Mr. Speaker, I want to share my time with my colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health.
The question of privilege granted to my colleague from Bourassa shows just how serious this is. When a party like the Bloc attacks people's reputations instead of sticking to a debate about ideas, as we should here in the Parliament of Canada, it shows how prepared this separatist party is to do just about anything to break up our country.
What I find disgraceful in what the Bloc members are doing is that they are attacking the reputations not just of members of Parliament but of their families and friends as well. I know that the Bloc members have families too. If they would just take two seconds to stop and think, they would immediately cease this disgraceful approach and unfortunate lack of judgment.
I should emphasize, though, that some Bloc members are not descending to conduct like that of their colleagues.
We heard the member for Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean tell the House that some members had thin skin but his was thicker. I was hardly surprised to see that he could not stop laughing when we were debating a matter of privilege here over a serious attack on someone's reputation.
I would like to return to the thick skin of the member for Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean. When his opponents pointed out during the last election campaign that he lived in a residence in Gatineau worth more than half a million dollars and had a shiny Cadillac, all of a sudden his skin became very thin. And yet, this was as true as can be. Here we see it every day with the Gomery report, and everybody is quoting it over and over and no party in this House has cast any doubt on the report. It acknowledges that no member of the government was involved in the scandal. So why does the Bloc not apologize and stop its smears and disinformation campaigns? The Bloc members often quote us this page or that of the report. They should read page 77 of the summary, where they will see Mr. Justice Gomery acknowledge that the government was not involved in these misappropriations.
All of politics loses because of the Bloc's behaviour. No time must be wasted in returning to debating ideas. This is why I am interested in the real reasons behind the thoughtless attacks by the separatists. They are supposed to be defending the interests of Quebeckers, but they have ignored a number of issues. There was the metro scandal in Laval, Quebec, which occurred while the mother house was in government. Some $178 million was involved. The work is not complete, and the cost is over $1 billion. It is a scandal. And yet, the Bloc members neither criticized the mother house nor called for it to investigate. Then there is Gaspésia, where costs spiralled $200 million over the original estimate. It could be called a scandal. There is the Caisse de dépôt. There are a lot of examples.
I will spend a little time on Oxygène 9.