Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague's speech and I think I heard him say that the money would appear, that somehow it is going to materialize. That is interesting. We will wait to see how that all works out. However, I would like to ask him a question about money that we know exactly how it was spent, and that is money that relates to government advertising. I would like him and his colleagues to listen for a second and then explain how he can justify this when looking into the eyes of his constituents.
The government has erected 9,000 billboards at a cost of $29 million. It is running economic action plans now on an annual basis at about $100 million a year. It spent $23 million doing media monitoring for 60% of the backbench MPs in the Conservative caucus. It is spending $90,000 per advertisement on each and every ad during the hockey playoff series. That alone would pay for 40 to 50 additional summer student jobs. Can the member and other members of the Conservative caucus, who I am sure are ashamed of this, explain to Canadians how this is possibly defensible given the situation we are in now economically?