Madam Speaker, a number of years ago, when I was in opposition, I saw then prime minister Stephen Harper in front of the Parliament buildings, and I noticed there was an exceptional number of security staff around the prime minister.
I had given that some serious thought, recognizing Canada and the role that it plays in the world today and that with the threats that are out there around the world it was a good thing that then prime minister Harper had the type of security force that was there to protect him. It was not Stephen Harper per se, it was the Prime Minister of Canada.
Where we could agree is that when one is a leader of a country like Canada, as Prime Minister, sadly, it is true that they become a target. That means there has to be a commitment to support our Prime Minister.
The term the member used was jet-setting. It is not like the Prime Minister could hop on an Air Canada flight to fly outside Canada for a holiday by himself. It does not work that way. It did not work that way for Stephen Harper. There is a security detail. It is not quite as simple as the Conservatives often try to give the impression. I would suggest that is a false impression.
I remember when I was in opposition. If members want to talk about abuse, what always came to my mind is when the former prime minister Stephen Harper went to India. We were talking about India earlier today. It is hard to believe, but his car was actually flown to India. It cost the taxpayers over $1 million. That would be a lot of nights at a hotel. They do have vehicles in India.
We should compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. I would suggest that the member needs to be reminded not to throw rocks at glass houses. At the end of the day, the member made reference to the Ethics Commissioner. I am not too sure if Canada had an Ethics Commissioner when that incident took place, because having an Ethics Commissioner is relatively new to Canada. The position was not there when Stephen Harper was first elected. I suspect that if it had been, and there is always a learning curve that takes place, there might have been some thoughts in regard to a number of issues. One could think of the Senate, for example, and some of the things that have taken place in the Senate.
We need to focus on the real issues that Canadians are facing today, issues such as inflation. That is one of the reasons why we met and called for the big grocery giants to come to Ottawa, so we could state our concerns and indicate that we would take action. We are upset with the degree to which grocery stores are making record profit, while at the same time we are seeing grocery inflation.
That is not to mention the announcement of investing in ensuring that we get more homes built. Those are the issues that are really important to Canadians—