Yes, the guilty ones will go to jail and there will be a lot of them.
It has been confirmed by Justice Gomery that there was political direction of the sponsorship program. This culture of entitlement is confirmed. Mr. Dingwall perhaps said it best when he stated, “I am entitled to my entitlements”. That is the attitude that exists among the Liberal members opposite. Justice Gomery specifically admonished the Liberals for equating the interests of the Liberal Party with those of national unity, and Canadians deserve better.
What people in my riding and Canadians throughout the country know is that even though some people were not directly fingered by Justice Gomery, a lot of wilful blindness went on. It is tough to track envelopes of money passed under the table in restaurants. There was a lot of wilful blindness on the part of members opposite and on the part of the Prime Minister of Canada.
It is clear that Liberals received kickbacks. The Liberal Party itself admits that it will repay $1.14 million that it stole. Since when do people in this country get to choose their penalty? Where is the punitive component if people just have to repay the money that was stolen? Clearly the government needs to step forward, do the right thing, sue the Liberal Party of Canada and recover the money.
Again, there needs to be a punitive component. If Liberal members opposite robbed a bank, they would not just have to give back the money bags. This is ridiculous. The Bloc Québécois puts the number of dollars that went directly to the Liberal Party of Canada at closer to $5.5 million. If truth be told, $40 million are unaccounted for. Canadians are incensed by this scandal.
What did the Prime Minister know about this scandal? I sat in my seat and watched as the Prime Minister of Canada one day was asked a very simple question: Did he ever have lunch with Mr. Claude Boulay of Groupe Everest and discuss sponsorship contracts? He refused to answer that question probably a dozen times, until a long term member of the House, I believe from Ottawa Centre, said that it was the most disgraceful thing he had ever seen in the history of this Parliament. That indicates some of what the Prime Minister may have known.
We know that when the Prime Minister was finance minister, his chief political aid, Lucie Castelli, picked up the phone and secured $250,000 for Serge Savard, the Prime Minister's golfing buddy who happened to raise $1 million for the Prime Minister's leadership bid. Did the Prime Minister not know about that? Canadians will be the judges of that. The people in my riding have already made up their minds based on sworn testimony and are ready to render their judgment.
Justice Gomery has used words such as “culture of entitlement” and the phrase “rotten to the core”. Clearly there is systemic corruption in the Liberal Party of Canada, the result of arrogance of a four term Liberal government. There is terrible abuse of Canadian tax dollars. The good people in Moose Jaw, Regina, Pense, Wilcox, Mossbank and Rouleau, hard-working taxpayers in this country, are incensed. The government needs to be held politically accountable. The Liberals may think that Canadians will simply forgive and forget but they will be wrong.
In 1997 the Liberal majority resulted perhaps because of the illegal money that helped the Liberals increase their seat count in Quebec. This money was used to illegally fight election campaigns. It breaks every rule in the book and Canadians know it.
I will paraphrase the member for Newmarket—Aurora. When she sat on this side of the House she said that the Prime Minister was the first mate on the good ship Chrétien before she decided to join that ship.
Canadians know that the Prime Minister was the finance minister and the vice-chair of the Treasury Board at that time. He was the one writing the cheques for the sponsorship program which has become the sponsorship scandal. Canadians will judge in the coming election what the Prime Minister truly knew about this scandal.
It is the culture of corruption. How many examples do we have to point to? Let us talk about the strippergate saga and the Dingwall affair with questions about his lobbyist activities. Let us talk about the misuse of the Challenger jet by the government. It is shameful. Let us talk about the immigration minister's ferocious appetite for pizza and the $138 bill for two people, which is more than a family of four spends in a week for groceries. Let us talk about the Minister of Foreign Affairs and his travelling chauffeur if we want to talk scandal. Let us talk about crony appointments to the Senate. Let us talk about André Ouellet from Canada Post. I can go on and on.