Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Ottawa Centre for his question.
As I said in my speech, the Conservatives knew very well what they were writing when they wrote the new legislation. They knew exactly what they were doing when they excluded the parliamentary secretaries. They also knew exactly what they were doing when it came time to deal with lobbyists. They would refer them, on almost an automatic basis, to their parliamentary secretaries so they would not be soiled in their vocabulary by these connections or meetings. Whenever the parliamentary secretaries would deal with, or would agree to or would discuss with these lobbyists would appear nowhere because the parliamentary secretaries were not subject to the new legislation.
On the question of my colleague, the member for Ottawa Centre, obviously the Conservatives knew what they were doing when they drafted the legislation and, yes, these parliamentary secretaries should be included in the law to avoid this type of business in future.