Mr. Speaker, what is really important for taxpayers and others watching this to understand is that this is their money. Taxpayers pay virtually all of the rebates on the first $400 of political donations, 75% of it. Taxpayers foot the bill for people to eat shrimp, drink booze, and receive a number of gifts from events. In fact, businesses that do this write off the expenses to go to them.
What is interesting about this situation with the Liberals is they dined off of telling the electorate they would do something different. It is a fraudulent way to go about doing something. What really compounds it is that Apotex is again involved, which has a history with the Liberal Party. To give a quick example, when Joe Volpe was running for the Liberal leadership, Apotex had children donating to the campaign. In fact, five Apotex executives and their children gave around $108,000 to his campaign, and the Liberals defended this.
We know that the current situation has ties back to the Liberal Party. When people are sitting on their sofas watching this debate, they should remember that they will be paying for the booze, the crackers, and the gifts that go to CEOs and executives who can afford $1,500, while they are probably having a hard time paying their heating bills.