Debates of March 21st, 2000

Supply

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

We have got to stop barking at each other.

[Lynn Myers, Liberal, Waterloo—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it really is quite interesting to see how upset the Bloc members get. I thought they were good politicians. A good politician is able to dish it out and take it, not simply to dish it out. Tut, tut Madame. It seems to me she should develop a bit of a thicker skin.

There are two fundamental values which Canadians support when it comes to this kind of issue. We on the government side support the values of listening to Canadians and of being caring and compassionate. These values are intrinsic to the very core of Canada.

I hear the hon. Reform member caterwaul and laugh because he does not understand this. He does not understand that caring and compassion is a core Canadian value because he is a Darwinian economist. We were speaking of dogs a minute ago. He wants to let dog eat dog because he cares only about his rich friends. He does not care about people who are less fortunate and people who genuinely require our assistance. Blessfully and thankfully, we on the government side do.

We care about ordinary Canadians. We care about helping people in need. We care about the disabled. We care about students. We care about people who genuinely require our assistance. Unlike those Reformers who have cast away and left them adrift, it is clear that we on the government side will not do that and rightfully so.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

We have several members who wish to ask questions. We will keep the question to one minute and one minute for the response.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak. The member opposite did not address the motion. The motion has to do specifically with the mismanagement in the Department of Human Resources Development.

He spoke glowingly of the auditor general, yet he failed to point out or to remember the fact that it was the auditor general who almost a year ago released his report that drew attention to this great mismanagement. As a matter of fact the auditor general has been raising such questions for a number of years. Finally the media and the official opposition were able to get together in such a way to make this an issue across the country because Canadians are concerned about the mismanagement of their money.

The debate is not on whether or not some of the programs are good. Some are, some are not. The debate is about the lack of accountability.

I am amazed that the member did not see fit to address the real question. For example, some 85% of the applications did not have even a supporting application form. That is mismanagement of the greatest form.

That is what we are trying to address. We will continue to do that. I think members of the public in Canada will applaud us and not the wasteful Liberal government.

[Lynn Myers, Liberal, Waterloo—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not need a lecture from the member opposite. I was at the table when the auditor general's report came out. I was vice-chairman at that time. I know full well what the auditor general reported. We as a committee then went into detail in terms of what we were prepared to do.

I want to point something out to the hon. member. He should really think hard, deep, fast and long about getting his facts straight. It was not the media, it was not the grandstanding opposition types, especially the member for Calgary—Nose Hill who with grandstanding kerfuffle and all kinds of outrageous statements has tried to take credit for somehow flushing the government out on this. That is incorrect, it is wrong and it is nonsense. It was the minister who came forward and through her audit and her process was able to begin correcting the problem. Instead of sitting there and fabricating those kinds of myths, members should be congratulating the minister for doing her job and doing it effectively.

[Jean-Guy Chrétien, Bloc, Frontenac—Mégantic, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to get back to this morning's motion. Essentially, this motion recommends “the creation of an independent public commission of inquiry”.

What happened is that HRDC's internal auditor selected 459 projects at random—somewhat like in a survey involving 1,200 people across Canada. Of these 459 projects, 80% were problematic, had not followed the normal procedure. What is worse is that 37 were extremely problematic. Of these 37, the RCMP are investigating 19 throughout Canada, three of them in the riding of Saint-Maurice, the Prime Minister's riding.

With his usual verve, the Prime Minister told us that only $250 had been misspent. Our suspicion is that, if all 11,000 projects were audited, the HRDC scandal would involve somewhere between $1 billion and $3 billion, an amount unprecedented in Canada; it is mind-boggling.

The Liberal Party has been accused of buying votes, and what happened in Saint-Maurice in 1997 clinches it. The Prime Minister literally won the election by handing out taxpayers' money and, unfortunately, this money was misused as in the case of Placeteco. This was on the news last night. It is scandalous.

I ask the member opposite to tell me how the Liberals are going to be able to refuse to create an independent commission of inquiry to look into all the projects when the vote is held at 5.30 p.m.

[Lynn Myers, Liberal, Waterloo—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed in the hon. member's assertions and I totally reject, out of hand, his comments, especially with respect to the riding of Saint-Maurice. He should be a little more careful in terms of what he says.

Instead of denigrating the constituents of that great riding, instead of denigrating, by extension, Quebecers, he should be standing in his place and celebrating the fact that the Government of Canada wants to put in place the kinds of grants and contributions that are appropriate for people who are in need. He should be celebrating that.

In direct response to his questions—and I got to the substance of this in my speech—we have the kinds of checks and balances that are in place. We have the auditor general's report, for example, which will come out in the fall. The auditor general is an officer of the House. I cannot believe the opposition is taking the kind of swipes at the auditor general that it is doing. It is outrageous.

The Auditor General of Canada, who is an officer of this House, has the prerogative to look into this whole issue, to examine it thoroughly and to bring about the kinds of recommendations that will be meaningful for Canadians. What do the Reformers do? They dismiss it out of hand and say that he is not good enough. I take exception because I work with the auditor general and I know exactly the kind of work he will do.

