Debates of June 6th, 2000

Supply

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Excuse me, the hon. member for Frontenac—Mégantic on a short question.

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

Mr. Speaker, the motion before us, and upon which we will be called upon to vote this evening, is about whether or not we authorize the House of Commons to establish a commission to conduct an independent inquiry into the misappropriation of funds at Human Resources Development Canada.

From what I see, all of the hon. members on this side of the floor are going to vote in favour of this motion. It must be an embarrassment to the Liberal members to have to vote against a motion that is intended to get their fat out of the fire. According to this morning's papers, the Minister of Human Resources Development is in a hopeless mess from which there is no escape.

The Canadian Alliance is offering this government a way out of this mess. I wonder what the hon. member's intentions are in this connection and whether we could not help the Liberals out of the mess they are in by inviting them to support this motion for an independent inquiry.

[Scott Brison, Progressive Conservative, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am certain the intention behind the motion was to offer a lifeline to the government. It clearly needs some help in creating an exit strategy from this embarrassing issue that has paralyzed it for some time.

The government has not been paralyzed by HRDC. The government has been paralyzed since 1993 by its own inaction and lack of vision. HRDC has focused the attention of Canadians on one specific issue. I would argue that it really has not paralyzed the government because it is hard to paralyze a corpse. The government has been acting like a corpse in terms of its inability to develop cohesive, coherent and visionary policy.

I understand the hon. member probably shares with me a desire to help the government in any way we can by offering a lifeline like this motion so that the government can crawl out from underneath the weight of the debacle it has brought on itself. Unfortunately members opposite probably do not understand the importance of dealing with Canadians openly and transparently.

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in these hallowed halls to take part in this debate over an issue that has preoccupied this place for many months.

It comes about as a result of what came to light months ago. An internal audit that began in March revealed that there were serious issues of mismanagement of taxpayers' money as they pertained to grants and job creation schemes that were put forward by the government. The minister has made a concerted effort to distract, deflect and focus Canadians' attention elsewhere in her responses in the House and through the media.

The issue is very much about public trust and responsible behaviour by government. No one is suggesting that at the end of the day in this billion dollar boondoggle that the money is gone, that it has evaporated into thin blue air. The suggestion is that the money has been mismanaged, that there has not been a sufficient follow-up as to how the money was being spent. There certainly has not been a degree of accountability or forthrightness on the part of the government to take its responsibility for the administration of this department, whether that fell upon the previous minister, who has basically escaped responsibility unscathed, or upon the high level bureaucrats who were rewarded for their incompetence and placed in higher positions up the government ladder in the wake of what has perhaps been the biggest and most disturbing mismanagement of taxpayer money in recent history.

That certainly contributes to a growing trend of cynicism and, even worse, a growing trend, I would suggest, of apathy toward the functions and the legitimate efforts of parliament. What reflects on government reflects on parliament as a whole.

This motion that has been brought forward is timely. It allows us to perhaps delve into the matter in greater detail, to disclose and, as my friend from Kings—Hants put it, to shed greater light on what has taken place as to why there has been to a large extent a complete and utter focus on this issue when I think most Canadians would prefer that we were focusing our attention elsewhere, such as on the growing crisis in health care, on the high taxes that Canadians are currently labouring under, or on our low productivity that stems from some of these oppressive and extremely weighty tax schemes that currently exist.

I heard a revelation today that came from the United States congress. Congress is raising the envelope of immigrants, which will apply to Canada, to attract more Canadians, our best, our brightest, our most educated and our most motivated, to go to the United States and contribute to its economy by taking part in the growing IT industry where productivity is rewarded.

In Canada we are suffering under a very repressive and regressive government that does not recognize some of these fundamental issues. Unfortunately, because of the revelation that came about as a result of this audit, we in the opposition have been trying to bring about some degree of accountability and refocus the priorities of the government.

Turning back to the motion, what came about, as is often the case when these issues come to light, was bad enough that we were made aware of what had taken place and the degree of mismanagement. The audit indicated that there was insufficient follow-up. It indicated that there was poor decision making at the front end, but equally that there was poor follow-up. When evidence came to light suggesting that poor decisions may have been made as to where the money was spent, nothing was done. There was no investigation and no legitimate attempt made by the government or the human resources department to recover that money. To suggest otherwise is complete folly.

