Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I know the member to be an advocate of accountability around this place. He has been a breath of fresh air in the House of Commons and in committees. We were sitting in the same committee meeting when John Reid testified. I remember his testimony to be one of the most brilliant interventions I have witnessed in my short time here.

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, the real reason John Reid is not being renewed is because he has a record of exposing Liberal tricks, balderdash and eventually Liberal corruption. I remember when he came before the government operations committee and exposed the numerous loopholes which the government tried to hide in its so-called whistleblower protection act.

Government Contracts  Mr. Speaker, when the minister admitted before committee that the Liberal rent for nothing scam broke the law and the lease, he used ignorance as the defence. No one in the government realized that the company's CEO had become a senator. Nice try, but not true. Yesterday we learned that the Prime Minister's office reviewed the deal and decided that this Liberal friend should get his money even if it violated the law and broke the lease.

Government Contracts  Mr. Speaker, I am not sorry for exposing a scam that had taxpayers pay 10 months rent for nothing. As part of the Liberal rent for nothing scam, the minister admits that his Liberal friend broke the law. His solution was to just cancel the law, but there is a glitch. He could not cancel the law retroactively, meaning the fines for the period of the infraction when the law was still in place still applied.

Supply  Mr. Speaker, I am calling on the government to return to sound ethical practices and not to award these kinds of rental contracts to Liberal members of the upper House in violation of the rules.

Supply  Mr. Speaker, I obviously will support the motion. It relates indirectly to the employment insurance fund. When I think of the employment insurance fund, I think of profound Liberal mismanagement, the way the Liberal government has run these massive surpluses and then just expropriated them from the payers of those taxes to general revenues.

Canada Elections Act  Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today as the youngest member of Parliament in Canada to discuss the matters before us related to the proposal to lower the voting age in Canada. There are three key messages that I want to attribute to this debate on how I think we can reinvigorate the interests of young people in our democratic process.

Government Contracts  Mr. Speaker, the hon. member admitted, when he was caught, having broken the law and then the government just went ahead and cancelled the law. Unfortunately, it did not do so retroactively, meaning that the period of the infraction still has a $200 a day fine for a total of $118,000 owed by a Liberal member.

Government Contracts  Mr. Speaker, yesterday the public works minister denied his Liberal government paid $100 million in rent without a signed lease, but his communications director contradicted him, later admitting to the Ottawa Sun that there was no lease. She explained away the broken rules as nothing more than a bureaucratic snafu.

Government Contracts  Mr. Speaker, rent was paid 10 months in advance for an empty building, despite the fact no contract had been signed. The Minister of Public Works and Government Services has admitted that the lease and the law were broken. When I caught the Liberals breaking the law, cabinet repealed the legislation, all for another Liberal friend.

Government Contracts  Mr. Speaker, we are not talking about a Senate code here. We are talking about why the government began paying rent to one of its Liberal friends 10 months before Canadian employees occupied the building and two months before there was a contract in place. I ask the Minister of Finance who was the then Minister of Public Works, is it standard practice to pay out before a contract is signed?

Government Contracts  Mr. Speaker, rent scam goes right to the top. Top sources revealed to my office documented proof today that taxpayers started paying rent on the empty Gatineau building two months before a contract was even signed. That is right. The first payday was December 1, 2003, and the deal was inked on January 28, 2004.

Government Contracts  Mr. Speaker, my question is for the finance minister, who was the public works minister at the time that his government started paying rent for an empty building without even signing a contract. Why is it that this minister paid a half a million dollars to the company of a Liberal senator, without a contract?

Points of Order  Mr. Speaker, in fact the Minister of Public Works was very explicit when he said that this deal was “not in compliance with section 14 of the Parliament of Canada Act”. Those records are very clear. They are caught on audiotape by the House of Commons. He cannot deny that.

Points of Order  Mr. Speaker, the only member in the House who seems to be confused about the evidence is that member over there who just spoke. In fact, this was actually reported in numerous newspapers. The Minister of Public Works conceded in committee that the law, section 14 of the Parliament of Canada Act, was in fact contravened.