Mr. Speaker, the minister does not have any lessons to give to anybody when it comes to economic issues. In fact, he should redo his homework regarding what is going on back home, in the Gaspé and Magdalen Islands region. He really—and literally—missed the boat regarding fisheries, when he excluded part of the Gaspé region from the program that he just announced.
I want to go back to the real sadness that we should feel. This sadness is related to the existence of the sponsorship scandal. Considering that $250 million were spent in a shameful fashion, this situation is indeed a scandal. I refer the minister to the Gomery report, and more specifically to page 329. I would like to get his opinion on this excerpt, which is very clear:
Other politicians less directly involved in the Sponsorship Program did not hesitate to accept Mr. Lafleur’s hospitality.There was, throughout the period when sponsorship funds were being freely handed out by PWGSC, a sort of culture of entitlement—
This “culture of entitlement” is expressly mentioned in the Gomery report. It sounds like a Liberal culture “according to which persons enjoying Mr. Lafleur’s largesse apparently did not feel that there was anything wrong in being entertained by someone who was receiving, and hoped to continue to receive, obviously lucrative federal contracts”. This is clearly spelled out on page 329 of the Gomery report.
Let us hear the minister talk about the Gomery report, instead of trying to teach lessons to others, when he does not really know what he is talking about.