Mr. Speaker, there is no playing games. This is serious business.
There was abuse of the public purse in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and the way it was done, it went on for so long. Dirty money was used to fight two federal elections. It is so critically important for every single Canadian to know the facts.
For us, it is quite easy. A journalist came up to me earlier and said, “Everybody has their spinners out there. The Prime Minister had an advance copy. He had his spinners right out of the gate”. I said that for us it was quite simple. We did not need spinners. We just had to tell the facts. That is all we had to do.
I have not talked to my colleagues because this motion was just moved by a Liberal member a few hours ago, but I have no doubt that a lot of members will want to speak to the motion. In fact, they have been dying for an opportunity to speak to the motion. It is that important.
I know at the core of the matter is the use of householders, 10 percenters and franked mailings, but specifically what we are talking about is the sponsorship program. That is part of the motion.
I believe they are very upset with the content. I could understand that. If I were a Liberal I would be ashamed of the content as well, because it is true. But the truth is that they are not ashamed of what happened. Eighty-seven per cent of the current Liberal members were here when the program happened. Eighty-seven per cent.
They are saying “guilty by association”. Let us talk about guilty by association. I have been asked to respond indirectly from a member across the way. Let us talk about guilty by association with the current Prime Minister. He was the vice-president of the Treasury Board. This went on for eight years right underneath his nose. He had letters from senior policy people of the Liberal Party. They sent him a letter in 2002 saying, “It has come to my attention that the sponsorship money is being used for partisan purposes and could have very grave consequences on us and I am asking you to intervene”. Did the current Prime Minister, the then minister of finance, do anything about it? Obviously not.
The members opposite like to say that he called the inquiry. Imagine. He called the inquiry after he was caught, after the current Prime Minister was caught, after Sheila Fraser, the Auditor General, had completed her report. They know the damning details. I think they had known them all along because they are at the core of all of it. Everything revolves around the Liberal Party of Canada, more specifically the Quebec wing, but there is one Liberal Party represented across the way.
This is serious business. I could not be more serious about an issue that is so fundamentally important to talk about and to raise in the House. It is of critical importance.
I am going to make another argument. If we look at the origins of the program, and that is the centre of the information in the householder, it was supposedly about Canadian unity. A very strong argument can be made that it has done just the opposite. It has destroyed it. If anything, it has offended the people of Quebec. They feel bought. They feel cheated. It has offended the people of Quebec more than people in any other part of the country.
Did we see any type of remorse from the members opposite? The member from Victoria when the report came out said it was a great day for Liberals. Imagine. A report comes out confirming that there was political interference, confirming that hundreds of millions of dollars, and by their own admission they voluntarily repaid $1.14 million of the money they stole from Canadians. They believe it too, or they would not have paid it back.
We actually believe that number to be a lot higher. I am convinced of that. But they believe it, too. They cut a cheque, supposedly. I have not seen it. They cut a cheque with the back of the cheque stamped.
I am just going to come back to the issue about the mailings. The content of this should be sent to every household in the country.