Mr. Speaker, on Monday, March 3, I asked the parliamentary secretary whether he and his party were trying to twist Chuck Cadman's words or deviate from the fact that offers were made to the Cadman family to ensure that Mr. Cadman would place a crucial vote in their favour.
The reason I ask this question is that it appears that the Conservatives are thriving on a system of double talk and half truths. In the past few weeks, it has become apparent that the Conservative Party is willing to use whatever means it can and any means it can think of to get what it wants, including bypassing the election laws for which we now see the RCMP, regretfully, has had to become involved.
It has become obvious to all Canadians that the Conservatives have a policy of saying and doing one thing behind closed doors and on tape and then vehemently denying, some 150 times we are told, or apologizing in a cursory manner for their words and, most important, for their actions.
The problem is that none of their public denials, apologies or announcements ring true, which is why I am hoping that the parliamentary secretary will be motivated by some source of inspiration and be clear this time, on the 151st time perhaps, that the Cadman family already knows and has told the Canadian public regarding offers made to them by the Conservatives. The parliamentary secretary knows that no members of my party, including the former prime minister, made any offers to Mr. Cadman.
What he has not answered directly is whether he and the members of his party, including the Prime Minister, knew of the financial offers that had been made to Chuck Cadman, as corroborated by his wife and the Conservative candidate in that riding. Why will the parliamentary secretary not elicit from his notes and his conversations with the Prime Minister or why will he not even listen to the tape of the Prime Minister and come up with some better answer on the 151st time?
He blames the opposition for asking the question 150 times but if we keep getting a denial 150 times, we will keep asking the question.
I will help the parliamentary secretary out in finding his way here. His answer should include some reference to the fact that the current Prime Minister had been taped saying to the author of the Cadman book, Mr. Zytaruk, that he was aware of financial considerations, namely, the payment of an insurance policy, being made to Mr. Cadman. What are financial considerations in this context? Why will the Prime Minister not rise to the questions from the member for York Centre? Why will the Prime Minister not answer the question?
We now have the parliamentary secretary who must be very fatigued giving the same answer 150 times.
I will also help out the parliamentary secretary to ensure he does not deviate on a tangent of half truths by saying that the Conservative Party was only trying to help Chuck Cadman out, that it was not at all concerned about its electoral concerns or whether it became the government. Oh, no, it was all about Chuck Cadman.
We are not talking about just help here. We are talking about financial inducements, financial considerations. The Prime Minister of this country is on tape. At first the parliamentary secretary and others said that they had not heard the whole tape. It was Nixonian. They should have learned the lessons from the last time a right wing government got in deep trouble.
I would ask the parliamentary secretary to come clean, to have his conscience serve the Canadian public and, finally, on the 151st time, tell us what the financial considerations were. Would he?