Mr. Speaker, the Liberal member for Vancouver Quadra cannot seem to get the story straight on lobbying, and no wonder. Liberals have been displaying incredible ethics amnesia in this Parliament.
It was the former Liberal prime minister's so-called conflict of interest code that purposely left the barn door open to Liberal lobbying horseplay, with defeated Liberal cabinet ministers rushing to the lobbying trough and major corporate lobbyists jumping on the Liberal transition gravy train without jumping off the Liberal lobbying bandwagon, at least not until the former Liberal prime minister's personally hand-picked ethics lapdog finally caved to pressure and told them to deregister, knowing full well the Liberal prime minister did not have a cooling off period for them after transition. Michael Robinson, Dennis Dawson, John Duffy, Arthur Kroeger, Mark Resnick, André Albinati, Francis Fox, Cyrus Reporter: sadly, the Liberal list of lobbying conflicts goes on and on.
If the Liberal member for Vancouver Quadra is serious about strong accountability on lobbying, he should tell his Liberal colleagues to stop opposing the Conservative federal accountability act, get with the program and get on with changing the old Liberal rules. Canadians turned the page on Liberal cronyism by choosing a Conservative government. Can the Liberals now do the same?