Megan Leslie

[Government Appointments, June 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, speaking of day in and day out, let us turn to yet another issue where the Conservatives are in trouble with the law.

Did the Minister of Canadian Heritage even know Saulie Zajdel when he hired him? Who recommended him for the job?

[Ethics, June 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Minister of Canadian Heritage said that Nigel Wright wrote a personal cheque to Mike Duffy. Does he have proof of this? If he does, will he table it today?

[Ethics, June 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, five days ago the RCMP publicly confirmed that it was looking into the $90,000 cheque that Nigel Wright wrote to Mike Duffy.

Has anyone in the Prime Minister's Office been contacted by the RCMP about this investigation?

[Ethics, June 17th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, so many Conservatives under police investigation and yet, so little contrition.

Let us stay on the topic of criminal investigations involving the Conservatives. In February, the Prime Minister claimed that he had personally reviewed Pamela Wallin's spending and found nothing unusual about it. However, in August 2012, the Senate administration found problems with Ms. Wallin's expense claims.

Why did the Prime Minister choose to ignore this information?

[Government Appointments, June 17th, 2013]

It is like Whack-a-Mole, Mr. Speaker. They whack one scandal down and another one pops up. The Conservatives' former shadow MP from Mount Royal was arrested this morning. Saulie Zajdel is now facing charges of abuse of trust, fraud and corruption.

Mr. Zajdel was praised by the Prime Minister and he was hired by the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, and then suddenly, without explanation, he left his lucrative ministerial job. Why?

[Ethics, June 13th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, speaking of breaking the law, Mary Dawson, the House Ethics Commissioner, has confirmed that she is suspending her investigation into the potentially illegal cheque written by the Prime Minister's adviser, Nigel Wright.

The government has refused to come clean about the nature of this deal, because it claims that both the Senate and the House ethics officers were investigating, but this is no longer the case. Now that we are dealing with a police investigation of the Prime Minister's Office, will they stop hiding? Will they show us the cheque and tell Canadians the terms of the secret deal and who in the Prime Minister's Office was involved in this deal?

[Ethics, June 13th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, Nigel Wright has accepted responsibility, but he never said he had acted alone. Since Nigel Wright seems to have gone behind their backs, how can the Conservatives take him at his word?

The Prime Minister has told the media that he does not want to answer any more questions on this issue. If he wants the questions to stop, why is he not doing everything he can to clear up this matter of the cheque?

[Ethics, June 13th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I would appreciate it if the Conservatives would take question period seriously.

[Ethics, June 13th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I have a very simple question.

The cheque is the centrepiece of this scandal. It is possible that the money was paid into a trust account. It is also possible that the cheque came with conditions attached. However, the Conservatives say they do not have a copy of the cheque.

We want answers. If Nigel Wright made a mistake and no one noticed, why are the Conservatives taking his word for it?

Why not ask him for a copy of the cheque?

[Ethics, June 13th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I have one simple question.

The cheque is the centrepiece of this scandal—