Mr. Speaker, I would like an answer to a question I asked in the House last Thursday. I suggested that the Prime Minister, who is the captain of his own ship, was the one who should set the standards for the HRDC grants. This goes right back to the beginning.
I also suggested that the minister had announced grants before they were approved and before the applications even existed. I did not get an answer from the Minister of Human Resources Development. In fact, her response had nothing to do with what I had asked.
So that there is no confusion or illusion on what I am asking, I will be very specific in my question today.
On March 13, 1997, $6,000 was awarded to the auberge inn in the Prime Minister's riding of Shawinigan. This money was first announced under the targeted wage subsidy program. However, for some strange reason, it was moved to the transitional jobs fund program. The hotel project owner, Mr. Pierre Thibault, claimed that he needed the money immediately and could not wait for wage subsidies.
As I mentioned in my question on February 10, the $6,000 grant was announced without any departmental paperwork. In fact, it was advertised in the Prime Minister's householder flyer of April 1997, the month that the federal election was called. There was no paperwork yet this grant was approved.
On December 16, 1999 the Reform Party revealed memos that the Prime Minister's office had no choice but to approve the grant because the Prime Minister had already “personally promised” the money to Mr. Thibault. The Prime Minister had made a promise of an HRDC grant to a man who bought the hotel that the Prime Minister had previously owned. The Prime Minister made the grant announcement at a media conference even though no paperwork had been done. The project did not even meet the regional Quebec transitional jobs fund guidelines, which ban funding for restaurant and bar positions.
I suggested in question period on February 10 that it was painfully obvious that the mess we are in today, the HRDC billion dollar boondoggle and the lack of paperwork and approvals of four projects worth billions of taxpayer dollars, was started by the captain of the ship, the Prime Minister, when grants were given to his riding of Shawinigan. He set the standard for this. He clearly pushed through grant moneys to help someone with whom he had business dealings, Mr. Thibault, and to help create so-called jobs.
I want to again ask this question. If it is the captain of the ship who sets the standards for his crew, it is painfully obvious that the mess we are in today started in Shawinigan. Is that why the Prime Minister is so desperate to keep his first mate, the minister responsible for Human Resources Development, afloat? Is the Prime Minister attempting to prop up the HRDC minister?
I suggest the buck stops at the Prime Minister's own doorstep. The Prime Minister has set the standard for the the whole bureaucracy and everything that has happened. How can he expect anything different from the rest of his cabinet? It is his example.
Is this what is going on? Is this why the Prime Minister is so desperate to protect his first mate and not do anything proactive to give back some confidence back to the Canadian taxpayers?