Mr. Speaker, I can assure the hon. member across the way that the bleeding will stop when the Canadian public vote the Liberals out and bring back responsible government, the Conservative Party of Canada.
It is a pleasure to rise tonight, along with a number of my colleagues, in opposition to the one million taxpayer dollars being spent by the Liberal government in a pathetic attempt at nothing more than Liberal style damage control. Let us start with the $1 million.
In late May the Ottawa Citizen reported that it had discovered the Gomery war room under the direction of the Privy Council Office. This war room, as mentioned in the newspaper, is staffed by four or five workers whose sole responsibility is to monitor the Gomery inquiry and provide advice to the Prime Minister's Office on how to deal with, or basically how to spin, the damaging testimony coming out of the Gomery inquiry.
Talk about adding insult to injury. As if Canadian taxpayers had not already been bilked enough by the government. The Liberals spent $250 million under the auspices of a sponsorship program to boost their profile in Quebec and help fight separatism in Quebec. The $100 million dollars of the $250 million that went out in commissions and fees to Liberal friendly ad agencies are at the centre of what the Gomery inquiry is checking into and the subject of criminal charges, of which there will probably be at least four brought down.
To date, the Gomery budget for the current year is $20.4 million and that figure could double after the next phase, bringing the tally for the inquiry to approximately $40 million. Add that amount to the almost $40 million in expenses for the four federal departments involved, the Department of Public Works, the Treasury Board, the Department of Justice and the Privy Council Office, and the overall tag is $80 million.
The public works minister has tried to contend that the money being spent by these four departments is not linked with Gomery's budget although it is directly related to the inquiry as a whole.
I am sure most of us in the House can think of much better ways to use the $80 million and the other $250 million that was spent on the sponsorship program. Over the last few days we have listened to the Supreme Court and we have realized that the health care system could use many more dollars. The injection of $330 million into a system that, as some would say, is in major trouble and in major need of a fix would certainly be much better used than in a sponsorship program.
The member was talking about Atlantic Canada but I am certain that agriculture throughout the country could have used the $330 million. It is not just that $330 million. Now we have learned that another $1 million is being misspent in the Liberal government's attempt to deflect criticism and mitigate the damage that is being done to its reputation. That is what the $1 million does. It adds spin and deals with damage control to the Liberals' reputation.
The issue of the Gomery war room was first raised in the House by the leader of the official opposition on May 23 when he asked the Prime Minister if he would direct the Liberal Party to repay the money. The Prime Minister refused, denying that public money was in fact being misused. He defended the Gomery war room saying that it was needed to “ensure the commission has the support it requires from the government”.
The kind of support for which the government was using that money was certainly not the type of support that Gomery was looking for. Before we went into the last election what Parliament was looking for was simple compliance by the government so that we could get to the bottom of the worst scandal in Canadian history.
I would like to take this opportunity to remind the House and the Prime Minister that the Gomery inquiry and the ensuing cost of $80 million would never have been necessary if the sponsorship scandal had never been a reality. If the government had not misused the dollars initially, all these millions of dollars would not be in question here tonight.
I would also point out that the Prime Minister has promised to call an election within 30 days of Gomery releasing his report. However there is absolutely no guarantee that the report will be brought down in a timely manner. The release of the report could, for all we know, be withheld until after criminal proceedings are concluded, which could take months. We have seen this before: cannot comment, a criminal investigation is underway, will hold off on the report. This is not out of the realm of possibility with those guys.
Last month when the member for Newmarket--Aurora crossed the floor, the Prime Minister made a big deal out of the fact that he had appointed her to implement the recommendations arising from the Gomery report. The member justified her switch to the scandal ridden party and tried to paint herself as a hero in that she had been tasked with cleaning up the mess. She does not have a broom big enough to clean up this mess. The member may have been empowered on paper to implement the recommendations but those recommendations will be swept under the carpet by the election that is supposedly to occur within 30 days after the release. Her appointment in my opinion is nothing more than more smoke and more mirrors.
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Lumsden--Lake Centre.
The sponsorship scandal is proving to be the worst scandal in our country's history. We have heard sworn testimony that the Liberal Party received cash for sponsorship contracts. These are not just allegations or innuendoes. I remind the House and Canadians that this is actually sworn testimony under oath, which is subject to perjury charges if it is found to be untrue or deliberate.
This testimony clearly shows that the Liberal Party has been firmly entrenched in deception and fraud from the beginning until end. I see the minister shaking his head. As most members on this side of the House are preparing for elections, we are out fundraising and trying to raise money. We tell our constituents that we are funding an election and we ask if they could kick in $10, $100 or whatever. Those guys are using taxpayer dollars to fund election after election.
As stated earlier, to add further insult, the Liberal government is using one million taxpayer dollars to fund and staff a war room that has been established solely for the purpose of damage control. No amount of money in my opinion will help the Liberal government spin its way out of this scandal.
When the Auditor General reports that it is the mother of all scandals, the biggest scandal in Canadian history, the government responds by asking how it can set up a war room and how can it get taxpayers to fund it. Canadians are not that naive and for the government to think they are is perhaps the greatest insult of all to Canadians.
As requested by the Leader of the Opposition, I ask the Prime Minister to dismantle his Gomery war room, to pay back the money that the Liberal Party of Canada has wrongfully used to fight a political battle, a battle that was not of Parliament's own choosing and a battle that was not placed upon him by Parliament, but rather a battle that was placed upon him by the corruption that just happens to be in that party.