As for the RCMP, I was involved with the regional police for 10 years. I was chairman of the police. I know that those kinds of investigations go on all the time. For the member to stand in his place and imply that there is some kind of scandal going on here is absolutely outrageous and he should retract.

[Jim Abbott, Reform, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, unlike the previous speaker from the Liberals, I would like to speak specifically about the motion that is before the House today and hopefully not get into the same kind of rant that he decided to get into.

The motion reads:

That this House condemn the government for the poor management seen at the Department of Human Resources Development, particularly in the award and use of grants for partisan purposes, and that it recommend the creation of an independent public commission of inquiry, whose members will be appointed by the House, and whose mandate will be to inquire into all practices of that department and to report to the House by September 19, 2000.

I will be keying in very specifically on the issue of the independent public commission of inquiry. There is nothing more important to this scandal than that we get to the bottom of it and the only way we will get to the bottom of it is with an independent public inquiry.

The last thing the Liberals would want is an independent public inquiry. I know this because of my experience in attempting to pursue the involvement of the Prime Minister in the APEC affair as it happened and unfolded in November 1997 in Vancouver.

This government knows by experience that the longer the process is drawn out the less relevant it is. Clearly, it has managed to bury the Prime Minister's involvement in the suppression of Canadians' freedom of expression and their fundamental rights that they hold as Canadian citizens. It has managed to bury this in a totally irrelevant process which, again I say, is why I am speaking specifically to the issue in the motion of the importance of an independent inquiry.

The government's answer to accountability is damage control. It deflects the issue hoping that people become bored and it complicates the issue until it is no longer recognizable. As I said, the APEC inquiry is an absolute classic example of this.

In the Prime Minister's 36 years of public life, he has learned how to use the system to protect himself, particularly by burying the issues.

The Canadian people want simple answers to the question in APEC: Was the Prime Minister involved in suppressing Canadians' freedom of expression? Is there support for my position that indeed that was the case?

Here is why that matters, as expressed by Craig Jones, one of the jailed protesters. He said:

The root issue for me is to what extent we are going to accept the political control of the RCMP by the executive branch of the government.

Why it is important to the people of Canada is the significance of the separation of executive and enforcement or politicians from police. Where there is a dictatorship there are politicians directing the police. Where there is a democracy we are supposed to have a firewall between politicians and police.

To the issue of accountability and to the issue of an independent inquiry, I refer you, Mr. Speaker, to September 21, 1998 when I asked the Prime Minister the following question:

I would ask the Prime Minister one more time...Will he admit that his fingerprints are all over this process, that he is fully responsible for the fact that democratic rights of Canadians were taken away as a public statement, a political statement by him?

The solicitor general of the day said:

I would appeal to the members opposite to recognize the appropriate role for the public complaints commission that was established by parliament. It deserves our support and I would ask the members opposite to give it to the commission.

The relevance to this motion is that the public complaints commission was the incorrect body to be looking into this issue. The relevance to this motion is that I suggest that the human resources development minister's appraisal of the problem, as she sees it under her so-called six point program, is the incorrect vehicle to be taking a look at this.

Let us take a look at the APEC affair to see how this became convoluted and how a proper inquiry ended up being twisted and pulled out of the realm of possibility.

I asked the following question on September 24, 1998:

There is no level of inquiry. There is the public complaints commission, and I quote from the RCMP Act “They only may look into any member or any other person employed under the authority of this act.

That is what the public complaints commission can look into. It is strictly a snow job that the solicitor general is doing—

The solicitor general again said:

This inquiry has exactly the same powers as the kind of inquiry that the hon. member was demanding, very specifically the powers of a broad inquiry.

I point out again that throughout this entire affair the respective solicitors general and the Deputy Prime Minister all said that this was the correct vehicle, which is why we support the Bloc Quebecois motion.

If we are going to get to the bottom of this scandal at Human Resources Development Canada, the only way we will get there is through an independent public inquiry.

On October 20, 1998, I asked the Prime Minister, with respect to the APEC affair, why he was trying to bury this affair under the public complaints commission. I quote the Prime Minister, who said:

I want people to understand that it is the opposition that should apologize for depriving the Canadian people of an independent body to look into that problem.

He was either unaware, uninformed or in fact wilfully said things that were not accurate when he made that statement because this has never been an independent public inquiry. This has always come under the public complaints commission which was never ever designed to uncover the fingerprints of the Prime Minister with regard to this issue.

I must say that Commissioner Ted Hughes has a tremendous task ahead of him. In my judgment he has been doing an outstanding job, yet he is still not getting to the bottom of it.

In February 1999 the Prime Minister committed to the House that everyone from his office and the government would be available to testify. Considering the number of fingerprints the Prime Minister had on the APEC affair, we assumed everyone included himself.