In the wake of this revelation, when it came to light that this was taking place, what was the government's response? That is something that I would like to focus our attention and Canadians' attention on for a moment. What was the government's initial response?

Sadly, we have become accustomed to it. The government's immediate and almost knee-jerk response was to deny that the problem was there. When it could no longer do that, it tried to deflect and blame the opposition. It tried to make the opposition somehow complicit in what was taking place. It tried to point a finger and say to the member opposite “Well, thank you for that penetrating question but you got money in your riding too”, and somehow that makes it all right.

In very basic terms, the reality is that the hon. member who may have asked the question did not have final decision making authority over where those contributions and grant programs were going to be set up. That is what adds to undermining and further bringing down into the subterranean levels public confidence in government, in government programs and in parliament as a whole.

This is very unfortunate because we are at a pivotal time in our country's history. We are at a point in time where we are starting to lag behind other countries, relative to other countries in the G-8 in their economic performance and relative to other countries in steps that they are making toward transparency, openness and direct accountability to the people who elect them.

On that score, I want to refer to something that has been referred to before in the House in the context of this debate. I want to quote from Hansard , House of Commons Debates , June 12, 1991, wherein the hon. member for Saint-Maurice, the current Prime Minister when he was leader of the opposition, stated in the context of an issue of the day:

—I would like to tell the people of Canada that when we form the government, every minister in cabinet that I will be presiding over will have to take full responsibility for what is going on in his department. If there is any bungling in the department, nobody will be singled out. The minister will have to take responsibility.

Those are just words that seem to evaporate into thin blue air. They have no significance and no relevance to the current Prime Minister's view of what has taken place on his watch. He is not holding his ministers responsible. It seems that he is prepared to let the ministers twist in the breeze and take the daily volley and barrage of criticism not only from members of the opposition but from the public at large.

This is a very disturbing trend. It reflects an attitude of arrogance and disconnect from the Canadian people. The Prime Minister has given us ample reasons to believe that he does not care what the public thinks. However he will care when he goes to the polls the next time because Canadians will have the final say.

This incident, this long drawn out debacle over the mismanagement of money, is a sad indication of the government's arrogance and its attitude toward the public right now.

The context of the debate itself and the chronicling of what has taken place throughout this affair is well documented and has been referred to throughout. Just like those comments that the Prime Minister made, we saw the government crow and preen itself over its red book promise to be transparent and open and that it would put in place an ethics counsellor. Just like the red book, the faces of the Liberal government members are certainly red when faced with questions as to how they can let this type of thing happen and then not own up to the problem.

The minister in her wisdom should have come before the House shortly after being made aware of the problem, although I do not think we will ever know when she was made aware of the problem as she refuses to answer the direct question. She says that it was November 17. However, there is every reason to believe that in the course of being briefed after taking over the new ministry she would have been told, certainly orally, that there was a huge problem coming and that this audit was going to disclose it. She denies that and has married herself to the date of November 17, a date which I suggest is completely unbelievable.

I know we cannot use the word hypocrisy in this place. We are never allowed to use the word hypocrisy.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Having made the point, then it is a good idea not to use it.

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I would say that the responses we are hearing are Clintonesque, Nixon-like. That may or may not be parliamentary.

It is cynical repositioning when a government says one thing to get elected and then completely turns its back on what it has said. We saw it with the GST. It has been chronicled. The sky would fall if we entered into a free trade agreement. The Prime Minister took his pen and wrote zero when it came to helicopters. We know the words mean nothing after an election as far as the Liberal government is concerned. That is unfortunate because it does add to the cynicism and the public's lack of confidence that we have seen.

The red book promises have dissipated. The Liberals are preparing for a third volume, chapter and verse of what they will do now. Canadians can only shudder as to what that end result might be.

The Conservative Party supports this motion and encourage all members to do so. We look forward to the retorts and I am sure the reasoned debate and response that we will be hearing from the government on this score.

[Gary Lunn, Reform, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as was reported in the media this morning, the government's solution to this bureaucratic bungling, this whole scandal that has plagued the House since last summer, seems to be following a recommendation to split this ministry into three, to in fact increase the size of government and to spend more money as opposed to going to the root of the problem and finding the cause. Some people have called it a rescue mission for the minister. It comes back to the Prime Minister's comments on accountability where he made a commitment in 1991 to hold ministers accountable, which clearly is not being done.

