Mr. Speaker, I can say that this is the new Conservative Party of Canada. I got involved in politics in a party that was called the Reform Party because I wanted to be involved in a party that would change the system. Certainly, we recognized from many different governments that it is systemic change that is needed.
I am not going to stand here tonight and defend a man whom I have not met. I am not going to accuse him. In fact, I would encourage the member to step outside and make some of those allegations. It is awfully easy to make allegations inside this House when he has government immunity, but he should step outside the House and make them.
I do know that the Auditor General, an independent individual, stepped forward, went through the books and found the scandal. She said it was the mother of all scandals in the history of our country. The member stood in the House and said, yes, it was a scandal but was it as bad as that scandal? I think that is a shame. It is a shame that he goes to his notes and pulls out war room talking points. How are the Liberals going to damage control the war room, the fact that they take another $1 million out of public funds and put it into spin doctoring to help bail out a Liberal Party that is in drastic trouble?
Tonight we are dealing with the estimates. We are dealing with budgets and the priorities of the government. He talked about what the Prime Minister did in setting up the Gomery commission. I want to remind the member that in the midst of this biggest scandal in Canadian history dealing with $250 million, the Prime Minister was the finance minister and he said that he had no idea that it was going on. He was the finance minister when there was $100 million going to Liberal ad agencies that were shooting the money back into the Liberal Party of Canada, and he did not know it was going on. He is either completely missing the boat with his job or is negligent at doing the work that he should have been doing, or he was indeed complicit in it. That is what Mr. Gomery is going to decide.
Mr. Gomery is going to decide who was involved, who knew, how much they knew and when they knew. I look forward to waiting for Mr. Gomery to report. I wish that the government would recognize that it should let him report. Perhaps what the government should say is that if it is going to have spin doctoring and damage control, maybe the Liberal Party of Canada should be paying for it.
The taxpayers in the riding of Crowfoot, the taxpayers in Alberta and the taxpayers across the land are sick and tired of paying for damage control to a corrupt government.