Edited Hansard • Number 195
Thursday, May 30, 2002
Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, Canadian Alliance): Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister and his deputy object to anyone using the word corruption when we rise to question government ministers on their ethical lapses.
My wife has been watching the performance of the government in question period. Here are a few synonyms she came up with for corruption. I wonder which ones the Liberals would prefer that we use: laxity, iniquity, solecism, turpitude, banality, underhandedness, decay, deceitful, degradation, distortion, improbable, knavish, recreant, and putrescence. Here are a few more words that my constituents came up with on their own: sleazy, slimy, bottom-feeding, pork-barreling, slush funds, patronage, scandal, kickback schemes, and so on.
The Deputy Prime Minister blames the opposition and the media for destroying the reputations of ministers. It is their acts that are destroying their reputations, not the messengers, and causing Canadians to lose confidence in the government.
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