It now appears that the government is on a rescue mission for the minister. It is going to spend more money and create two more ministries. It has been suggested that this idea was put forward by the Prime Minister and advocated by some of his backbenchers who hope to get one of the new positions.

Would the member make some comments with respect to what we read in media this morning about the creation of two new ministries?

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it appears that there really is no great plan. It is as if there is a new revelation every day. It appears that for a long time the government has been flying by the seat of its pants. Had it perhaps in the early days of this scandal reacted in a forthright and open way and come to the House with clean hands, there may have been more sympathy for what it is trying to do now.

Dividing up the department when we know there is a huge problem is like dividing a big manure pile into three piles. It is still a big problem. It smells and it is rotten. I do not think this is the answer at all.

This is similar to the problem we saw with respect to the gathering of information on Canadians by this department and trying to keep it separate and solo, but we knew it leaked. It is information that is being spread around and the problem is being spread around. It is not being addressed in a significant way despite the assurances of the minister that everything is in hand and that Canadians should trust her and have faith in her. Sadly, that time has passed.

If we were dealing with a situation where the minister had come to the House and made full disclosure in the first instance, we might have had some faith, but the time has passed. I have a great deal of confidence that there are good people within the human resources department who are trying to deal with this issue under very difficult circumstances.

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

Mr. Speaker, in the present debate, what we are dealing with is an escape route for the Prime Minister and his government.

I would like to ask the House leader of the Progressive Conservative Party whether he might not agree to invite the Liberal Party, with the Prime Minister at its head, to call a general election for early autumn, the main theme of which would be Human Resources Development Canada and its minister, his little favourite, the daughter of the former leader of the Ontario Liberal Party.

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the government of the day is in no great hurry to go to the Canadian people and seek a mandate based on its performance throughout the past number of months, in fact, the past seven years. I would suggest that in many ways it has betrayed the interests of Canadians.

The government has given Canadians very little reason to believe in it or have confidence that it will do what it said it would do, let alone act in their best interests given the deception and deceit that was involved in the handling of this file. What we truly need is some sort of public inquiry.

I spoke with the auditor general this morning. His office is embarking on the very difficult task of trying to sort out some of what has taken place and mull over the entrails of a program that was fatally flawed and administered in a very deficient and faulty fashion.

There are people in the HRDC department who are being forced to deal with public scorn on behalf of the minister. There is a political element to all this that has raised the ire and raised the stench, but it is not those in the department and those who are tasked with trying to fix this problem that we should be lashing out at. We should be lashing out at the government and the administration for their lack of responsibility and the arrogance they have been displayed in a fashion that we have sadly become accustomed to.

[Marlene Catterall, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I returned from committee a few moments ago and had the opportunity of hearing part of the speech of the hon. member, as well as the questions and comments, and I did note your intervention. I am not raising a question of privilege at this point, Mr. Speaker, but I wonder if in fact the Chair might review the blues to determine whether there were expressions that the hon. member used that he should be asked to withdraw. I heard the word deception used with respect to the minister.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Yes, of course, the Chair would be happy to do so. As a preliminary comment, I have been in the Chair for the debate today and have paid close attention, because we are from time to time on thin ice. In my opinion, so far there has not been anything untoward or anything that has not already taken place here in many instances. However, I think that the intervention of the deputy government whip is apropos, insofar as it is quite right to be able to cast doubt on the government, but not on individual human beings. Because we are all of us here charged with a responsibility, and we are all human beings, it is our responsibility as legislators, not as individual human beings.

I take the admonishment, and I am certain other members will take that to heart. It is a good reality check.

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I acknowledge that intervention. I realize that in the heat of debate there are often times when words are chosen that perhaps might be inappropriate. I do not mean to cast personal aspersions upon the minister herself. It is her department, her actions and her handling of this file that are very much the subject we are discussing today.

Shame on me if I have overstated the case, but I would suggest the threshold of indignation is on the part of government members when it comes to the nuances, the special choosing of words and the careful selection of words. They must look in the mirror to see if they are not guilty of the same.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, at the outset I would like to say that I will be sharing my time with the honourable, the esteemed, the illuminating member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. If hon. members think my speech is exciting, they ain't heard nothing yet. Wait until he speaks.

