Mr. Speaker, I have three brief questions for my colleague from Vegreville—Wainwright.
I first want to recognize and acknowledge that it must be satisfying for him to see the pending accountability act. I recognize and pay tribute to the dedicated work he contributed as the chair of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.
I have a question for him about the new accountability act. One of the major irritants in the Auditor General's report of 2003, the infamous big, fat Auditor General's report, was chapter 5 about polling, which was not dealt with by Gomery. Could he indicate to me if his government plans to plug this outrageous opportunity for abuse, which the Liberals took advantage of to do their own private politically motivated public research?
Second, in the interests of tax fairness, is it the government's intention to plug the overseas tax fugitive loopholes that the former Prime Minister used to avoid paying Canadian taxes, such as tax havens in Barbados? Does he know if his government plans to finally do something about that?
My third question is on behalf of the farmers in my province of Manitoba. We have a terrible problem with Richardson's ground squirrels. Would he commit at this time that his government will do something about allowing prairie farmers to buy strychnine at a greater concentration than 2% so we can do something about this biblical plague of Richardson's ground squirrels which we suffer on the prairie provinces?