Here is the basic rule, Mr. Speaker, when people attain public office. They cannot make decisions that enrich themselves. They must recuse themselves. They must avoid not only I would argue, as the Prime Minister set the standard, the legal definition of conflict of interest where they vote on legislation or a budget or something where they know their vote will help benefit them personally. The Prime Minister said that is not enough, that people have to be beyond that, that they cannot even have the appearance of a conflict of interest.
The finance minister has moved legislation in the House that will benefit a company in which he is still involved. He insinuated two years ago that he would remove himself from that conflict of interest. He declared that he would either sell off everything or move it to a blind trust. Our colleague from Trinity—Spadina said publicly that there was no worry because he had moved everything into a blind trust. He deleted that tweet, but the funny thing about Twitter and all those other things is that a picture can be taken of a tweet and it still exists.
The Liberals were under the same allusion that many Canadians were under. I suspect many of my Liberal colleagues watching these things happen said that the minister would of course put it into a blind trust because everybody does, because that is the law, that is the ethical standard. It is in fact the standard the Prime Minister set and declared time after time in the House and to Canadians. I share those expectations with my Liberal colleagues. I thought the minister was not in a conflict of interest but I was wrong, The finance minister and now the Prime Minister have to be accountable for it.