However, totally contrary to the representations made by the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the respective solicitors general, and contrary to the answers to the questions that we had posed in question period, the lawyers for the government, understandably, argued in front of the commissioner that the Prime Minister should not appear. It was something of a surprise that the solicitor for the commission itself also argued to the commissioner, in public at the commission hearing, that the Prime Minister not appear. However, it went over the top when the lawyer for the RCMP argued at the public complaints commission that the Prime Minister should not appear.

Again I say that the reason we support the Bloc Quebecois motion that is before the House is because of the importance and significance of an independent public inquiry to get to the bottom of the HRDC scandal.

On February 28, 2000 the Prime Minister said that he did not have to go to the inquiry because he could reply to questions in the House. He has repeatedly stated in the House that he will not answer questions and that we should let the commission do its job. However, forget that, the commissioner is trying to do his job. When it was convenient, the Prime Minister hid behind the incorrect vehicle and this government chose to cover up for the Prime Minister.

I pointed out that there were three important differences between the House and the APEC inquiry: First, witnesses are under oath; second, witnesses may be cross-examined and their statement of facts may be challenged; and furthermore, the answer from a witness may exceed 35 seconds.

In summary, from the example Canadians have before them about the coverup by the politicians directing the police at the APEC inquiry and the fact that the government wilfully chose to hide that inquiry under the incorrect vehicle, the public complaints commission, clearly the House must support the Bloc motion to call for an independent inquiry to uncover the facts relating to the scandal at HRDC.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech by the member of the Reform Party and I would have a few questions for him.

He said, I want to thank him for it, that he will support the motion brought forward by the Bloc Quebecois to have an independent, non-partisan public inquiry. The Liberals have great difficulty telling what is non-partisan. Perhaps I misheard, but I would like to know if this is the member's personal position or that of his party, if this will be a free vote or a party vote.

Unfortunately for him, I would like to respond briefly to the Liberal member, who is accusing us of all evils. I think that, if he could eliminate us, he would do it in a flash.

He accuses us of having an alliance with the Reform Party on the issue of good management of public funds. We are not against having programs. But regardless of the amount, be it $100,000, $1 million, $10 million or $1 billion, I think all Canadians, whether Reformers, BQ, NDP or what not, want that money to be well spent and well managed. That is all we want. Priorities will be identified later.

We are accused of ignoring the auditor general's recommendations. For the benefit of the Liberal members who will follow this debate, I would simply like to point out that the auditor general wrote, and I quote:

Over the past two decades, my office has carried out several audits of the management of grant and contribution programs by federal departments and agencies. These audits identified persistent shortcomings.

He further wrote, and I quote:

I can't help but express a certain degree of frustration with the management of grant and contribution programs.

This shows the role of the auditor general in denouncing the shameless squandering of grants by the Liberal Party. I would also like the Reform member to comment on that and to tell us what his party's position is on the matter.

[Jim Abbott, Reform, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, our party will be supporting the motion for the reasons I stated. Clearly there must be a full independent public inquiry into this affair.

This affair is a matter of principle, which is something that the parliamentary secretary clearly did not understand in her presentation for the government today. She said “What is the big deal? This is only one—” and then she gave some kind of fraction, 1/186th or whatever it was. I do not know. It had something to do with Liberal math, so I do not really understand it.

There are dollars and cents involved. However, the most important issue is not the dollars and cents. The most important issue is that the government goes out of its way constantly to pat itself on the back, calling itself a wonderful manager of the Canadian taxpayers' funds, when in fact it is not. It is absolutely cavalier with the money that comes from the Canadian taxpayer to the public treasury. On top of that, it gets involved in a process that is a cover-up, because it works these funds as it sees fit.

Last Thursday and Friday were absolutely classic examples. The minister herself did not have a clue as to whether there was a fourth police inquiry into this affair in the Prime Minister's riding. First she said there was, and then she said there was not. It struck us over the weekend that the people in her department changed the facts so that they ended up supporting the minister's utterances.

If there was ever a reason for an independent public inquiry, this is it, and the time is now.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, for five weeks we have been led to believe that the Reform Party is opposed to the government's regional development programs and that all it wanted to do is object.

I would like to remind the House briefly that there is a $27 billion surplus in the employment insurance fund. The transitional job fund was created to try to make up for the money taken away from unemployed workers, and to help them find work.

Could my hon. colleague tell us if the Reform Party is opposed to the program or only to the way it is managed and to the government's lack of accountability for taxpayers' money?

[Jim Abbott, Reform, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, very clearly what this is about is the mismanagement of funds. There is a difference of opinion between ourselves and the NDP on how to effect these changes. That is part of the political process. Indeed, when we get to an election it will be part of the dialogue.

That is not the issue. The issue is the gross mismanagement and the cavalier attitude that the Liberals have toward hard earned tax dollars. It does not even control the disbursement of those tax dollars. That is the issue.

