Criminal Code  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his speech. He demonstrated an impressive familiarity with the relevant laws in question. What I would say to his great technical speech is that the symbolism does matter here. I agree that more than symbolism is important, but we are here to debate the principle of the bill.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I believe that the hon. member is debating an amendment that is not on the floor of the House. If he would like to—

Business of Supply  That heckle worked. I don't know what you said but it threw me off. Points to you, sir. Madam Speaker, the problem is that our cheese is being watered down and the problem with the Liberal amendment is that watering down the motion is not the way to solve the problem of watering down the cheese.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I am going to divine a question out of that and proceed to answer it.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I appreciate the compliment. It is better than trying to create a compliment out of a question, so I appreciate being in the position of having to create a question out of a compliment.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I would say two things in reply. First, a little over six months ago, if the Liberals were saying anything about this, it was that if the previous government was not enforcing it, that was a case for a new government. Canadians have a new government now, and I think they want some follow-through.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, one of the joys of being a member of Parliament is that one gets to learn about issues that one might not otherwise be aware of if not for being in this place. In my case, I have been learning a little bit about diafiltered milk, having met with the Dairy Farmers of Canada earlier this year, and now through this very well-worded, specific, concrete motion that has been brought to the House on how to actually fix this situation.

International Trade  Mr. Speaker, I do not doubt that the government has heard positive and negative things about the TPP. There are lots of negative things to hear about the TPP. What I said was that I have not heard them say negative things about the TPP. I have only heard them say positive things, so I do not believe I hear it in that regard, unless the parliamentary secretary has some negative comments about the TPP that he would like to share with us tonight, which he knows members of his party have put on the record, of which I am not aware.

International Trade  Mr. Speaker, before I begin my follow-up on the perils of the temporary foreign worker provisions in the trans-Pacific partnership, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the results of yesterday's election in Manitoba. I would like to pay tribute to the outgoing premier, Greg Selinger, and to the 16 years of good NDP government in Manitoba, and what that has meant for our province.

Air Canada Public Participation Act  Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. Does he think that this major coincidence, where the provinces decided to drop their lawsuit, is really plausible? Is it not more likely that when there was a change in government and the new government indicated that it was prepared to change the law, the provinces decided that the time was right to negotiate in order to get something?

Air Canada Public Participation Act  Madam Speaker, the duplicity of the Liberals on this issue has been appalling, frankly. They were duplicitous on the substance when the Prime Minister, the member for Winnipeg North, and other members got up and pretended to be the champions of aerospace workers in Winnipeg and across the country.

The Senate  Mr. Speaker, this week we are hearing of senators who are using their parliamentary staff to work in their private tanning facilities. We are hearing that they are using them to organize their home renovations. The Liberals congratulate themselves a lot in this House for talk about openness and transparency.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the question and the well-made point within the question. I would agree with him on the summoning of the kind of indignation we have seen from the government benches on this issue when the facts are quite clear. We are not here to say that what is being done is illegal.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question. I agree with the principle that we should support political parties with public funds up to a certain point. However, we should not use that argument to excuse actions that are inexcusable. Accordingly, we should indeed reopen the debate on funding from the public purse, but that does not excuse what the Minister of Justice did.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, just to set the context, and I doubt I am the first to read them into the record today, but I think it is worth quoting the ethics principles that the ministers were given: There should be no preferential access to government, or appearance of preferential access, accorded to individuals or organizations because they have made financial contributions to politicians and political parties.