Mr. Speaker, yesterday, former Liberal Party organizer Jacques Corriveau was found guilty of money laundering and other offences as part of the sponsorship scandal.
Mr. Corriveau pocketed nearly $7 million of taxpayers' money during the six years that he was a close friend of former Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien.
Such ethical lapses are nothing new for the Liberal Party. They have been the norm in that party for many years, and that has not changed with the current government. For example, this government paid $200,000 in moving expenses for close friends of the Prime Minister and held a fundraiser where people paid $1,500 for privileged access to a minister.
These ethical breaches are a far cry from the transparency that this Liberal government claims to promote. It is therefore high time that the Prime Minister began taking some responsibility, stopped defending the indefensible, and started being honest with taxpayers—