[Jason Kenney, Reform, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in debate on this supply day motion from my colleagues in the third party, that the House condemn the government for the very poor management brought to the attention of the Minister of Human Resources Development, notably in the allocation and use of grants for partisan purposes, and recommend the creation of an independent public inquiry commission whose members would be named by the House and whose mandate it would be to investigate the overall practices of that department and to report to the House no later than September 19, 2000.

Speaking on behalf of members of the official opposition, we intend to support this motion, although we would like to see an inquiry into this very grave matter conducted by the auditor general rather than an independent commission.

The predicate of this motion is that the government has engaged in classic pork barrel political spending of the most grotesque kind, the kind of politics which I thought a modern liberal democracy would have advanced beyond. But in fact what we see through the granting programs administered by the Minister of Human Resources Development and many of her other colleagues is that public money is increasingly being used under this government for partisan purposes. That ought not to be happening in a liberal democracy under the rule of law.

Due to the very diligent research of the official opposition, we have managed to uncover a mountain of information about the misadministration of over a billion public dollars through the human resources department. We know that because of access to information requests submitted by the official opposition special audits revealed that 80% of grants made by HRDC showed no financial monitoring, 87% showed no supervision, 97% showed no attempt to find out if the recipient already owed money to the government, 11% had no budget proposal on file and, incredibly, 15% had no application on file for money that was received from the government.

We have uncovered more and more information as the weeks have gone by. Just yesterday we revealed in the House an internal audit conducted of the TAGS program during the period 1994 to last year which revealed similar misadministration and abuse of public funds.

The Prime Minister and the minister of HRDC say that this is just an administrative error, a series of coincidental administrative errors for which the political ministry takes no responsibility and merely passes the buck to what the parliamentary secretary to HRDC yesterday referred to as lowly bureaucrats.

Not only have we seen the complete rejection of the concept, tradition and convention of ministerial responsibility, but, more shockingly, what we see when we look below the surface, when we look at these grants, is the gross politicization of granting programs of this nature.

To take an example, the number of grant approvals from the HRD department skyrocketed near the end of the last election. What a surprise. What a coincidence.

Some members may recall having seen a graph. I think it was published on the front page, above the fold, in the Ottawa Citizen some three weeks ago. It graphically represented the findings of the official opposition's research, which showed that the grant approvals and announcements were on a flat line throughout most of 1996 and 1997. Then, all of a sudden we came to April, May and June, the time of the last federal election, and there was this huge spike in the number of approvals and announcements of HRD grants.

I am sure it was just a coincidence that it was concurrent with the last federal writ being dropped in May 1997. When we look at the hard numbers, though, 592 approvals were made in April 1997 when the government knew it would drop the writ for the last general election, and that number, the 592 approvals, was four times higher than the monthly average of targeted wage subsidy approvals for the period April 1996 to August 1999.

What we see is clearly the government abusing its power, abusing its control over public resources, abusing its control of the bureaucracy to force the approval of granting programs in the targeted wage subsidies administered by HRD for its own political advantage. I find this to be really quite reprehensible.

There is further evidence. Last year the minister of HRDC's riding received over three times the national average in targeted wage subsidy money. In spite of the fact that her own riding did not qualify for any such grants, in spite of the fact that it had one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, it was receiving more grant money than ridings with much higher unemployment rates which qualified for the program. This is more political interference.

The Prime Minister's riding, the home of the famous Versailles water fountain, the home of the hon. member for let them eat cake, received more grant money than all of the prairie provinces combined. I am sure that is just a coincidence. I am sure that all of the phone calls, faxes and letters from the Prime Minister's office to bureaucrats in HRDC asking for the expedition and approval of granting programs, some of which had not yet made application, were merely coincidental. There was no political pressure. I am sure it was just one lowly—to coin a phrase—member of parliament doing his job for his constituents. If members buy that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn for them.

Canadians do not buy that kind of evasion. Canadians know the abuse of public funds for political purposes when they see it, and they see it now in spades with the Right Hon. member for Shawinigan.

A letter from a human resources department official reveals that the Prime Minister deliberately broke the rules regarding regional distribution of grant money, because he was instructed to approve grants in the Prime Minister's riding. We see this pattern over and over again. We find that there is substantial and compelling evidence that the government has systematically engaged in the partisan use and abuse of public funds for its own political benefit. I am talking about senior ministers' ridings and the Prime Minister's riding. Grants have been forced to be approved and announced immediately before election time. This demonstrates the kind of corruption which is at the heart of the granting process.

We believe that in a modern liberal democracy, governed by the rule of law and parliamentary conventions, these kinds of pork barrel spending programs are outdated. I am sure this is news to the Prime Minister, but this is not money that belongs to the Liberal Party of Canada. It is not money held in trust by the member for Saint-Maurice. It is not money that belongs to anybody but the people who have earned it and paid for it, and who have had it taken away from them by government.

