Mr. Speaker, when I was a junior air force officer, my first posting was as the procurement officer for 19 Wing Comox on Vancouver Island. I was responsible for everything that was bought or leased on the base. In other words, anyone working on the base who needed something had to get it through me.
My decisions were not arbitrary or made on a whim. Before I was assigned the job, I spent many months in training as a military logistician, studying over 20 volumes of the Canadian Forces publication 181, supply manuals, defence procurement policies, the Financial Administration Act and many other related documents. There were processes and procedures for everything. Just to obtain approval to procure a commercial coffee maker required 10 signatures on a material authorization change request, or MACR for short. Those 10 people included the base commander, a squadron commander, a flight commander and me, just to name a few.
This bureaucracy was tiresome to be sure, but it was essential to upholding that no one, not even the base commander, could use military funds, and by extension public money, to, for example, pay for an outrageously expensive coffee machine purchased sole-source, which happened to include a million-dollar administration fee for someone's husband. There was no room for misconduct.
As officers, we endured the necessary piles of paperwork to ensure that tax dollars were spent wisely and to preserve the honesty and integrity of the organization and everyone in it. If these were the high standards to which a junior air force procurement officer is held, should they be any less for the highest office in the land?
Let us talk about the Prime Minister and his pattern of behaviour of breaking the rules, giving money to his friends, using Liberal members to cover it up and firing anyone who dares to stand in his way. Let us talk about the Prime Minister's pattern of corruption.
His first transgression was the gift of an all-expenses-paid Christmas vacation for him, his family and his friends to an island in the Bahamas. The rules require that members of Parliament disclose any gift over $200. The Prime Minister was found guilty of breaking the Conflict of Interest Act. He apologized. Seamus O'Regan, a minister of the Crown who joined the Prime Minister on this trip, never disclosed the vacation as a gift.
Then came the SNC-Lavalin scandal. SNC was charged with fraud and corruption, and was seeking a way to get out of facing the full consequences of breaking the law. It looked to our Prime Minister to use his powers to circumvent the law and tip the scales in SNC's favour. A justice minister stood in his way and upheld the rule of law. For her efforts, she was fired as justice minister and thrown out of the Liberal Party. There was no place in the Liberal Party for honourable actions like that. The key adviser and friend to the Prime Minister, Gerry Butts, resigned.