Mr. Speaker, we never got a question out of the hon. member for West Nova, but I can try to interpret what he was trying to get at.
Let me just backtrack a little bit and go over the history of what the Liberal Party of Canada has been saying on this issue over the course of the last three to four weeks.
We know that the Leader of the Opposition has a position that there should be a wide-ranging public inquiry examining every aspect of this incident, including the 22 months that our government has been in power.
Contrast that with the former leadership candidate of the Liberal Party, Mr. Bob Rae, the want to be leader who will probably be leader one day, who said, “No, it should not be wide ranging; that is just silly. It should be narrowly focused on the $300,000 payment, alleged payment at least, between Mr. Schreiber and Mr. Mulroney. Let us narrow it in because that is the only thing that is truly of concern to Canadians”.
Yet a third opinion weighs in from the former prime minister of Canada, the Right Hon. Jean Chrétien, who says that there should be no inquiry, that there should only be an RCMP investigation.
If we want to capsulize what the Liberal Party is all about these days, those three divergent opinions say it all. The Liberal Party is all over the map on this issue. The only thing we can ascertain with any certainty is that the Liberals are desperately trying to do one thing and one thing only when asking these questions. The Liberals are trying desperately to cover their tracks of all of the activities that they have had with Mr. Schreiber over the course of the last 13 years and are trying in a desperate attempt to smear this government.
We cannot connect the dots because we have no dealings with Mr. Schreiber. This is a 15-year-old case.
But I will say this. Should the eminent Canadian whom we have appointed to come through with some terms of reference, Dr. Johnston, determine that the terms of reference should include a full examination of all of the dealings between governments of the day and Mr. Schreiber, we will be able to investigate, I am sure the inquiry will be able to investigate with some certainty, the dealings between the former Liberal government and Mr. Schreiber.
One thing we know again with certainty, Mr. Schreiber is about one thing: access to power. He wants to be close to people in government. For 13 years after the 1993 defeat of the former Conservative government headed up by Mr. Mulroney, it was the Liberals who were in power. I would like to know some things. I am sure Canadians would like to know some things.
My colleague, the hon. member for West Nova has stated publicly that he has had several lunches with Mr. Schreiber. What did they discuss? What information did Mr. Schreiber pass along to my colleague, the member for West Nova, or was it the opposite? Was it information my colleague passed along to Mr. Schreiber?
Those are things that we know happened: direct connections between Mr. Schreiber and many members of the former Liberal government, when in fact there is no connection between Mr. Schreiber and this government.
The Prime Minister has been quite clear. He did not see any letter written by Mr. Schreiber. The only reason that we have a publicly inquiry right now is that after sworn affidavits were filed in the Federal Court, as soon as that happened, the Prime Minister said, “Then let's have a full inquiry”.
All of the answers to the sordid case will come out in due course, but it will show one thing and probably only one thing: Relationships between Mr. Schreiber and the Liberals are what we should be examining.