Yesterday in this place we debated the fact that the government has cut some $21 billion from health care during its tenure since 1993, all the while increasing boondoggle prone spending such as the HRDC grants. We saw in the recent budget tabled in the House by the hon. Minister of Finance that the government is going to increase boondoggle prone spending and granting programs like the transitional jobs fund and the targeted wage subsidies faster than it is going to increase spending on health care, which is by far the highest public priority. Why? Not because these programs create jobs. On average, the jobs created by these programs cost several times more than the job is actually worth on an annual basis. It is because the government is seeking to gain and maximize political partisan benefits for its members and perspective candidates in the next election. That is why we will concur and support the Bloc Quebecois motion to seek an independent inquiry, although we would rather see it conducted, as we have asked already, through the office of the auditor general, an officer of the House.

The Leader of the Official Opposition has written to the auditor general seeking such an inquiry. We hope that he will respond. If not, we hope that an independent inquiry, the likes of which are contemplated by this motion, will finally get to the bottom of this mess and this corruption.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I will repeat my question again to my colleague from the Reform Party.

He seems to be indicating that the programs are not creating jobs. I come from Acadie—Bathurst, in northeastern New Brunswick, and I can tell you that we have been hard hit by the changes to the employment insurance. I would be reluctant to say the program did not help our small businesses create jobs. The Reform Party keeps on saying that no program can help. I must disagree.

My question is for the hon. member from the Reform Party. I would like him to be somewhat clearer than his colleague.

Does he believe government programs can help create jobs in regions like mine where there are no jobs? If one looks at the peninsula, the unemployment rate climbs to 40% in winter when there is no more fishing.

It is not the program that should be criticized, but its management. We would like to get to the bottom of this. We would like a public inquiry to get to the bottom of this and save those programs that are good for Canadians.

[Jason Kenney, Reform, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I concur with my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst in that our principal concern today is the misadministration of these programs. That is the focus of this motion, which is why we will be supporting it.

The member asked if I and my party oppose programs of this nature in principle. I believe, having studied the case experience of governments across the world, that a dollar left in the hands of an entrepreneur, an investor, a small business person or working family is more effective in creating wealth, jobs and a higher standard of living than a dollar transferred through the enormous federal bureaucracy and distributed through so-called job creation schemes.

I agree that there ought to be an effective program for job creation, particularly in economically disadvantaged regions. I think that the most effective program would be significant tax relief which would increase the incentives for people to invest, take risks, work and save.

Although we may have a philosophical difference with the member for Acadie—Bathurst on that point, we do have an agreement with respect to the need to review and completely overhaul the misadministration of programs, such as the one we are discussing today.

[David Kilgour, Liberal, Secretary of State (Latin America and Africa)]

Mr. Speaker, further to what the member for Calgary Southeast just said, I know that he does not want to deny people with disabilities money any more than we do.

Where would he draw the line? Could he amplify on what he has just said in terms of these grants?

[Jason Kenney, Reform, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am not addressing grants for the severely disabled. I worked for organizations raising money for the severely disabled. I believe that the severely disabled, more than any other constituents in society, deserve our public support. They are the most vulnerable and, in most cases, do not have the capacity to find gainful employment.

However, that is not what we are talking about. We are talking about the targeted wage subsidies and the transitional jobs fund that have been misadministered. I doubt very much that the huge increase in the number of approvals for the targeted wage subsidies in April 1997, one month before the federal writ was dropped, was done for reasons of compassion for the disabled. I rather suspect it was done for reasons of partisan necessity on the part of Liberal candidates.

I concur with the member that there ought to be programs to assist the disabled, but I do not think that has anything to do with the explosive numbers of so-called job creation grants announced concurrent with the federal election. Those are two entirely separate issues and we ought not to confuse them.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Vancouver East.

I am pleased to speak today on the Bloc Quebecois motion calling for a public commission of inquiry into the HRDC contributions scandal.

The mismanagement of contributions programs by this Liberal government is not just a matter of financial management, it is also a question of credibility.

Because this government has not assumed its responsibilities and has neglected to manage this contributions program, Canadians no longer have any confidence in the government's role in job creation. And yet, the transitional job fund is not a bad program in itself.

The government definitely has a role to play in job creation, but by using these funds for political purposes the Liberals have taken away Canadians' confidence in their government and in their MPs.

The government has a role to play because Canadians have always asked “What are we getting in return for all the taxes we pay?” From 1986 to 1993, the Conservative government initiated the cuts to employment insurance, and now the Liberal government is continuing these cuts. What was needed, supposedly, was something to try to get some jobs back.

Is it working? Perhaps not, but there are certainly some for whom jobs have been created. In my riding of Acadie—Bathurst, the money helped businesses in my region. The people who got work, who were able to work, are proud of it. At issue in the House today is the way it was managed, and I will get back to that a little later.

It suits the Reformers to have the government's credibility undermined by this mismanagement, but it is not in the interest of Canadians. The Reform Party wants us to end government assistance programs.

I put questions twice in a row to my Reform colleagues. They told me specifically that they are not in favour of job creation programs. They did say it was all right for the handicapped—perhaps they will have a hard time answering that—but they are willing to drop the rest.

