Madam Speaker, I want to make a comment for the government House leader. I know he will be listening somewhere in these parliamentary precincts.
He keeps talking about the Constitution. He keeps saying that the motion is not in order and could not be allowed. In fact, the Speaker has already ruled it in order.
I believe the government has already lost the confidence of the House. That will be formalized next week, depending on the government's response.
This is simply about the Prime Minister just saying yes. There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents him from saying it. There are no parliamentary rules that prevent the Prime Minister from just saying, “Yes, I would like to avoid a Christmas election”.
Compromises have been made by all the other parties in the House. I can state unequivocally for the record that the Conservative Party believes beyond a shadow of a doubt that the government should have been defeated six months ago. We have never changed our position.
We maintain that position not only because of what the government did throughout the sponsorship scandal, for which we have Justice Gomery's response, and I will get into that detail, but because of even the government's subsequent response. We believe the government should have been defeated six months ago. We will not change that position.
However, we also acknowledge that all three opposition parties are needed in order to defeat the government. The three opposition party leaders came up with an incredibly reasonable proposal. It was not our first choice, but it was made in the spirit of compromise. This has nothing to do with the Constitution. If the Prime Minister had picked up the phone, called us and given us a commitment to call the election in January, all of this could have been avoided. This motion would not have had to come before the House.
For the government to say that we either have 100% confidence in it or we do not is simply not accurate. That is simply not true. The government could have just said yes and avoided all of this. The response from the Liberals, and their response alone, is going to force an election, without any question. There is going to be an election because the government refuses to find any kind of compromise.
The government has lost the confidence of the House. Let us talk about what is in play here. This is the NDP's motion. Nobody wants an election at Christmas, so the NDP came up with a proposal saying that the government has lost the confidence of the NDP and this motion provides a way for the Liberals to avoid a Christmas election.
Liberal members will argue that Justice Gomery's second report needs to be heard. Let me say this. What is coming out of Justice Gomery's report is recommendations, and recommendations only, on how to minimize the chances of a scandal like this happening. It cannot be prevented, and I will explain that in a minute, but the chances of it can be minimized. I am sure that any subsequent government, including a Conservative government, which I hope it will be, is going to follow all of Justice Gomery's recommendations.
I can tell members that a Conservative government would follow all of his recommendations. We would implement his recommendations. We would work with Justice Gomery to make sure that what needs to be done gets done. We would look at that report to the letter. Obviously that is in our interests. The leader of the Conservative Party, the leader of the official opposition, has already responded with our federal accountability act, which would put rules in place to prevent this.
Let me say quickly that nobody must ever forget that the sponsorship scandal went on for nine years. Millions of dollars were stolen from hard-working Canadians and funneled back to the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party, and the last time I checked it was the people across from me--not all of them because the NDP is across from me too--lined its own pockets with the money of hard-working Canadian taxpayers.
That is a fact. The Liberals have admitted it. They have admitted that they stole millions of dollars and lined their own pockets through the simple acknowledgement of having to pay back $1.14 million when we know it is much more. The simple fact is that they paid it back: they stole that money.
There were a lot of rules in place. They were ignored from the very top, by the Prime Minister, by the finance minister, who is now the Prime Minister, and by everyone on down. All the rules in the world cannot stop someone from stealing money. If a crook comes into one's home and wants to steal then he is going to steal. However, I believe we might have exposed this much sooner had there been tougher rules.
What I want to talk about now, though, is the government's response after the worst scandal in Canadian political history, for I have no doubt that the current Prime Minister was fully aware of it. He was sitting there for eight years. It happened underneath his nose. Members of his own office, his own staff as the Minister of Finance, were calling and lobbying for sponsorship money. He was sent letters from Liberals who were telling him that sponsorship money was being used for Liberal partisan purposes and that he must stop it. All of that went ignored. That is all fact. We know all of that.
What subsequent action has been taken? Nothing has changed. Mr. Dingwall, a former Liberal cabinet minister, was sitting there when Liberals were lining their pockets with Canadians' cash. The Prime Minister's response is to give him a half million dollar severance package because he quit as the chairman of the Mint, again embroiled in another scandal. He is the same individual who was once the Minister of Public Works. He knows the rules. He was a cabinet minister. He lobbied on behalf of companies in Canada to receive federal grants, technology partnership money, and charged $350,000 to $400,000 in fees, which was absolutely illegal.
Has the government asked Mr. Dingwall for that money back? No. How can we leave a party in power when the culture of arrogance and entitlement is so blatant? How can we trust the Liberals to run the country, let alone clean up this mess? I do not believe we can. As the official opposition we have a constitutional responsibility to remove them from office. We believe they should have been removed as soon as we heard the revelations and the details of what went on. No modern day democracy could leave a party like that in power. This is why we are so adamant that they be removed.
The government has said that we should move a confidence motion. That confidence motion is coming in exactly one week. What is in play is that the three opposition leaders--and I will give credit to the leader of the NDP, who proposed the motion--are providing an opportunity to avoid a Christmas election. The NDP leader should get credit for that. It was his idea. But it is not that the motion has to pass, although I understand why we are doing it. We are trying to get through the thick skull of the Prime Minister and ask him if he can be rational or reasonable. It is not the motion that has to pass, although we already know it is the will of Parliament, it is the Prime Minister who has to accept it. He just has to say yes. There is nothing in the Constitution preventing the Prime Minister from standing up and saying, “Yes, okay, I accept this compromise although it is not my first choice”, just as it is not the Conservatives' first choice.
