I appreciate the Minister of Foreign Affairs for not supporting the Liberals who are heckling me, apparently. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for that clarification that was provided to me.
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister and the current Conservative government need to stop changing their story. That is what we are asking for, and that is what Canadians are asking for. They want them to come clean to Canadians by answering all the questions to the Prime Minister's Office and the Prime Minister himself about his involvement with the Senate scandal, Senator Duffy, Senator Wallin, and any of the senators.
They need to start by releasing all related documents that are available. So far what we have are documents and information leaked by Senator Duffy. To be honest, I prefer the information coming straight from the horse's mouth. That means directly from the source.
The Prime Minister and the Prime Minister's Office have been very busy trying to cover up their own alleged corruption, while the Liberals have appeared totally disinterested until, all of sudden, now.
Meanwhile, both Conservatives and Liberals continue to vote against sensible New Democrat proposals to restrict Senate partisan activity, partisan travel, partisan fundraising, and partisan activity overall. That is what we tried to propose, and our friends across the aisle on both the Conservative team and the Liberal team opposed that proposition.
Canadians are tired of an unelected, unaccountable, and under-investigation Conservative and Liberal Senate. That is why New Democrats advocate that the only real solution to this entire problem, this $90-million or $100-million boondoggle, whatever we are going to call it, is to abolish the Senate. That is the NDP's position. It has been the NDP's position for a very long time, and it will continue to be the NDP's position.
The NDP will continue to use all means available to us to continue to keep the government accountable.
There is one thing I want to add. When the leader of the official opposition asks questions in this House, we do not really get answers.
When I speak to people in my community of Scarborough—Rouge River, they are actually starting to get irritated and annoyed about what is happening in the Senate. They ask me questions, and I do not really have answers for them, because, to be honest, we do not get answers from the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister's Office, his parliamentary secretary, his cabinet ministers, or anybody on the Conservative side. Nobody provides real answers.
The same questions the leader of the official opposition, the leader of the NDP, put forth in the House of Commons to the Prime Minister are the same questions I am being asked in my community in Scarborough.
People want to know the answers to simple questions. Was Nigel Wright dismissed, or did he resign? That is a pretty simple employment question. There must be paperwork to back up either one of those claims. It is a pretty simple question, but we cannot get a straight answer from the Conservatives.
How many cheques are there in total? People are asking me these questions, and I do not have any answers.
How many people in the Prime Minister's Office knew about the Duffy cover-up, and who are they? We have heard that there were a “few”. We have heard several, nine, 13, and 14. We do not know. Once again, we are looking for truth. We are looking for transparency. We are looking for accountability. Canadians really do deserve better.
Another question is why the Prime Minister claimed that only Nigel Wright knew about the cover-up. Now, of course, he has changed his story. Now a few people in the Prime Minister's Office knew about it. How many are a few? Usually, in traditional language usage, a few is more than two, so it could be three, but we do not know, because he also said several. What does that mean?
Another question is whether the Conservative Party was ever going to pay for Mike Duffy's fraudulently claimed expenses. Do the Conservatives consider Duffy's and Wallin's expenses inappropriate? We have heard both sides, whether they think they were appropriate or were not appropriate. Mr. Speaker, you know that in Hansard, both of those comments are available for Canadians to find.
What I am getting at is that Canadians deserve the real story. We, as elected members of Parliament, are the 308 representatives of the millions of Canadians across the country. We deserve to get the truth so that we can take that back to our constituents. We are not getting that. We are getting multiple versions of stories.
All I am asking for, on behalf of my constituents, is one story, the truth, that is the only story we hear. That is all I want: one truth; one story.
Another question constituents in my community are asking is whether I know when and how often the Prime Minister actually spoke with Nigel Wright. I do not have an answer for that, either. I really do not have answers to give my constituents. They are asking me this when I am at the grocery store or at a community event. When I am celebrating Diwali with my constituents, they are talking to me about the Senate scandal.
They are asking me questions about what is happening and about how the government is wasting Canadians' money and not using it for important things, such as ensuring that our young people are getting jobs and access to education. They are saying that average Canadians are not getting access to jobs, because the government is not creating jobs here in Canada. It is a government that supports jobs being shipped out of the country, yet it is covering up a scandal of a cheque for more than $90,000 or $100,000 and is spending extra money making up different versions of stories.
All Canadians want is that the truth come out and that their own lives and the lives of all Canadians improve. We are not getting that.
There are many questions my constituents are asking me. They want to know how many lawyers were involved in the Prime Minister's Office's cover-up of the Duffy affair. Who were the lawyers?
On Wednesday last week, a cabinet minister defended the Prime Minister's former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, who played a central role in the Senate scandal and the PMO's orchestrated cover-up. He said:
I know Nigel Wright to be a person of good faith, of competence, with high ethical standards.
Yet we saw the Prime Minister say that Nigel Wright acted on his accord and had nothing to do with anything.
Who was that minister? It was the Minister of Employment and Social Development and Multiculturalism.
I believe that in opposition, we need to have true propositions to actually improve the Houses of this Parliament, and that is what the NDP is doing. That is what we will continue to do.