Mr. Speaker, anyone in search of bad ideas need look no further than the Liberals and especially the Prime Minister. Topping the list of bad ideas are the Trans Mountain buy-out and premature pot legalization. This week's featured bad idea is a leaders debate commissioner, which is like a matryoshka doll of bad ideas. Open it up and voilà! There is another bad idea inside it, another one inside that, and so on.
The government is going to pay a former governor general—and we all know how much people care about governors general—$5.5 million to do two TV shows. The parties will not be required to participate, broadcasters that want to organize their own debates can do so, the government is unilaterally choosing the commissioner, and so on. This is ridiculous.
Instead of wasting people's money, the government should start making itself useful by compensating farmers, reimbursing Quebec for costs related to asylum seekers and transferring a decent amount of money for health care. It should make itself useful.