Mr. Speaker, when I was a teenager, I worked at Telus. I was in the collections department. I will tell members that when one calls people to collect on their phone bills, and they are in business, the nicest people in the world on the other end of the line are the people who are paying their bills to keep their phone service intact. As a result of this, as a teenager earning about 12 bucks an hour, I got to own some shares in Telus. I got a little certificate, and I kept it as a keepsake. It was worth about 70 bucks when I left.
I came to Parliament, got elected, and the Ethics Commissioner said that I could not even keep that little certificate worth 70 bucks. I had to go to a bank teller and sell it, because there might be a conflict of interest if I did not.
It was 70 bucks, yet the minister had $20 million in shares while he was in charge of our financial markets and regulating the very company in which he had invested. This was an obvious conflict of interest. He should have known better. He should not blame the law or the Ethics Commissioner for his failed judgment.