Mr. Speaker, when the Prime Minister was not the Prime Minister he had a hard time defining the middle class. He took several shots at it. At one point he said if people are able to live just on the means of their investments then that means they are not middle class, except for people who are retired and may be scraping by. He keeps searching for what middle class means.
I am not sure what is more worrisome in the exposure of “Liberal ethics” here, either they know that this is a problem and do not care or they do not know that this is a problem. Middle-class Canadians, who open up their hydro bill every month hoping it is not too bad, who look at fees for soccer practice, and have car payments, do not have $1,550 burning a hole in their pocket so that they can spend 15 minutes with the Prime Minister or any of his ministers who are the chief fundraisers.
The Prime Minister has talked about coming from means. He comes from a wealthy family. He talks about his family's wealth all the time. That is fine. He was born into it. However, not being able to fully appreciate and understand the reality for the vast majority of Canadians creates blind spots.
It is a difficult choice for the Liberals to make. They either understand the problem and do not care because the money is too good and they do not want to fix the problem because that is how they are built, because they attend exclusive events at the homes of wealthy Canadians to fundraise, or they are just unable to see this as a problem.
Both circumstances are worrisome because this always leads to the same place: corruption. This special access always leads to the same place. Any student of history will look at this and understand where this is going. We need to stop it. We need to curb it. We need to change it. The Liberals had this opportunity to do just that, but to this point, they have failed.