Such is the Liberal culture deeply ingrained in the people across the way. Such is this Liberal culture of laughing at people, particularly the oldest members of society in this instance, who spent their lives contributing to society. When they are owed money, they are ignored. Yet money will be clawed back retroactively from school boards. And the Liberals claim to care about education. What fine thinking. But that is the usual thinking on almost every issue.
We doubt that voters will buy into the Prime Minister's petty blackmail.
We have seen money start pouring out again by the billions in recent days. We have seen the Liberals travel at the taxpayers' expense, flying here and there on Challengers. Suddenly, they are making announcement everywhere in Canada and Quebec. They are campaigning at the expense of the public purse. As usual, they are confusing the interests of the state and the interests of the Liberal Party of Canada, like in the sponsorship file. That is precisely what they are doing. That is scandalous. The Liberal culture gave us the sponsorship scandal, and the same culture is currently at play in this shameful blackmail they are subjecting the public to.
The Prime Minister is afraid of going before the voters, because he knows that the public is not fooled. This Prime Minister said he knew nothing about the sponsorship scandal, that he was not responsible. That is true, we can believe him on that, he is not responsible. Throughout the sponsorship scandal, quite irresponsibly, the Prime Minister was on a constant leadership campaign, having been the second in command in government, finance minister and vice-chair of the Treasury Board.
On page 47 of his report, Justice Gomery wrote that the Treasury Board no longer exercised its program oversight function. In other words, it was an open bar, the Liberals were at the bar and helping themselves freely. That is what happened.
Jean Chrétien tells us, “I regularly asked the Treasury Board whether everything was operating normally in the sponsorship program and they regularly responded that there was no problem whatsoever.” I recall that the current PM was then second in command in the government, vice-chair of the Treasury Board, Minister of Finance, and candidate for party leadership. He knows everybody in the party. The Prime Minister was asked; “Did you receive such an order—that being the word used by Mr. Chrétien—from the then prime minister? Did you reply and did you say there was no problem?” He refused to reply. He did not refuse to reply for no reason. Either he knew and said that nothing was going on, or this Prime Minister simply did not want to know. You know the story of see no evil, hear no evil; that was what went on with the Prime Minister. That is called complicity. That is the term for it.
In closing, I would like to speak to the public. The Prime Minister is trying to slough off his responsibilities and put the blame for a winter election on others. I would like people to know that the blame is his alone. Last year, he took opposition days away from the opposition parties. He fiddled with the parliamentary rules because he knew very well that there would be a motion of non-confidence and he would have lost it. That was his first undemocratic act. Then there was his ingratiating TV appearance, with the statement that he was “sorry that I was not more vigilant”. Indeed, as second in command at the Treasury Board he was not vigilant enough. He said “I will call a general election within 30 days of the publication of the commission’s final report ”. Hon. members will recall that the date scheduled for it at that time was December 15. In other words, he had to call the election by January 15 at the latest. He tells us that it is irresponsible to hold a winter election, yet I would remind him—meteorology being under federal jurisdiction—that he ought to know that January 15 falls in the winter.
Perhaps he winters in Barbados? This is a possibility.
In the past, we offered to compromise, saying that if he wanted to do it during the winter, he need only accept the NDP's proposal. All of a sudden, this was no longer an option for him. This had never happened in the winter, he said. However, in 1979, the Liberals toppled Joe Clark's government in early December. The election was held on February 20. They see this as a real feather in the Liberal Party's cap. This ensured the return of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, just before the 1980 referendum. Back then, a winter election was not a problem. However, it is a problem now because they do not want an election.
I can assure you the voters will reach the following conclusion. They will say that getting rid of the Liberals will be their Christmas present to themselves.
There are two sponsorship scandals. The first involves the kickbacks, the Liberal corruption and the Prime Minister saying that he knew nothing or rather that he did not want to know about it. This scandal affects us all because it was our money, taxpayers' money, that was misappropriated. The second sponsorship scandal is that the Liberal government wanted to circumvent the democratic rules in order to beat the sovereignists, because it has nothing to offer Quebec. That is the second scandal.
The Liberal Party of Canada, under the current Prime Minister, tried to buy Quebeckers off. This shows contempt for Quebec. The Gomery commission did not have the mandate to judge both these scandals. I am addressing the voters here because they are the ones with the mandate to judge the corruption, the contempt and the Liberal culture embodied by this party and its members. This issue will be key in the upcoming election. I invite everyone to come out en masse and to deliver the message that corruption and contempt are no longer welcome in Quebec.