I have also reviewed what Professor Geist has had to say about the bill and I am concerned that the privacy of Canadians could be infringed.

Could the member for Victoria explain more clearly what the difference is between the sections where the judge would have supervisory powers over the access to evidence and where telecommunication companies would turn over private information without review?

Murray Rankin: Mr. Speaker, to do so would require an analysis of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act that has been the subject of a mandatory review by the House but has yet to take place; that is to say, we have not had that bill reintroduced. It deals with telecommunication companies and the like. How that is going to connect with this initiative is something about which many people are worried. In other words, we have a two-legged stool but we are only examining one leg here to fully understand how it is going to work.

The government should finally come forward with the amendments to PIPEDA that are long overdue and awaited by so many sectors so we really can effectively and fully answer the question by my hon. colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands.

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We are now debating what is going on in the Prime Minister’s Office. It is in the Conservatives’ interest to say that the Senate is still the problem.

I want to ask my colleague if she agrees with me that questions remain with respect to the possible criminal involvement of the Prime Minister’s Office.

Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that clarification.

In fact, we are not just facing one problem here; we are facing two.

Basically, some senators made claims for inappropriate expenses, which is one of the issues before us. However, there is another issue that is related but not the same, and that issue is the involvement of the Prime Minister’s Office in a Senate reimbursement and expenses scandal.

Therefore, this is not just a debate about senators who made claims for inappropriate expenses. It is also a debate about this Prime Minister’s involvement and his inability to provide transparent and coherent answers to questions about the situation.

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I want to put this motion in context. This is about behaviour in the Prime Minister’s Office. It is not about the generalized problem of the Senate. I put this for my friend, the hon. parliamentary secretary. In today’s Globe and Mail, one of his former colleagues, Inky Mark, describes the Prime Minister’s modus operandi. He said:

[The Prime Minister’s] biggest weakness is that he doesn’t listen to anyone. He thought he knew more than all of us put together. He didn’t trust anyone. He operated through his bullies.

I ask the hon. parliamentary secretary this. How do we jive the Prime Minister’s reputation for being in total control of all aspects of his operations at all times with what must have only been wilful blindness to what was going on all around him in the cover-up?

Paul Calandra: Mr. Speaker, I hate to disagree with the Green Party member, but the Liberal leader supports Keystone when he is in front of oil people, but he does not necessarily support it when he is in B.C. or Ontario.

We have seen this with the Liberals before. We remember the former Liberal leader who supported the auto sector when he was in Oshawa, but when he was in British Columbia, he was not so supportive of the auto sector.

The Liberal leader supports the oil sands, but not taking it out of the ground. Anybody can support it, but if they do not support the pipelines that get it to market, what is the point to that? I am not sure the Liberal leader has figured out that the pipes we are talking about are not the ones used for smoking. They are the ones that actually deliver oil to the market.

With respect to the Prime Minister, he has been very clear. Had he known that this scheme was being hatched, he would have in no way endorsed such a scheme. Nigel Wright has accepted full and sole responsibility.

What we are asking for now is that the senators do the same. They are not, so there is a motion in front of the Senate which would give Canadians the accountability that they cannot extract from a ballot box when it comes to the senators.

We are learning now that the Liberals are going to sit on their hands and abstain from voting. When it comes to accountability, Canadians can always count on the Conservative Party to provide that accountability.

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