Mr. Speaker, so much for defending the Prime Minister's Office. Once again there are a whole bunch of fly-by accusations.
I would be happy to defend my leader. I am proud of my leader. I am proud of the fact that in the last four by-elections, the Liberal Party gained 44,000 votes to 29,000 in total for the Conservatives. Therefore, I have nothing to worry about with respect to my leader at all. That is the first thing. Obviously, Canadians seem to agree with me.
Second, I will answer the member's question as to whether I know what my staff are doing every moment of the day in my office. The answer is that I do not. I must say, though, that if they do something wrong, I will continue to own up and take responsibility for what they have done, as I have in the past, because when they do all of the great things that I get credit for, I accept it. Therefore, if they do something, I will not throw them under the bus. That is what a responsible boss does. A responsible boss knows that he or she cannot always keep an eye out and that once in a while something will slip through.
However, this is not once in a while. Rather, there are 15 people, including lawyers. It is not some little gaffe that somebody on the staff did.