I would like to remind the people who are watching, especially that sea of eager Liberals over there who have the power of government in their hands, what we are talking about today. We are talking about accountability, openness, transparency—all of the things which the now Prime Minister promised in the election campaign of 1993, and probably re-promised in 1997, although I do not remember it explicitly at that time.

In 1993 it was a promise of the Liberal Party that it would restore integrity to government. It would cause people once again to have trust in public institutions. It would have an ethics counsellor. There would be all sorts of things. The Liberal government, if nothing else, has an almost perfect record of inaction on its promises.

Do we have an ethics counsellor? Oh, yes. Is that ethics counsellor independent? No. That ethics counsellor reports to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister says “We have a little problem. Please look into it for us”.

I have a lot of respect for our present ethics counsellor. I am sure he is watching this debate today because part of his responsibility is the ethics of government. I have a lot of respect for him personally, but his hands are tied. He, unwittingly, with or without his consent, becomes part of the damage control team. He is part of what it takes to make the government look as if it is doing the right things, when there is a mounting sea of evidence that it is not doing the right things.

There are two main themes that I think of when I approach this subject. One is the whole concept of accountability. I need to watch my words very carefully because we have this tradition in the House that none of us is capable of doing any wrong or saying any wrong or thinking any wrong, although we have no way of reading each other's minds, and for that I am frequently grateful. We have this tradition, which really stifles debate, because we are all fallible.

I suppose this will come as a surprise to the House, and I think I am within the parliamentary rules, even though I am overtly criticizing a member of parliament in the House, but I am going to confess right here that once I made a mistake. It was actually last week. I told my friend who was nearby that this was really a blow to me because it was the end of May and usually I make my first mistake of the year sometime in October, so I will be under a lot of pressure for the rest of year.

Mr. Speaker, you know of course that I am being totally facetious. How many of us do not make one, two or three errors a day, or maybe even an hour? It is really quite unrealistic of us to tie up debate in this place and make it unparliamentary to even suggest that another member may have made a mistake.

I know that we want to do that in the good spirit of honest debate. We want to do it in a congenial fashion, in the same way we correct each other in our families. If my wife happens to be aware of when I make an error, she takes it upon herself to correct me. Wives have a strange way of pretty well knowing everything that their husbands do that is done wrong. I do not feel rejected by her when she suggests to me that I said something I should not have. In fact, I take it as a positive and constructive criticism. That is what we are trying to do here, within the confines of the language of the House of Commons.

There is an old phrase that I remember. I was a math-physics major when I was at university. I always loved the sciences. This is really quite out of context for me, but I liked a bit of literature and history too in my youth. I hope I have this phrase close to being right because I am speaking totally from memory. I think it went something like this: “Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive”. I do not remember who said that. I am sure there are thousands of Canadians who are bemoaning my ignorance of important literature, but that was not my specialty. However, I remember that. I think that is part of the nub of this problem.

We have a problem in HRDC, in the grants granting business, in terms of accountability and reporting. Evidence shows that mistakes are being made. What we have now is an inability to really say it as it is in the House because of the rules. Meanwhile, the minister and/or the upper echelon of the department are in full damage control. They are doing everything possible.

Again, I did not bring this with me, so I speak from memory. I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong. If I remember correctly, our party issued an access to information request on January 17. On January 19 the minister called a press conference. With great fanfare, she made public the audit which was called for in our request for access to information.

Subsequent to this we made mention of the fact that the minister did not disclose this audit, did not make it public until it was apparent that due to the ATI, the access to information request, it would become public anyway. To minimize the damage, the Liberals said it would look better if it looked as if they had done it voluntarily, instead of being forced to do it by the official opposition.

The Liberals denied that it was our access to information request. They said that they had released it before the request came in. Again, I am speaking from memory, but it threw itself at me. Being a person who is mathematically oriented, numbers throw themselves at me, and I remember seeing a copy of this memo that was circulated, and there it was.

In trying to cover this up, I do not think it was the minister who would have requested it of the upper management levels in the department. I cannot believe it was the other way around. I do not know where it came from, but there was obviously an attempt to cover this up. Here we have a memo dated, say, January 18. I think it was dated January 19. It says “Your request for information was received January 20”. One would have to be clairvoyant to speak on January 18 of January 19 as if it were in the past tense. It is obviously a case where the Liberals tried to change the facts retroactively.

