Mr. Speaker, for almost a year now I have been asking questions about the Liberals' ethics. I was elected for the first time in 2006 and I took on my parliamentary duties to serve Canadian democracy and all Canadians with honour and respect.
Like all my colleagues, I have seen the way this Prime Minister behaves and I have heard his apologies. To me, his apologies will be nothing more than words until he changes his behaviour. I am dismayed by the show this Prime Minister puts on when he apologizes in the House. Nothing he has said to justify his many ethical breaches has me convinced that he is innocent in any of this.
Since coming to power, and in response to the outcry, the Liberal government has been responding to questions about the ethics of its members, including the Prime Minister, with talking points. This is the first time that a prime minister has been investigated by the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. Either the Prime Minister does not understand that he should be above suspicion, or he does not give a damn about it.
The Prime Minister takes trips south of the border, sells access to himself for $1,500 to his millionaire friends, and discusses government business with his wealthy Chinese friends. Ordinary Canadians do not necessarily have $1,500 to spend on getting answers from this government.
The Prime Minister seems to have learned a few things from his father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who used his legal and business connections to get out of delicate situations. We do not have to look very hard to discover that our Right Honourable Prime Minister stated that his father was able to avoid a difficult situation by using his connections. This is what he said in his Vice Canada interview:
My father reached out to his friends in the legal community, got the best possible lawyer....We were confident that my littlest brother wasn't going to be saddled with a criminal record for life...
As the saying goes, “like father, like son” or in this case “like Prime Minister, like minister”. The Minister of National Defence is following in the footsteps of his leader by giving Canadians and our soldiers a number of fictitious accounts of his time in the Canadian Armed Forces. The minister has said many times that he was the architect of Operation Medusa, even though he was not in command of that operation. He was trying to improve his image at the expense of other members of the armed forces.
When it comes to ethics, prime ministers, MPs, and ministers should not be above the law. We are the face of Canada, the face of Quebec.