Mr. Speaker, I think I will get most of my 10 minutes in and I may be able to avoid questions. I would expect one or two intelligent ones from this House but that may be a fond hope.
My opening comments will be somewhat critical of this motion coming forward at this time. As one looks at it and at the other issues confronting us in this Parliament right now, the budget and the debate around that in particular, one cannot help but wonder about the motivation of the Liberals. They obviously do not want to be confronted with their flexibility on the budget and their unwillingness to stand up, as they should as the formal official opposition, and challenge the government on a great deal of this budget. They would rather sit on their hands, as they have so often done in these last six months, and not play the role they properly should and protect the Canadian people in the kind of budget that we have. Instead, they move on this.
I do not want to downplay in any way or demean the significance of the Mulroney-Schreiber and Airbus inquiry and the need for it, but that message has been clearly sent out by the ethics committee, by a great deal of the positions of all political parties, except for the Conservatives, and by the Canadian public generally.
This debate today, I would suggest, is not really necessary because all the points that I have heard so far today have been made repeatedly in the past. The political pressure is on the House and, more specifically, on the government to get the public inquiry going as quickly as possible.
It is quite obvious that the government is very interested in prolonging the establishment of the public inquiry until the next election occurs and have the election done and over with before the public inquiry gets started and certainly before it completes its work.
In that regard, I think the crucial issue here is not only to get the inquiry going, but that a mandate for that inquiry be given. If it follows the very clear message from the government at the present time and, to some degree, the recommendations that came from Dr. Johnston, this will be a very limited mandate that basically will do nothing.
I would argue strongly that, if we see that limited mandate, it is intentional that it will not do anything. We will spend a chunk of money on it, we will put a lot of resources into it for a very limited mandate and we will come to no conclusions.
I want to acknowledge the work that my colleague from Winnipeg has done on the committee and the work of the committee generally in moving this forward. We also need to recognize the limitations it was functioning under. It lacked the financial and professional resources and, in particular, the forensic accounting resources that would have allowed the committee to move it even further along.
It has been a rather significant problem for me as I analyze how Parliament and our committees function as opposed to the way committees function in other Parliaments around the globe. As we see with the present government and as we saw with the prior Liberal government with the sponsorship scandal, we do not provide sufficient resources in the structure within this House and within the committees. Our structure is not flexible enough and not resourced enough to do the job that we are required to do or expected to do when we are faced with this kind of an issue and these kinds of facts. I address it specifically as a situation where we as a committee are expected to conduct a quasi inquiry without having anywhere near the resources.
We saw that very clearly during the sponsorship scandal. I remember speaking at that time with the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, who was an accountant himself, and saying that this was everything we had and that there was no way we would be able to get to the bottom of it. The committee did excellent work but, because of the limited resources, it took the Gomery inquiry to get much further along that line.
We saw the same thing here. Excellent work, as I saw it, by the ethics committee, as far as it could go. But we saw with Mr. Mulroney his refusal to give documentation to back up what was a fairly incredible story. However, the one that really got me was when he claimed that his income tax returns were sacred.
My relationship with my wife is sacred. My relationship with my children is sacred. I want to be very clear to this House that my relationship with my accountant and the Revenue Canada office is not sacred, and neither should Mr. Mulroney's be.
That is what we are up against and not having adequate resources to really challenge that. That is why we need the inquiry established as quickly as possible and follow the report that was tabled today. We say to the Prime Minister that he must do it now and must make it with a mandate that is broad enough to get at all of the issues and to finally put this to bed for all Canadians.