This is the type of thing that an independent inquiry would lay to rest. An independent inquiry, which is what the motion of the day calls for, would go into these details and find out who did what, when, and perhaps even a certain amount of why, and Canadians would be able to find the truth of the matter.

I will do my usual begging routine, which I do at the end of every speech. We have a very important motion before the House. I appeal to all Liberals over there, those who have the power of government in their hands because of their slim majority, I appeal to all of them, from one end of the Chamber to the other, when the vote is called on the motion tonight, to stand and vote in favour of the motion; else Canadians will be saying again that if government members are against a public inquiry, then they really are trying to hide something and do not want it to be made public. Voting against the motion would be ill-advised. I appeal, I beg, I cajole members opposite to vote in favour of this motion. They should show their independence from their whip.

[Gary Lunn, Reform, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask a question of the member for Elk Island, who has given us his thoughts on this subject and who is obviously very frustrated.

I cannot help but focus on the solution to a problem. I think it is important that we also recognize that when there are problems, there have to be solutions.

One of the most frustrating things for me is when I pick up the morning papers and I look at the government's solution to this issue. The Prime Minister's solution seems to be focused on dividing this ministry into three. That is the government's solution. It is absolutely mind-boggling that the Prime Minister would have the gall to take his solution of splitting this ministry into three, send it off to his backbenchers to study at committee, and for them to put the solution forward in the hope that they might get one of the new posts.

I want to get the member's comments on the government's solution to this problem by dividing this ministry into three.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting how the government, when faced with a problem, comes up with some sort of solution that can give the appearance of solving it without ever exposing any wrongdoing.

The Prime Minister has said over and over that his is a fine government that is totally free of scandal. The fact is that under Mr. Mulroney as prime minister these ministers would have been gone. This government does not even have the standards of the Mulroney Tories when it comes to ethics and accountability despite the promise in the 1993 election campaign.

With respect to dividing this into three parts, a pie can be cut it into many pieces and each piece still has the same ingredients. If the solution is to divide HRDC into three or more new departments, my question would immediately be: What will be the changes in the components of those new departments? What will be the changes in the procedures for accountability? What will be the changes in transparency? Will these new departments actually give out information more freely than the current department which does it only when we basically sit on it? What will be the change? If that change can be produced in three new departments individually, why can it not be changed in the department as it is now?

[Diane Ablonczy, Reform, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask my colleague a simple question with respect to the grants and contributions in the Prime Minister's riding.

My colleague will know that the amount of grants in the Prime Minister's riding alone is greater than those grants given to Manitoba, greater than anything given to Saskatchewan and greater than anything given to Alberta. In other words, one riding got more than any of those provinces. Would my colleague like to comment on that?

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to comment on that because it is a really sore point with me. I wrote a column in our local newspapers recently in which I talked about health care. I said that the problem would not be fixed nationally until we had a government in Ottawa that was more interested in buying MRI machines than in building a fountain in Shawinigan. That is exactly what I wrote in my column. That is the essence of the situation. Far too many, not all, of the grants and contributions are simply about politics.

I speak from memory and could be corrected, but I think recently the Prime Minister travelled to Cape Breton Island to make a big announcement about money the federal government was pouring into the area. If it is not about politics why did the Prime Minister have to go?

I had the same situation in my riding in terms of the infrastructure program. If the money was coming to my riding from taxpayers via the federal government, why do they not just get the cheque? It was required that the neighbouring minister, one of the two Alberta Liberals, make a trip into my riding to deliver the cheque. That is about politics. That is what is wrong about it. When these things are motivated by politics they get totally skewed.

I remember also in Prince Edward Island the person receiving the grant made a statement: “Mr. Prime Minister, you were here when we needed you and I can assure you at the next election we will be there for you”. That is on the public record.

[Gary Lunn, Reform, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the Canadian Alliance supply day motion which calls for the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry into the operations of the Department of Human Resources Development. This is all about accountability. It is about holding ministers and the Government of Canada accountable.

We have seen this story on the front page of newspapers since last summer. Canadian people are becoming increasingly frustrated. That is becoming evidently clear. They are absolutely beyond belief as to what has gone on.