It would allow the government to get a few critical things done in the interest of Canadians, not things that he wants to get done but that Parliament collectively as a whole thinks should be done. No, the Liberals are saying to move a confidence motion, defeat them and we will have a Christmas election. They could avoid all of that but are choosing not to.
Canadians cannot be fooled by these legal arguments. Canadians cannot be fooled by the Liberals saying that this is unconstitutional. Nothing could be further from the truth. Agreements are made all the time in the spirit of cooperation and in the interest not of Parliament but of the Canadian people. The Prime Minister could just say that he gives his word, be it in writing or whatever instrument is chosen, that there will be a general election in the first week of the new year. That is all that has to happen. That is all that is being requested.
We believe Canadians need to judge, and I come back to why they need to judge. Let us use some of Justice Gomery's words. The Liberals believe in Justice Gomery. Let me read from his report, in which he stated:
The LPCQ as an institution cannot escape responsibility for the misconduct of its officers and representatives. Two successive Executive Directors were directly involved in illegal campaign financing--
He went on to say that they accepted cash payments for their services and payments in violation of the Canada Elections Act. Everybody is aware of what happened.
What are the first five words of Justice Gomery's report in the very first bullet? His first five words are, “Clear evidence of political involvement”. The Liberal Party of Canada stole millions of dollars, by their own admission, lined their own pockets and then sprinkled envelopes of cash throughout Liberal ridings in Quebec. They should show some humility, remorse or regret, but what did the Prime Minister do? He stood in the House of Commons and said that it was a great day to be a Liberal, a proud day to be a Liberal. Liberals should be ashamed of themselves.
We are very clearly, at least from everything we have seen from the government's response and listening to the government House leader, heading into an election. A confidence motion will be put before the House. The Liberals keep telling us to put a clear confidence motion before the House and defeat them. That is going to happen. That is going to happen exactly one week from today and the vote will follow that motion. Canadians will finally get an opportunity to judge the government.
I cannot imagine that Canadians would reward the government for the worst scandal in Canadian history, the blatant theft of their money. When people are rewarded for their actions, we only get more of the same. Sadly, we have seen numerous scandals, even under the Prime Minister's watch post-Gomery. The Liberals knew all the facts. They have known them for 10 years. They have known them from the very beginning. They were the perpetrators. They were the people stealing the money. They were the ones involved. They have known all along. Even after they were caught and the evidence came out, their response has been one and the same.
The scandals continue, from the boondoggle to André Ouellet, the former Liberal cabinet minister who had millions of dollars of expenditures at Canada Post. The government has been promising Canadians an audit since last spring. Have we seen that audit? No. The Liberals do not want us to know about that until after the election. The government is burying that information.
The scandals go on and on. The former minister of immigration who was appointed by the current Prime Minister was involved in a scandal. Exotic dancers who just happened to be working in her campaign had been brought into the country under special permits. Yes, there have been investigations and maybe it was her chief of staff or the people around her. That is always the Liberal response. Cabinet ministers are accountable for all of those actions.
Her successor, the new minister of immigration, billed taxpayers for thousands and thousands of dollars for meals. The Liberals do not show any remorse. The government makes up more excuses.
What has been the response by the Prime Minister concerning Art Eggleton, a former Liberal cabinet minister who was involved in another scandal? Mr. Eggleton broke all the rules, just like the sponsorship program. He tossed out the rules and gave untendered contracts to his girlfriend or partner. How did the Prime Minister respond to that? The Prime Minister appointed Art Eggleton to the Senate. This goes on daily.
My colleague from Calgary has done so much good work on the aboriginal files. We have seen the scandal of the water treatment systems and the Liberal inaction. The Liberals stand in the House and suggest, “How dare you want us to possibly compromise”. The government cites some crazy constitutional argument, when really it is just about agreeing to avoid an election now, because the government's only option is an election the first week of January or have a confidence motion next week.
We all know there are events in play. The opposition parties collectively can be thanked, again with some credit to the NDP, for allowing this vote to happen after the aboriginal leaders conference. The government says to move it tomorrow. I know there are some timing issues so that can happen.
The Canadian people need to judge this government. The evidence is before Canadians. The government of the day will have an opportunity to look at the rules in the second report of Justice Gomery and implement them. I suspect that those rules will be implemented because I have every belief that the Canadian people will not re-elect the Liberal government. They will elect a government that has integrity, a Conservative government.
I am amazed by the government's response when it has been caught red handed in a theft of this sophistication. In my wildest imaginations I could not believe that Liberals would have taken envelopes of cash and lined their own pockets, then sprinkled the money to their friends. I would not have believed that, but Justice Gomery has. Justice Gomery has accepted all that evidence and so has the Liberal Party or it would not be paying back that money. The Liberal Party would not have written a cheque if it were not true.
If the Government of Canada has an ounce of interest in avoiding an election at Christmas, it has only one option, which is to say yes to a compromise reached by all the other parties in the House.
The Liberals can ask the NDP members if that was the Conservatives' first choice and they will tell them that it was not, that they did reach a compromise in good faith. Failing that, yes the Liberals will get a motion of confidence. They will get it within a week. They deserve it. They deserve to be defeated. It is time for the Canadian people to have their say.