the very debate in which we are talking about trying to go to a new era of clean government and accountable government, still promote the use of patronage as a buy-off for their loyal donors and party members, which flies in the face of many of the words that were expressed by the member today?
I wonder if he can reconcile those two disparate realities.