We see the stories about the various grants. The Prime Minister's own riding receives more money in grants and contributions than any of the prairie provinces. There has to be something wrong. It is all about politics.

I am speaking on behalf of the residents of Saanich—Gulf Islands, but I think it goes much further than that and includes all Canadians. For months and months and months the government's only answer has been to deny, deny, deny. It absolutely refuses to accept that there is anything wrong.

For days we sat in the House of Commons and listened to the Prime Minister tell Canadians that $149 or $650 were missing when $1 billion were unaccounted for. It has cost, I would guess, hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, as the government tries to spin the issue and attach projects to the money that has gone askew.

We learned that something in the neighbourhood of 15% of all grant applications did not even have paperwork. They could not even find to whom the cheques went. They were in absolute panic mode trying to find solutions. That is why there has to be an independent inquiry. There needs to be answers.

I read this morning's paper in which the government says that this issue is absolutely exploding out of control once again. It just cannot seem to get control of this department. What is the solution? Its solution has been to deny, deny, deny. Now it seems most interested in creating a soft landing for the current minister.

Nevertheless the Prime Minister stood in the House in 1991 when he was leader of the opposition and said that ministers in his government would be held accountable if there is any boondoggle. There were to be no exceptions. They would be held accountable.

I have been following what has been going on in the House of Commons for the last 20 years. I do not think there has been a prime minister, for as long as I can remember, who has ever defended the indefensible. It is absolutely unbelievable. The Prime Minister will go to any length to protect his own.

What has he done now? The Prime Minister has decided that the best way to try to cover all this up, and that is what is the motivation, is to split the department into three. As one of my colleagues said in the House a few moments ago, if we take a pile of manure and split it into three we still have three piles that stink. This stinks. There is no other word for it. It is absolutely rotten.

The government is arrogant. It laughs. It smirks. It grins. It refuses to answer questions. The minister has been asked questions in the House of Commons by every opposition party, by all four opposition parties. The government laughs. It does not take it seriously.

Throughout the history of Canada, when governments start acting arrogant, refusing to answer questions and thinking they are above it all, there has been one consistent result. The voters throw them out. We watched it with the Tories in 1993 when one of the largest majority governments in the history of Canada was reduced to two seats. Why? It was because it believed it was sitting on a pedestal and did not have to answer to anyone, that it was completely unaccountable. It became arrogant. It forgot about the people who sent it here and whom it was representing. It did not take it seriously.

I am in absolute disbelief that we have a department with billions of dollars in its annual budget and the stuff that goes on is incomprehensible. It is unbelievable how this can go on and the government comes up with a nice fancy little talk about having a six point plan. Its six point plan seems to be deny, deny, deny. That is about the only thing the government seems to come up.

I sat in the House of Commons yesterday during Oral Question Period. When the minister was asked specifically if she knew prior to November 17, she refused to answer. The arrogance is incredible.

It is time that we have an independent inquiry. When four opposition parties of very diverse backgrounds agree 100% that this should happen so that Canadians can have some answers, it is time for it to happen.

Of course we know that government backbenchers will get their marching orders. The Prime Minister will probably stand on a chair in the government lobby tonight at 5.15 p.m. or 5.30 p.m. after the bells have rung and wave his finger at every government backbencher and tell them they know how they have to vote if they want him to sign their nomination papers. A great big club is held over their heads. That is wrong. It is absolutely undemocratic.

I am sure there are members on the opposite side who probably have a lot to offer, as do opposition members, to the governance of the country and the debates, but they have no voice. They do not have a voice, Mr. Speaker. You can look shocked, but you and I both know what really happens in this place. That is what needs to change.

This motion is about Human Resources Development Canada. That is just the tip of the iceberg. As many of my colleagues will say, it is rampant throughout other departments. We can see it in Canadian Heritage in the grants that go out from there. It is absolutely enough to make one's skin crawl, hanging dead rabbits in trees and many grants for other things.

It is about accountability and respect: accountability to the people who sent us here and respecting them. Change needs to be brought to this institution. There is no question that we are less than a year away from an election. The Canadian people will judge the government on what it has not done. It believes it is above everyone else. We need to elect a government which can change that and will be accountable.

