Mr. Speaker, the whole sordid mess known as the Liberal sponsorship scandal will forever go down in our history as one of the worst financial frauds ever perpetrated by a Canadian government.
The focus is quite rightly on the Prime Minister who presided over the whole grotesque affair while he was finance minister. To say he had no idea of what the money launderers like Groupaction were up to is to stretch all bounds of credibility.
Let me tell the House about some of the groups in my constituency who would have loved to have some of that lost quarter of a billion dollar action. Community groups in Merritt, Princeton and Keremeos are still desperately waiting for softwood lumber compensation which the federal Liberals promised.
In Westbank and Naramata, groups still face urgent infrastructure needs which just a fraction of those wasted Liberal funds would have satisfied. In Okanagan Falls and Kaleden, they desperately need the resources for two more peace officers to help with local policing. The positive growth in Penticton has increased its need for promised federal funding which has disappeared down the Groupaction sinkhole.
The time is coming for citizens everywhere to take real action, at the ballot box as a group, and put this Liberal fraud machine out of action.