Mr. Speaker, I came to Ottawa to work on public policy, but unfortunately the Conservative government has mainly served up scandal to chew on.
Last week when the Conservatives were reeling under their election financing scandal, they must have said, “First Mulroney-Schreiber, then the Cadman bribe, then NAFTA-gate, then the finance minister's juicy contracts”. By last Friday they surely felt that at least it could not get worse. They were so wrong. How they must long for those delicious days when all they had to worry about was the Prime Minister's voice on an audio tape describing how agents in his party were authorized to offer a bribe to a dying man; or Brian Mulroney, they must miss those happy times when the ethical scandals were centred on Mr. Mulroney and all they had to do was stonewall an inquiry. It turns out it is a lot more difficult to stonewall an RCMP raid.
As Conservative MPs head home for the weekend, I wish them well. Perhaps next week, policy rather than a banquet of Conservative ethical problems will be on the House menu.