I have to say that I believe that when a person has no work, that person is almost handicapped. When a man has no work and has a wife and children to feed and the children go to school on an empty stomach, he is almost handicapped.

It is important to maintain the programs and for the government to gain back some credibility through them. If the government has hidden nothing regarding the programs, it should undertake a public inquiry, it should put it out on the table. For the past five or six weeks this House has been held hostage because of government credibility in the programs it has mismanaged.

The Reform members would be happy to see the government get out of pension, health and income security programs. Now the Liberals are helping the Reformers with their agenda of reducing the role of government.

As I just said, this House has been paralyzed for five weeks because of the scandal at Human Resources Development Canada. What is clear is that, in spite of the efforts of all the opposition parties to shed light on what happened, we have no answers to fundamental issues surrounding the management of HRDC grants.

We must immediately set up an independent public commission of inquiry to get non partisan and legitimate answers. Canadian taxpayers' money was mismanaged and there are clear indications that it was used for political purposes.

It is not normal, for instance, for a company in the region of Mataquac, to receive about $16,000 and then, during the same month, to give the Liberals over $7,900, just before an election campaign. This is not normal. We have to look into this.

It is not normal for the Prime Minister of Canada to sell his share of a business to a friend who does not even have the money to pay him and then, all of sudden, for that friend to receive a grant from the government. When will Canadians wake up, once and for all, indicate in the polls that their support for the Liberals is much less than 60% or 50%, and tell the Liberals that the programs are being mismanaged by the Prime Minister? This is the same person who authorized the cuts to employment insurance. My riding of Acadie—Bathurst loses over $65 million a year because of these cuts to EI benefits, and people are suffering.

Let us take an example. The riding of Vancouver East, my colleague's riding, could not even qualify for the transitional jobs fund, since the unemployment rate there is over 13%. Before she was elected as an NDP member, her predecessor, the incumbent before 1997, was entitled to the benefits of the transitional jobs fund. Is this not an issue that should be looked into?

Last week I was at the meeting of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. I asked the question: When was the transitional job fund criterion changed to allow projects in regions with unemployment rates of 8% when there are other regions with higher rates of unemployment?

The answer was that it was changed in June 1998. How was it that the Liberal member for Vancouver East received money before 1997?

We are sick and tired of these lies that are offered up day after day. We want a public inquiry to lay the matter to rest once and for all and to save our programs. That is why the NDP will be voting in favour of this motion and I congratulate the Bloc Quebecois on moving it.

Is the Prime Minister afraid of the truth? Does it make any sense that an American company such as Wal-Mart, which is making billions and which has just set up a warehouse in Canada and does not need money, should receive $500,000 from the government, when this same government and the Prime Minister are saying that Atlantic Canadians abused the EI system and that that is why benefits had to be cut?

This sort of thing looks bad. It is the sort of thing that is going to lose us programs. This is why it is very important that this commission of inquiry be created, so that some light can be shed and so that the House can be freed up to deal with other problems facing Canadians, such as health, which is the number one problem in this country, and the cutbacks in our health care programs. Right now, the NDP is the only party in the House that has risen every day and asked questions on health since the budget was brought down.

If we did not have this problem at HRDC, maybe the opposition parties could do their job and take their responsibilities.

If the Prime Minister of Canada has nothing to fear from whatever was done in Shawinigan, then he should allow the setting up of a public commission of inquiry that could finally shed some light on this scandal and on the lack of credibility of this government.

People in our ridings tell us “This does not make sense. These things have to stop. It is high time this matter was cleared up once and for all. We want you to be able to work on other issues, such as our health care system, which we are in the process of losing”.

I think this is very important, and I will repeat it again. They say sometimes you have to repeat something 27 times before it gets into people's heads. The transitional jobs fund was created only and specifically because of EI cuts. Today, the Reform Party would like that program eliminated. The only reason for that is that they do not have any member in our part of the country. In winter, in the Acadian peninsula, the unemployment rate, can reach 40%, because the fishing industry is closed.

Again, I am asking the House to support the motion brought forward by the Bloc Quebecois for the creation of a public commission of inquiry to enlighten parliament and all Canadians.

[Bob Kilger, Liberal, Stormont—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I consider myself very lucky that I happened to walk by the House and I overheard the comments made by my colleague, the member for Acadie—Bathurst, who is also the whip for the NDP.

I would like to remind him that for several years the city of Cornwall, which is the biggest city in my riding, had a unemployment rate much higher than the national average. However, in the last two years, thanks to the programs provided by Human Resources Development Canada, we have been so successful that we have managed to reduce the unemployment rate by 8%. The unemployment rate is now at 10% in the largest city in my riding, Cornwall, Ontario. Members opposite referred to one company in particular, which is Wal-Mart.

I will not apologize today no more than I did yesterday. I can assure the House that if I had the opportunity I would do the same thing all over again. In partnership with Human Resources Development Canada which made an important contribution of $500,000, and the city of Cornwall, we made an agreement with a developer, Metrus Properties, which turned the site into a commercial distribution centre for a company known as Supply Chain Management. This company, and I say it openly and with pride, has one customer, Wal-Mart. Today this distribution centre in Cornwall has around 250 workers.

