Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the House precisely what we are debating today. We are debating an opposition motion that reads as follows:
That, given the lack of new legislation introduced by the Liberal government during the Third Session of this Parliament, this House recognize that the current government is not new, but rather one that is intricately linked to the past decade of mismanagement, corruption and incompetence, and has accordingly lost the confidence of this House.
The part about losing the confidence of the House by not bringing forward legislation is something that does not need to be articulated because it is quite clear. This Liberal Prime Minister campaigned to be the Liberal leader and the incumbent Prime Minister of the House of Commons for probably five or six years. He never really stopped campaigning, but it really kicked into gear about five or six years ago. He has been trying to have a bloodless coup with the former prime minister Jean Chrétien for quite some time.
The current Prime Minister became leader of the Liberal Party by promising many things such as a new agenda, a new deal for cities and by promising a comprehensive approach to all kinds of things under the sun. We have seen virtually no new legislation in the House of Commons over more than 100 days since he was elected and sworn in December of last year as Liberal leader and Prime Minister.
I saw a television program the other day where one of the Liberal cabinet ministers had this very point put to him. The minister said that was not exactly true. He said that the Liberals had put forward whistleblowing legislation, and it is true that whistleblowing legislation will be coming forward. The interesting thing to note is the official opposition put forward whistleblower legislation quite some time ago, but the government failed to acknowledge that fact. It would only be under a Liberal government, with the layer upon layer of corruption that we have seen over the past while, that would actually need comprehensive whistleblower legislation.
In the tradition of parliamentary democracy, it used to be that ministers would take responsibility for their portfolios. It was quite sad and embarrassing to hear the former public works minister, Alfonso Gagliano, last week play a who, what, me, I do not know role. It was the most important program that the country had after the 1995 debacle of the Quebec referendum campaign, where the prime minister essentially sat on his hands and almost saw the country dissolve. Alfonso Gagliano was put in charge of the fundamentally important program where $250 million was pushed into the province of Quebec to raise the profile of the federal government. Some basic cursory realities of what constitutes sound fiscal management were not adhered to at all. The average hot dog stand had better lines of financial accountability than the Liberal government had with $250 million in what was supposed to be one of the most important and comprehensive programs to meld the country back together after the divisive 1995 leadership campaign.
Before I go further and talk a little more broadly about Liberal scandals and some of the numbers involved in this, I want to comment on some of the remarks made by my colleague from Winnipeg Centre and on the remarks made by the member for Windsor--St. Clair.
Sanctimonious hypocrisy and posturing is something that is entirely inappropriate on issues like this. I always find it a bit funny when the NDP and Liberal members of Parliament talk about the Conservative Party led by Brian Mulroney. I am tempted to remind people that when Brian Mulroney came into power in 1984, I was seven years old. I was not exactly one of the backroom bagmen boys for the Brian Mulroney regime involved in that kind of corruption.
The reality in politics is that we tend to say that they are Liberals and they are all bad, or that they are New Democrats and they are all scandalous, or that they are all Conservatives and they have all been involved in scandals of the past.
The reality is we have to hold individuals accountable for their own actions and for that behaviour. It is not fair to say that all New Democrats under the government of Glen Clark were corrupt and irresponsible. It is not fair to say that all Progressive Conservatives under governments in the past were corrupt and irresponsible. Equally, it is not fair to say that all Liberals are corrupt and shadowed by the scandals that we have seen over the past couple of months.
What is fair is to ask for some accountability and responsibility. It is fair to ask for people who knew things to step forward and to be honest and straight up with what they knew and when they knew it, not to play hide and seek and not to run away.
It really is a fool's game to look at politics, as I described politics, as professional sports; that is all Liberals are bad, all Conservatives are good, all NDP are evil and vis-à-vis, and the rotating goes on depending on how one looks at federal politics. That kind of simplistic, frankly childish look at politics is totally inappropriate. We are all individuals.
The problem with this scandal has been the individuals who are at the heart of it. Those individuals who are truly responsible for the throwing away of $250 million in the ad scam and more than that over the past decade are hiding behind all kinds of political games and smoke and mirrors.
I had to take a long view of Liberal scandals over the past decade. If we add up all the money that has been wasted, stolen or spent irresponsibly over the past decade, we come to a startling number $7.093 billion. That number is arrived at by adding up the following things: $2 billion for the gun registry; the helicopter cancellation; the billion dollar HRDC boondoggle; the home heating fuel rebates that went to almost everyone who did not require them; in 1992 to 1993 the company owned by the Prime Minister received $161 million from government contracts; the ad scam of $250 million; and the unnecessary Challenger jets of $100 million.
If we want a global number, when we add up all the scandals and all the corruption, the number we arrive at is $7.093 billion. That is an astonishing amount of money that could do wonderful things for Canada. For that amount of money, we could solve a number of problems.
It is very interesting how the debate has unfolded, not just over the past five minutes but over the past little while, and I see the member from Brampton West—Mississauga, an anonymous MP who no one ever knows. It is interesting how Liberal members of Parliament have had smirks on their faces, the sort of awkward arrogance that they are the incumbent government party and that they will be in power forever.
With the new Conservative Party and with the momentum we have with our new leader, the smirk and the arrogance that the Liberals have had for the past decade will be wiped away. It is being wiped away by the emergence of the new Conservative Party and a governing alternative that is really present for Canadians. It is also being wiped away by the number of Canadians who are sick and tired of the Liberal arrogance, the Liberal corruption, the throwing away of money and all the scandals they have seen over the past decade.
Canadians deserve better and taxpayers deserve better. Certainly all Canadians can agree that those people who knew what was going on, when a quarter of a billion dollars was being spent in a high profile program, should have been held accountable. That is what we are doing as the official opposition. That is why we have this motion. That is what we expect from the Liberal Party of Canada.
