Madam Speaker, what we have asked is to have $1 million removed from the PCO.
I would like to have the minister's comments on this. We heard the government some months back say that the Gomery commission was “costing taxpayers $80 million”. It was Justice Gomery himself who corrected the government's spin. He said that the entire Gomery commission would be less than $32 million.
However, four government departments, Justice, Public Works, Treasury Board and the Privy Council Office, spent about $40 million to “prepare witnesses”. That is what we find troubling. How hard is it to tell someone to tell the truth? Why do they need to prepare witnesses if they want to truth to come out?
We asked that $1 million removed when we learned that when the Gomery commission was created, the Prime Minister simultaneously created a war room inside the Privy Council to give him advice and spin to mitigate damage in the Gomery commission. That war room cost exactly $1.068 million. Political parties set up war rooms, not governments.
It sounds a little like the gun registry. The commission only cost $32 million but it cost $40 million for four departments to spin and prepare witnesses for the Gomery commission. How can the minister possibly agree that this is a legitimate expenditure of taxpayer money, to spend $40 million in four departments to prepare witnesses at the Gomery commission when they simply had to tell them to tell the truth?