Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Hull—Aylmer has actually managed something quite incredible. In such a short amount of time he has put out so much false information it is very difficult to actually respond.
First but not least of which is the fact that he just cited a meeting of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates and what was said there and what happened there. The member was not even there. He is not a member of the committee. He does not know what happened in the committee. He was not there for the testimony. He was not there for the questioning. He was not there for any of the information that he is now splicing and dicing, and trying to put forward as some kind of an explanation for something that in fact did not at all happen.
This is not unusual. It is not original. We know that the Liberals have been putting forward, led by the member for Ajax—Pickering, a bunch of falsehoods on this file. The other day the member for Ajax--Pickering, in fact, said:
I am worried that politics is being boiled down to irrelevance--to splashy conflicts--
Yet, he gets up in the House day after day and all the time under the cover of parliamentary privilege and immunity and takes some of the most outrageous shots and smears at staffers of cabinet ministers and cabinet ministers themselves.
The fact of the matter is, and this is the central fact that I would ask my hon. colleague from Hull to understand. The central fact is that Treasury Board, under the current Minister of the Environment, the member for Ottawa West--Nepean, approved funding for the light rail project, but it was the democratically elected Ottawa City Council that voted against the light rail contract. Treasury Board approved the money and it was the city council, elected by the people of Ottawa, that voted against the light rail contract.
As for the contract the member opposite knows that it was five former Liberal party candidates who voted against the previous light rail project at the Ottawa City Council.
I want to return for a second to the member for Ajax—Pickering who has led the charge on this issue. He filed a frivolous complaint on this subject with the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services. What did it do? It threw his complaint out completely. It threw it out. It was so frivolous that it would not even listen to him.
As a matter of fact, OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino was interviewed on CFRA radio about this very same issue earlier this week. He confirmed that the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services had completely dismissed baseless complaints from the Liberal member for Ajax—Pickering. He also said that it was interesting that the member for Ajax--Pickering was making these complaints because that very own member's office was calling up the OPP on several occasions.
It gets better. Commissioner Julian Fantino said what he thought of these Liberal claims. He called them “ludicrous, frivolous, vexatious” and an “attempt to interfere with due process”. He also said the following about the accusations by that Liberal member. He said, “I don't know how anybody other than those of feeble mind could ever jump to these conclusions. Absolutely it's preposterous”.
The only thing left to do on this subject, other than leave it behind as a non-scandal, another one of these Liberal non-scandals where they throw mud and try to make something after the fact, is for the members of the Liberal Party, the member for Ajax—Pickering and unfortunately now my friend from Hull—Aylmer, to withdraw these ridiculous attacks, recognize that what they have alleged here is entirely wrong, and that what happened here was the appropriate due course of action.
Again, as I said, Treasury Board approved the money. The democratically elected council of the City of Ottawa voted it down. It took the action on behalf of its constituents and the City of Ottawa does not need the member of Parliament from Hull getting in its face and telling it what it did democratically was inappropriate.