Mr. Speaker, my Liberal colleague from Winnipeg Centre recently commented that we should give the Ethics Commissioner time to sort this all out.
The facts are that the government has been in power for two years. The act and the code are very clear as to what is expected of members of Parliament and cabinet ministers. We constantly hear, “I am working with the Ethics Commissioner.” There should be no need to say that one is working with the commissioner, because the guidelines are clearly written and clearly laid out for all of us to see. For someone of the calibre of our current Minister of Finance to say that he was not aware of them sounds rather dubious at best.
Could my colleague comment on the fact that the guidelines are all clearly written and that there should be no question as to whether or not we should follow those rules and no need to continue dialoguing with the Ethics Commissioner if we are simply following the rules?