I am proud to be a member of parliament with the Canadian Alliance because I truly believe that we can offer the vision and change the country so desperately needs. It will be interesting to listen to the Prime Minister's answers today on the latest revelations in the media that they want to take a pile of manure, split it into three and see if it still stinks. I would suggest that anyone would be able to tell them that they have not gone to the root of problem and have not done anything about solving it.

I encourage every government member to rise above the Prime Minister's finger, do what is right, show that they actually have some guts and principles, and vote in favour of this motion, as they know it needs to happen.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Before we go into questions and comments, I would note that the use of the term guts in referring to other members of parliament has time and time again been ruled unparliamentary. I just bring that to the attention of all hon. members.

[Diane Ablonczy, Reform, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I was interested in my colleague's remarks about the credibility of the House and members of the House and how the billion dollar boondoggle and the mess in HRDC have cheapened and diminished that credibility.

The hon. member mentioned the need for all members of parliament to show the Canadian public that this is a serious issue and one which they are determined to deal with in a vigorous manner on behalf of Canadians.

Because the hon. member has now been a member of parliament for a few years, I wonder if he would tell the House his own observations about the power and the influence that could be exerted by members of parliament on behalf of Canadians in a situation like this one if the majority on the government side would but choose to do that.

[Gary Lunn, Reform, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, with reference to your comment, I would quite happily change that to courage. I apologize to all members of the House.

The member is quite right. It gets down to the amount of influence we can have. It does not seem to matter whether we are in committee, in the House of Commons or wherever we are. I have been on committees and have spent countless hours with some members who are now ministers. The former chairman of the fisheries committee is now the Minister of Veterans Affairs.

Those committee reports sit on shelves and collect dust. I doubt if they are ever looked at unless the Prime Minister somehow gets his recommendations planted in those reports. He does not want to be seen as the mouthpiece pushing them. He wants someone else to do it, as we have seen in HRDC.

I have said this often before and it can be summarized in one sentence. One of the biggest problems in this institution is that we go to the polls once every four years or thereabouts to democratically elect a dictator. That is the democracy we have.

We have to change this institution so that there is accountability and respect, so that all members of the House can have meaningful input on the governance of the country. We are democratically elected to represent our constituents.

In some cases the government's own backbenchers have less input than the opposition MPs and we do not have very much. The Prime Minister cannot stand in our lobby and wave his finger in our faces, telling us how to vote or he will not sign our nomination papers. He cannot do that, but he can sure do it on the other side. We can see them walking out of the House after votes, sometimes almost in tears that they had to vote. We have seen it time and time again.

This institution needs to be changed. It is time to elect a government that will bring about meaningful change and show respect for Canadians who have sent us here.

[Philip Mayfield, Reform, Cariboo—Chilcotin, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I commend the member for his remarks on this subject.

I have also listened to the Liberal members this morning who talked about how the money goes for such things as literacy and rehabilitation. What we are talking about is the misuse of the money. Money may be spent in the constituencies, as the minister has said. Wherever we spend money we can create jobs but can those jobs be sustained. The Liberals talk about the number of jobs that have been created but they have not necessarily been sustained. I regret to talk about constituents who have told me stories of their own employees receiving grants to go into competition with them.

As we talk about this commission and going beyond that to the election, could the member respond by describing the benefits of this $1 billion as it may be usefully used or left in the taxpayers' pockets for them to invest it?

[Gary Lunn, Reform, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to emphasize that I am sure some of the money has gone to legitimate purposes, but very little of it. I do not know the exact numbers.

The Liberals have given one or two examples, that it has gone to some underprivileged people in our society, whom I agree should get government funding. I absolutely support that 100%. We are a caring and compassionate nation and it is an appropriate use of public funds.

What we are opposed to is building fountains in the Prime Minister's riding, the unconscionable grants that are given sometimes under Canadian citizenship, the grants that go into building hotels in the Prime Minister's riding. It is those types of grants across the country. That is what we are opposed to. That is the irresponsible, unacceptable use of taxpayer dollars.

I would favour the select few programs that they have brought up, maybe not under this program but under some other program that has accountability and is not a political slush fund. However it is the other hundreds of millions of dollars that are used for political patronage and to buy votes. That is what we are so vehemently opposed to.

[Ted McWhinney, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this has been a somewhat barren debate to date. It reminds me of the last several months of questions to the minister in the House. I am reminded of an old fashioned phonograph needle stuck in its place on a turning disk; it is the same sound with the same absence of ideas and the absence of scope ideas. This is regrettable.