People will say “But, sir, would you have us believe that if HRDC had not made this $500,000 investment, the company would not have settled in Cornwall?” I cannot say for sure, but before, when we did not have HRDC funding, we were never as successful as we are now.

I would even venture to say that without this significant investment from HRDC, this would not be such a success story. What I am saying is what is important is not so much who gets the money as who gets the job done and creates employment. What my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst wants for his constituents and every Canadian is jobs. This is a case in point.

What I am asking my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst is whether he agrees that this outcome shows the importance of this program which made it possible to bring 300 jobs to our area, plus all the indirect ones?

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, this might give me the opportunity to make another speech instead of answering a question.

First, I want to thank my hon. colleague, the chief government whip, who talked in his speech about Wal-Mart and another company.

The problem is that these transitional jobs fund programs were meant to help companies which lacked the necessary cashflow to create jobs, not to induce a company to settle in one riding rather than another. When Wal-Mart settled in Canada, it was going to have stock distribution centers whether we liked it or not. Automatically it did not really need this grant.

I do not want to take anything away from my hon. colleague. He got it and I am happy for him.

[Bob Kilger, Liberal, Stormont—Dundas, ON]

It could have gone to Toronto.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

The hon. member says the company could have gone to Toronto. It does not matter, that is Canadian.

However, each and every day the Minister of Human Resources Development stands in the House and says “It does not matter where jobs are created in Canada. It does not make any difference if these jobs are created in Toronto, in Montreal, or in Acadie—Bathurst. What is important is that we are creating jobs”. That is what she said.

If the minister wants to change her tune and say that we are going to help the regions in need, such as the Acadie—Bathurst region where our people are in a big black hole, with no employment insurance, no social assistance and no jobs, because that is where the money should go, I will stand up and I will applaud her and I will tell her that she is doing the right thing.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague the member for Acadie—Bathurst for his remarks.

I have just come from the HRD committee. The former deputy minister of HRDC was before the committee for a couple of hours. I managed to get in a couple of questions before coming to speak in the House.

One thing really struck me. Obviously committees are important for questions and answers and trying to uncover what happened at HRDC. But if anybody in the House or in the public believes that we will get to the truth of what happened at HRDC in terms of the internal audit and the findings that have come out of that and what happens at this point, they are badly mistaken. It is a very limited format. The deputy minister was there for a couple of hours. A member gets one or two questions. The limits of that format really prescribe that we will not get at the truth.

I wanted to say that because the Bloc Quebecois motion before us today calls for an independent public inquiry. As my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst has said, we in the NDP wholeheartedly support the motion. We have been calling for an independent public inquiry from day one, for the last six weeks when the issue first surfaced in the House. We believe that if the Canadian public is really to understand what has happened at HRDC and in fact to understand how government works and how these decisions are made, it will take an independent public inquiry to do that job, with the resources and scope, and unfettered by the rules of the committee and even what happens here in the House. We support the motion.

There is another very important reason for holding a public inquiry. We in the NDP philosophically have always strongly supported job development programs. We support the role of the government in intervening in the marketplace and trying to ensure that we bring about a greater equality in our society. The marketplace is the greatest instrument of inequality in the country. We believe very strongly that the purpose and role of government among other things is to provide an intervention and to use public funds and to say that job development is a legitimate use of public funds. We believe that.

What has happened in the last six weeks in the House has undermined that. If there is any question about that, just look at the Reform Party opposition day motion yesterday. What have Reformers been doing? They have been asking questions every day in the House about the HRDC scandal. They have chosen the path basically to undermine these programs and now even say that they want to divert moneys from other programs in the last federal budget and put them back into the Canada health and social transfer.

We have a very different view and perspective on the issue. We want to see public programs strengthened. We want to see these public programs have credibility.

The Liberals have played right into the hands of the Reform Party. Because of this scandal, because they have refused to come clean, they have played right into the hands of the Reform Party. Now there is a great public cynicism about any expenditure of public funds. Our job is to restore confidence. One way to do that is through a public inquiry.

What would a public inquiry do? Two key issues need to be looked at and as I said earlier, they will not be addressed in any parliamentary committee.

The first is administration. There is no question that the internal audit uncovered very sloppy practices. Paperwork was not done. Follow up was not done. Accounting was not done. There are the administrative issues in terms of what happens when the public service is cut back, what happens when people are thrown out of work and the work is loaded on to the remaining public servants. I think it was 5,000 people who were thrown out of their jobs at HRDC.

Issues in terms of the administration of the department, the accountability, the hierarchy, how those decisions were made are very important to get at because my guess is, and I think everybody in the House would agree, that what has happened at HRDC is probably a reflection of what goes on in other departments.

We are talking about a massive department. It is the single largest federal government department. If those problems were uncovered in a random internal audit, what else is there that needs to be dealt with and brought into line?

