Mr. Speaker, for the past eight years, the Liberal government has been spending recklessly and blindly.
The Liberal government gave $173 million to a pharmaceutical company that had Philip Morris as a shareholder. Since 2003, the World Health Organization, or WHO, has refused to recognize research funded by any tobacco companies. What is more, Canada has been a signatory to that declaration since 2003.
Unfortunately, what happened could have easily been predicted. The WHO would not recognize the research. The minister said he was surprised. The company is now shutting down.
Why did the government not do the most obvious thing, which would have been to tell Medicago to drop Philip Morris as a shareholder so that Canada could help it?