Mr. Speaker, I find that last comment to be absurd. If the federal government is serious about moving assets and moving jobs into regions, it can call for tenders for facilities within those regions.
The defence of the member that the government has to do that because it was done by other governments in the past, is contrary to the Conservatives' assertions that they were elected for change and calling for transparency. This motion calls for public tenders for public assets. It seems to me that is transparency.
If this unsolicited proposal to which he is referring is so good it would stand up to the scrutiny of a public tender and it would be the favoured tender. Perhaps there are other facilities out there that would have been a better value or would have better responded but if no search is done through pubic tenders, how are we ever to discover that?
If the government is serious about decentralization, I would encourage the member to have those tenders.
One thing I want to say on transparency is that one of the reasons we need this type of a motion is because of the actions of the government. The minister responsible for this action, who said that this was the best deal possible, is not even allowed to take questions from the members in this chamber, to answer to the Canadian public for his actions and to answer on how he is expending the Canadian dollar. Is he getting value? He may be but I cannot ask him that question. Nobody can. He sits in another house. He was appointed off the campaign bus to the Senate and into cabinet and expends billions and billions of dollars.
The government says that the people of Canada asked for change and they are getting nickels and dimes.