That would be the first major issue in terms of a public inquiry. It must look at the administrative questions in terms of this huge department that effected cutbacks and has sloppy administration and what needs to be done there.

The second issue and the reason for our support of the motion is to get at something that is a lot more difficult to examine. It has to be done very carefully and with a sense of good faith and genuine process. It is to look at the relationship of a parliament, a governing party and the bureaucracy. That is the political nature of the grants and contributions.

We are all elected representatives. We are political creatures. I have been involved in politics for 25 years. I understand politics. I know we are political people. We make political decisions. However something that happened at HRDC goes beyond that. I believe that billions of dollars were being used for a partisan political purpose. To me that goes beyond the line. The questions that have been raised in the House day after day have not been answered. That is another reason an independent public inquiry is needed.

We in the NDP want to know exactly what are the rules. I asked Mr. Cappe that a few minutes ago in the committee. The knowledge I have is that there is a huge variation in terms of how members of parliament were involved in these decisions. In some areas, and I would suggest Liberal dominated areas, the involvement of the members was massive and it was very politicized. In other areas it was much more of a staffing decision about the transitional jobs fund or other programs.

As one member of parliament I want to know that there are fair rules. I want to know that my riding or my colleague's riding of Winnipeg Centre are not being treated differently from a government member's riding because we are in opposition. It scares the hell out of me when we see what is coming out of the audit and the questions that have come up. We see the contradictions, the double standards, the different rules depending on where people are from and who they are. That is scandalous. We have got to get to the bottom of that.

Some members represent ridings that have very high unemployment, yet they did not qualify for transitional jobs funds. Why? We were told that the unemployment rate was not high enough, because the region we are part of, such as Vancouver or Winnipeg, did not have high enough unemployment. We said fine, if that was the rule we could live by that. Then we found out that in other areas exceptions were made. Fuzzy little pockets were created and somehow lots of money slipped into areas with much lower unemployment. Warning bells went off in my head when I heard that.

We want there to be clear rules. We want there to be an end to the politicization. We also want to get at some questions of where public funds should go. I heard the government member in response to my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst say that it is not a matter of who gets the money, it is the jobs that are created. I say that it is a matter of who gets the money.

I have big questions about why when we look at the 100 most profitable corporations in Canada 49 of them including the five major banks get public funds. Who is handing out what and to whom? That is the question. Why would we support a program that puts other businesses out of work? If some guy wants to create the sock company of the world and it turns out that he is putting every other poor little business person around him out of business, is that a good expenditure of public funds? I do not think so. There are some very major questions.

At the end of the day we represent the Canadian public. Canadians have a right to feel a level of confidence in the expenditure of their funds. It is our duty to be accountable in the House for those funds. It is the government's duty to be accountable.

I believe that only if there is an independent public inquiry will the public's confidence be restored in terms of HRDC and other departments and then we can move on. We support the motion. We call on the government to not let politics get in the way of this. Do the right thing and support an independent public inquiry.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the reason I rise to ask a question of my colleague from Vancouver East is that I want to go on record, and I want her to go on record, with the question that I will raise with her.

All the time those pockets of unemployment were in Vancouver East, we know that the Liberal who was in Vancouver East before 1997 received money. We just heard our colleague say that she was not told that the riding could get money if it had pockets of unemployment that were even higher than its own region. We heard the minister say it existed for a period of time. I raised a question in the committee of human resources last week and was told it started in June 1998 and all MPs were advised of it.

My question is clear and I want the hon. member to answer. Was she advised that if her region had pockets of unemployment it could apply for a grant from the government to help the workers of Vancouver East where there is a high level of unemployment? I think this is important. If the answer is that she was not told, then I would suggest that that is why we need this inquiry to clear the air once and for all to save our programs for Canadians who need it badly and to be able to help people in regions where there is high unemployment.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for the question because it is a question that is very specific. It does address one of the big issues that we have had with this whole process in terms of how information is provided to members.

Like many new members, when I was elected in 1997 the first thing I tried to do was make myself familiar with what was available in terms of government programs and support because we get people coming to us all the time and the first thing they want to know is what federal funds they can access. I think all of us make it our business to try to find out about that.

I want to say that I have a good working relationship with the local HRDC office and staff. It is important that I know what they are doing, that we know what the priorities of the riding are and so on.

I remember when I heard about the transitional jobs fund that I actually checked to find out whether or not we qualified. The information was that Vancouver East did not qualify because of these regions. Then we heard about pockets that exist. The issue of how those rules were made and how that was communicated is a mystery to me in terms of one member of parliament absolutely not being aware that certain areas could qualify under different kinds of rules.

Again, I think it begs the question about who makes the decisions, how are those decisions followed through and whether or not we have rules being made after the fact in order to cover up where those disbursements were made. This is what we want to get clear. We want to have fair rules for everybody. We want the rules to be transparent. We want the rules to be clear so that we can say to the government that public confidence can be restored in the way these programs work.