Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague who spoke before me put it the way we all feel about this topic. Canadians have looked at this and Canadians have heard the discussion around the Gomery inquiry. I believe that Canadians think that the Gomery inquiry is the answer, that Gomery will come back to the public and tell them what went wrong, who is responsible and assign that accountability to those people.
Unfortunately as time goes on and as we get further into the inquiry we find that is not the case. We are here today to bring this motion forward and ask the Canadian people and the House as it sits here today to make a decision to support that. Canadians want the Gomery commission to provide them with the answers they believe they are going to get at the end of the inquiry.
It is beyond me how a government can sit there and make millionaires of its friends and cohorts while hard-working taxpaying Canadians submit their dollars to Ottawa to spend in their best interests, providing for health and education, supplies and equipment for our armed forces. All those people have been deprived in some way because of this scandal.
Canadians will be deprived of their opportunity to get an answer. We have heard in committee after committee. We have listened to the public come forward about things that they were unable to do in the past several years on the premise that the money was not available. We know where the money went and we know to whom it went. Mr. Justice Gomery is proving that to us day in and day out.
I want to choose my words very carefully. I think the government of the day has made Canadians believe that Gomery is the final answer. We hear it every day when the minister stands to answer questions. He says, “Let Gomery do his work. Let Gomery report. Let Canadians make their decision after Gomery has reported”.
The actual clause that we are talking about here in this debate says the following:
the Commissioner be directed to perform his duties without expressing any conclusion or recommendation regarding the civil or criminal liability of any person or organization--
When I hear that and I listen to what the minister across the floor says when he is answering questions, I am getting mixed messages. I am getting a message from the government that the Liberals want to get to the bottom of this scandal. They want people to hear the answers. They want those accountable to be held accountable. Yet the government has included a clause in the judge's terms of reference that does not allow him to do that.
I think we have all had the wool pulled over our eyes if we believe that Judge Gomery is going to be able to do that, unless we pass the motion that has been put forward today.
The people of Canada deserve to know who was responsible for directing millions of dollars. They have a right to know. It is Canadian taxpayers' money. It is not Liberal government money to spend as the Liberals choose, to dole our to their friends, to fake invoices so that they can create some revenue for a group of people who then funnel it back to the Liberal Party of Canada to run elections.
We now know that this did not involve just one election. It has been the past three. Should we have fallen into an election in the last few days, who is to say, could it have been four? Who is to say, did it happen before that?
That is what this entire debate has been about. It is about accountability of government. Does the government not want the Canadian public to trust it? Do the Liberals not want Canadians to respect us all as parliamentarians, as hon. members to give them the truth as a judge would see it, to hold people accountable?
We talk about our justice system in this world and every time someone gets into a position of having to be accountable, they lower the bar, so that person does not have to be accountable for it. Canadians want that to change and they want it to change with Gomery.
As I travelled throughout my constituency last week that is the one statement that I heard over and over, “Let Gomery finish”. My constituents told me that they were convinced that he is going to give us the goods. He is going to tell us who is accountable, who should be charged, and who should be punished.
When they find out that is not his job and not his role, they are completely offended that a government would say publicly that it was its intent to get to the bottom of this. We all heard the Prime Minister give a speech on national TV that was not about anything that was of historic interest to Canadians or of value to Canadians but only to the Liberal Party. It was only said in defence of the Liberal Party.
It has been said several times and I think it is worth reiterating that this is a Liberal problem. It is not a provincial issue. It is not a Canadian issue in the sense that it has been created by other Canadians. It has been created within the Liberal Party.
As I watch the Gomery inquiry I see high ranking Liberal officials coming forward ever day and spilling their information. These are not allegations that these people are making. This is testimony. These are confessions. These are people trying to do everything they possibly can, I suspect, to point the finger across the entire lot, which I think is what is happening. I think people are starting to see that. The unfortunate part with the Gomery inquiry, the way it is set up right now, is that we will never know who would be accountable at the end of the day.
This morning I listened to a few of the comments made by the members opposite. They argued as to why it should not happen. They said that it would obstruct the RCMP investigation. It would hinder the police investigation. I do not believe there would be any danger in letting Mr. Gomery indicate responsibility. It will not hurt the RCMP. In fact, it might actually help it.
However, we have to question why clause (k) was included and was it part of the bigger picture that the government knew at the time.
The government today is claiming that changing the terms midway through the investigation would imperil the results. I do not know how it would. I have not heard anyone explain it today. I believe that allowing more tools to access the truth and report on it can only help us all get to the bottom of it and help all Canadians understand.
We have seen and we are part of history in Canada where a government has taken advantage and abused its ability through a taxation system to funnel money back into its own coffers for its own personal benefit. Personally I take offence to that. That is not why I was elected. That is not why I ran to be a part of Parliament. I ran to have people respect me and to do the right things for the right reasons. I think we see day after day that it is breaking down.
Unfortunately, I think we all suffer because of that. We have seen in history that governments that take advantage and take for granted the taxpayers of the country or the province that they represent are eventually punished, but in the same way many of the good people who put their names forward are painted and tarnished with that same brush. I personally resent that.
The motive behind bringing this motion forward is to inform Canadians who all believe that they are going to get an answer at the end of the day.
I ask the Liberal government and the members opposite to really look hard. If they really believe that the Canadian public should get the answers and the truth, they will have no problem supporting this motion. They will have no problem supporting the fact that at the end of the day Judge Gomery will report. He will name names. He will make people accountable which is what we all want as Canadians.