Mr. Speaker, this weekend we learned that the Liberals spent $500,000 to develop a marketing plan for the federal government's rural poverty reduction initiative. I am not just making this up: $500,000 would go a long way to help save lives and protect the vulnerable in the developing world. Instead, the Liberals thought a marketing plan was a better way to spend this money. The Liberals' should be ashamed of themselves.
How can the minister justify this outrageous cost?