Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Medicine Hat.
In my own name and that of the official opposition, I would today like to declare my support for the Bloc Québécois motion, which reads as follows:
That the House call on the government to immediately establish a trust account into which the Liberal Party of Canada can deposit all funds received from companies and individuals tied to the sponsorship scandal and identified in testimony before the Gomery Commission.
The Bloc's motion urges the Liberal Party of Canada to deposit immediately into a trust account all money diverted from public funds by the party through the generous sponsorship program.
I therefore support this motion, as it is based on the principles of transparency, integrity and moral legitimacy. These principles, which must guide all good government, were unfortunately compromised with impunity by the Liberal Party. The Liberals for a number of years chose not to see the diversion of public funds and thus ignored the election act's provisions on the funding of political parties, to the benefit of the Liberal Party and its cronies.
This government, which advocates transparency, also refused to provide secret cabinet documents to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, despite the request for them by the opposition parties. Although unstated, the intentions of the Liberal Party were clear: it wanted to call an election before some of its cronies, such as Jean Brault, testified. In addition, testimony that might have shed some light on the dubious activities of the Liberal Party, including that of Jean Brault, could not be heard in the public accounts committee, because a majority of Liberal members voted against it.
I know that for a fact, because I was there and sat on that committee. The Liberal Party's record of integrity is no more convincing. This party betrayed the principles of honesty, loyalty and respect for the rule of law by using illicit methods to divert public funds for partisan purposes. The party also dishonestly financed three election campaigns at taxpayers' expense by shamelessly using tainted money from the sponsorship program.
Upon the release of the Auditor General's report, the Liberal Party, having just been caught red-handed, at first tried to deny the facts. The Prime Minister himself tried many times, unsuccessfully, to dissociate his government from this scandal. It was only after being pressured by the opposition parties that the Prime Minister finally agreed to set up the Gomery inquiry.
Despite all the testimony heard thus far, this party continued to deny the facts, to wrap up the sponsorship scandal in the Canadian flag and even claim to have been the victim of a coup. Even the Prime Minister, who was finance minister at the time and number two in the Chrétien government, claimed to have been in the dark about this shocking misappropriation of public funds. Maybe he knew but does not want to remember?
The Liberals can no longer deny the evidence. It is now clear that the most senior party officials are at the very heart of this scandal. Testimony by Jean Brault, and other friends of the Liberal Party who profited from the generous sponsorship program, have stated clearly what everyone already knew but the Liberal Party continues to deny.
A Liberal organizer and close friend of the Prime Minister admitted that the only parallel system of funding within the Liberal Party was set up by supporters of the Prime Minister. However, the Prime Minister does not want to face the facts, and now the legitimacy of his party is in serious doubt.
In response to strong criticism from the opposition, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Transport have promised that the dirty sponsorship money would be put into a trust account in order to reimburse Canadian taxpayers for the public funds that were shamefully diverted by the party.
Canadians are still waiting. This government has still not taken any concrete action. As for the Liberals, this is once more a promise made and a promise broken.
It is about time that the Liberals take responsibility. They have misappropriated public funds. They must now do something about it and take concrete steps that will show their commitment to reimburse Canadian taxpayers as proposed in today's motion put forward by the Bloc Québécois.
During the last election, the Liberals used their line of credit to pay back the $1.5 million that mysteriously disappeared from their local associations trust account. This time, the Liberals will have to use their line of credit to put in trust the dirty money that they have to reimburse Canadian taxpayers.
Furthermore, the Prime Minister and his transport minister have already committed to a trust account, but by now we all know what a Liberal promise is worth. What is keeping the government from acting in a responsible way and showing good will?
Canadians want this government to reimburse them the dirty sponsorship money now. They also want to be sure that the Liberal Party will not be conducting a fourth election campaign with dirty money.
This government is now up against the wall and cannot deny the obvious. In the name of transparency, integrity and moral legitimacy, we believe that this government has to stop ignoring the will of the House and of Canadians and adopt this motion today.
I would like to point out furthermore that the former paint salesman, the current Minister of Public Works, and his colleague the Minister of Transport have repeatedly referred to audits supposedly having been done by the Liberal Party into its own financing scandal. As revealed by the Leader of the Opposition this week, in fact no such audits were ever conducted. It is complete and total fabrication to claim that audits were done.
Is it not interesting that for weeks and months we heard the government claim that it had taken an important step by launching independent audits of its own books filled with dirty money, but when the Leader of the Opposition challenged the Liberals on this point on Tuesday and pointed out that the accountants referred to an informational review rather than a forensic audit, suddenly the language coming from the Liberals changed and they admitted that it was merely a review all along.
I would like to cite an article appearing in the CanWest newspapers today which cites forensic auditor, Al Rosen, a chartered accountant and certified fraud examiner who said that the Liberal Party is “pulling the wool over taxpayers' eyes” by pointing to reports done by accounting firms as evidence that the party never received inappropriate cash donations from Quebec ad firms. He has said, “The engagements by the two auditing firms are not comprehensive enough to detect any scams or any form of dirty money transactions”.
Al Rosen further said, “Trying to use these reports to claim that everything is fine within the party is completely inappropriate. That is not what the reports say and what is missing from it is the cash transactions that don't get recorded in the books”. He said that if they use the word “review”, which is indeed what was used by the accountants, “this is wishy-washy useless”.
This begs the question, why would the government try to mislead Canadians in this respect? Why would the Liberals not tell the truth? Just as the Prime Minister, after having had more than a dozen opportunities has refused to clarify whether or not he had a lunch date with Mr. Claude Boulay of Groupe Everest, why is he not forthcoming? Why the prevarication? Why the fudging of the truth? Why is there not a forthcoming statement of what actually happened?
I propose it is because the Liberals know the truth and they want to keep it from Canadians and they want to go into a fourth campaign with dirty money. This motion would create a system whereby they would be forced to reimburse that to taxpayers rightfully, justly and immediately.