Yes, Mr. Speaker, I share a birthday with the Prime Minister. That is about all I share with the Prime Minister.
Prior to Christmas, the current finance minister was actually going to attend a fundraising event. On the Liberal website, it encouraged people to make a $250 donation for a chance to have dinner with the finance minister. I did not sign up. However, at least when the story broke that the fundraiser was going to happen, the finance minister, who had no idea who was even going to be there, had the good sense to cancel the event. Ethical watchdogs around Canada should have jumped for joy and seized the opportunity. Little did they know that it was the last opportunity they were ever going to get to cheer for an ethical decision made by the folks across the way.
Compare and contrast that now with the justice minister who stepped out of her role as chair of the First Nations Finance Authority only to have her husband and business partner step in as a lobbyist for the same group—a group that, by the way, lobbies the Minister Minister of Justice for funding—and then we find out, in the budget, that $20 million has been kicked back to that organization. Apparently, that passes that bar. She attended the $500-a-plate private fundraiser anyway at Torys LLP in Toronto. She has made no bones about it. She has no interest in paying the money back. The optics of it do not appeal to anyone I know of. It does not make any sense. That leads us to today.
The question that is before the House in the motion is this. Will the government actually live up to the document signed by the Prime Minister and raise the ethical bar, yes or no?