Madam Speaker, I do not know what I will manage to accomplish in four minutes. Perhaps I will simply talk about the intentions that I noticed while following today's debate.
I do not always agree with my Conservative friends because I sometimes find that they are too quick to engage in partisanship. However, today, I was disappointed by my Liberal colleagues, whose attitude made it clear that they were simply trying to avoid the issue, as I noticed in many speeches. A few times, they even went so far as to justify their moral failings by bringing up errors from the past.
What we are talking about today is a value that is fundamental to democracy, and that is transparency. Without transparency, there is no democracy. What do our constituents base their decisions on? They base them on the information that journalists and we, as legislators, are able to provide to them.
Right now, it looks to me like the Liberals are mired in scandal. Just think how much trouble we had getting information about WE Charity and about what happened with General Vance.
Then there was CanSino, a file that I followed very closely. The government bragged about the vaccine working group, which is apparently the best there is. This working group clearly told the government not to get involved with CanSino. Why did the government not listen to this working group? Why did the government not listen to scientists? We do not know.
The Liberals have never talked about that. This shows a blatant lack of transparency, and transparency is key to any democracy. In my opinion, it is clear that without transparency, we have nothing.
Ultimately, what effect does that have? It affects everyone's faith in our institutions. The reason there is so much cynicism about politics nowadays is that more and more people do not believe they can trust our institutions. We are emerging from a serious public health crisis in which legislators played a crucial role, yet the Liberal Party does not seem to understand the situation.
The worst part is how consistently the Liberals resort to rhetoric. If someone questions a Liberal Party decision, the Liberal Party does one of two things. If it is the Bloc Québécois, the Liberals say we are trying to pick a fight. That is the way the government House leader thinks: if we challenge anything the Liberals say, we are picking a fight. Their other dodge is labelling anyone who does not agree with what the government says as racist. These diversionary tactics reinforce cynicism about politics and are completely unacceptable.
I see today's Conservative motion as a call for transparency. The government missed a great opportunity to respond to the issue.
I will be a good sport. Since I had only four minutes, I will stop there in hopes the government will ask me a question.