I will note as I did in the debate on February 8 that the minister was still discussing Indian affairs and making changes in the federal enacting legislation which rendered, in my view, a much sounder constitutional measure, as late as August last year. She had not been in office very long. She faced a litany of complaints which might better have been addressed to previous ministers and previous governments. I will come back to that in a moment.

I note that the minister has made interim changes which I think are constructive and helpful and are a great credit to her staff for bringing them forward. The accountability of managers is an important principle in business. It should certainly be applied to government operations that are affected with the business interests where government competes in many ways and areas where private enterprise also operates. Another change is disciplinary action, meaning personal accountability of managers where there is mismanagement, fraud or gross incompetence. The creation of a special new audit group is another change. The review of all active files is being done intensively with a checklist of contracts and requests for payment.

I commented on the intellectual poverty of the contribution of the opposition to this debate. Let us go back into history. What is the history of HRDC? I listened with interest to the contributions made by the members of the Progressive Conservative Party. Of course they created HRDC. The Lady Jane Grey of Canadian politics, the queen for six days—remember the hiccup between the Mulroney government and this government—Kim Campbell decided to give trendy new titles to new government ministries. There was a haphazard, hasty grouping and regrouping of departmental portfolios. The department of human resources was created without any real thought of a rational structuring process for the new ministry.

It is a matter of record that the new government elected in October 1993 immediately considered restructuring HRDC. However, it concluded correctly with the economy in the use of time, as we were trying to balance the budget after inheriting the $42.8 billion deficit from the Mulroney government, that our priority was to get fiscal integrity back. It was decided that it would not be a good expenditure of government time to attempt the restructuring at that stage. The moment has arrived where we must consider doing that.

Much has been made of the majority report of the HRDC standing committee. I thought they were interesting proposals. I can see no Machiavellian plan here. If my colleagues put forward proposals, I tend to say that they have a good idea or that it needs more thought. It should not be taken as government policy, but as an interesting idea which I hope the government will study.

I will put the recommendations into the record. The functions of the HRDC ministry grouped together somewhat unnaturally three different areas of policy, statutory transfers and entitlement which really is old age security, Canada pensions, labour, employment and employment insurance, and social development programs. It is elementary that special technical skills are required for each of these. It is unusual to find a complement of the skills extending all across the department. This is one of the things we have to examine in this situation.

Anybody approaching new government as we enter the 21st century would agree that we have stood still in terms of administrative law reforms and structuring for the last 40 years. With the consent and engagement of all parties the main pre-emptive concern has been with issues of national integrity, the sovereignty issue, as in Quebec. It has killed off the modernization that should have gone on with the administrative processes. I reproach the opposition parties, including the Bloc which claims to be a reform party inside Quebec, with having no new ideas on governmental structure.

One very obvious issue is the breakup of the overly large departments. It is a reality that this government and the Mulroney government let some key ministers handle what might be called four or five different portfolios. It is too big a task. The McRuer commission in Ontario some years ago attempted to approach a solution to this problem. The Hoover commission in the United States is a great model.

Simply, we should be considering issues such as a uniform administrative procedure act applying to all government departments, but especially the spending departments or those with spending responsibilities and a conseil d'état special administrative law tribunal with jurisdiction over all such ministries. There is also the principle which is well accepted in civil law of the personal liability of civil servants and managers where they engage in misconduct that could either be described as delictual in itself or gross negligence in the administration of their office. I would have thought these would be issues that an opposition party, particularly the Conservative Party, which was the mother of the human resources ministry in its present form, should have put forward to debate.

They are available now. I hope we have some debate in the forthcoming election campaign, whenever it is, on this issue. This generation of Canadians has a rendezvous once more with the constitution, not the constitution narrowly defined in sections 91 and 92 or limited to the Quebec issue, but the fundamental modernization of the administering of processes and the study and perfecting of techniques for control of relationships of governmental authority with the citizen. That is a target for reform. That is a target or challenge which opposition parties could bring to us.

I am happy to raise the issues on the government side. Put in this perspective, the majority report of the HRDC committee offers interesting suggestions but they are no more than that. The matter is open for debate, but we cannot postpone the decision any longer.