Mr. Speaker, I am shocked and appalled that no Conservatives wanted to get up today and refute any of the claims that my friend from the Liberal Party has made. It is remarkable because this is a scandal that goes right to the very heart of the Conservative Party and the Prime Minister. Yet they remain silent and remain in their seats, perhaps because they do not have a lot to say on this scandal, which has gripped the country for the last number of months.
I have two points and a question for my friend.
There appears to be two consistent themes in the story and narrative he described today.
The first is that every character involved in this play, every actor he mentioned who has been at the heart of this corruption scandal, are intimately tied to the Prime Minister. They are personally connected to the Prime Minister and to his judgment. He appointed them all. They were confidants. In many cases, they were friends. He trusted them implicitly. It calls into question the Prime Minister's judgment and the culture that has been created in the Prime Minister's very own office, which the RCMP are now investigating. By the way, the Prime Minister claims that there is no RCMP investigation into his office. Rather, the RCMP are just interviewing everyone in the Prime Minister's Office about an illegal affair but that is not an investigation.
Second, and this is where my friend might diverge a bit, there is also a consistent theme that everyone involved on the Senate side of this scandal has virtually no accountability. The interactions he talks about between the head of the investigating committee, the board of internal economy, the auditors and Mike Duffy, from Stewart Olsen, LeBreton and everyone down the line, the reason they can act that way, act with such incredible ease with the law and any ethical guidelines, is that there is no accounting. They simply know they are there by the will of a prime minister or a previous prime minister and there is no day of reckoning with the Canadian public. At the heart of this scandal, is there not also a call for fundamental reform if not outright abolishment? The Senate itself, by its very DNA, its very nature, encourages this kind of behaviour to go on and be rampant, like the old boys' club.
Are there not those two consistent themes in the narrative the member has woven today?