House of Commons Hansard #196 of the 37th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was wildlife.

Topics

Government ContractsOral Question Period

11:20 a.m.

The Speaker

The hon. member for Joliette.

Government ContractsOral Question Period

11:20 a.m.

Bloc

Pierre Paquette Bloc Joliette, QC

Mr. Speaker, after trying to play down the entire sponsorship affair, now the Prime Minister is resorting to intimidation, demanding names and threatening to discipline those who leaked the horrors of the sponsorship program.

Does the Deputy Prime Minister find it acceptable that the Prime MInister is more interested in disciplining those who denounce abuses than those who commit them?

Government ContractsOral Question Period

11:20 a.m.

Ottawa South Ontario

Liberal

John Manley LiberalDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure and Crown Corporations

Mr. Speaker, that is certainly what the Prime Minister said. He said that we were going to correct the abuses and that those responsible will have to be held accountable.

The real problem for the Bloc Quebecois is not this program, or even the abuses. The problem for the Bloc Quebecois is that there has been a decline in the number of people who support them and their cause.

Government ContractsOral Question Period

11:20 a.m.

Bloc

Pierre Paquette Bloc Joliette, QC

Mr. Speaker, not only does the Prime Minister think that stealing is fine, provided that the end justifies the means, but his remarks in Winnipeg yesterday show that he is ready to cover up for those responsible and support them.

Does the Deputy Prime Minister realize that, by saying what he did, the Prime Minister is admitting that theft may have taken place, as well as confirming his intention to gag those who might wish to denounce the perpetrators?

Government ContractsOral Question Period

11:25 a.m.

Ottawa South Ontario

Liberal

John Manley LiberalDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure and Crown Corporations

Mr. Speaker, we are the ones who asked the auditor general to conduct an investigation. The auditor general can carry out a public investigation. She is in a position to do so. We were the ones who agreed to refer the files to the RCMP.

There are therefore no problems with that. The transparency is there.

Government ContractsOral Question Period

11:25 a.m.

NDP

Lorne Nystrom NDP Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. The Prime Minister said yesterday:

Give me the names of the guys who are leaking to you and you will have a great story.

The Prime Minister appears desperate. He is now threatening those who have the courage to tell the truth about the unethical behaviour of the Liberal government instead of threatening those who may have been committing some wrongdoing in this country.

I want to ask the Deputy Prime Minister a substantive question. Will he now bring in whistleblowing legislation to protect public servants who have the courage to bring the issues of wrongdoing to the public's attention and be protected in doing so?

Government ContractsOral Question Period

11:25 a.m.

Ottawa South Ontario

Liberal

John Manley LiberalDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure and Crown Corporations

Mr. Speaker, I believe the President of the Treasury Board responded to this question already this week indicating that in fact whistleblowing rules are in place to protect public servants who disclose wrongdoing that they encounter in the course of their duties. Those principles are respected.

I do not think there has been any shortage of information that is flowing to the public in any event through all of the means that are available to obtain it.

Government ContractsOral Question Period

11:25 a.m.

NDP

Lorne Nystrom NDP Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK

Mr. Speaker, those comments were made before the threat of the Prime Minister yesterday outside the House of Commons. The legislation we now have in this country does not have any teeth.

The government has also been hiding behind the RCMP and the auditor general in terms of public inquiry. Yesterday the auditor general said before a committee of the House that she would have no problem whatsoever with a parliamentary committee having a hearing on this particular issue in terms of it not interfering with her investigation of government advertising.

In light of that comment, would the Deputy Prime Minister now agree to a public inquiry, since the auditor general would not have any problem with this in terms of her investigation?

Government ContractsOral Question Period

11:25 a.m.

Ottawa South Ontario

Liberal

John Manley LiberalDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure and Crown Corporations

Mr. Speaker, the member might want to have a look at the legislation that creates the office of the auditor general. She has all the powers that are necessary. We have made her reports public. I do not think there is any reason to duplicate the efforts that are already being undertaken by the auditor general.

Government ContractsOral Question Period

11:25 a.m.

Progressive Conservative

Peter MacKay Progressive Conservative Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is on record now a number of times stating that his Liberal sponsorship programs kept the country together. In fact he has also now admitted that there is possible criminal wrongdoing in doling out the dough to Liberal donors.

Can the Deputy Prime Minister point to one single piece of evidence that somehow proves that pumping hundreds of millions of dollars to friends and relatives of the Liberal Party has anything to do with national unity?

Government ContractsOral Question Period

11:25 a.m.

Ottawa South Ontario

Liberal

John Manley LiberalDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure and Crown Corporations

Mr. Speaker, that is an interesting question coming from the Conservative Party.

In nine years in office we saw the Conservatives strip the word “Canada” off everything from the post office to postal boxes. We saw ministers like Marcel Masse and Lucien Bouchard contribute to the disunity of this country. We saw the disappearance of Canadian flags and symbols in the province of Quebec because it might give offence to some who were supporters of the Conservative Party.

I suggest the hon. member--

Government ContractsOral Question Period

11:25 a.m.

The Speaker

The hon. member for Pictou--Antigonish--Guysborough.

Government ContractsOral Question Period

11:25 a.m.

Progressive Conservative

Peter MacKay Progressive Conservative Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS

Mr. Speaker, this is coming from the Deputy Prime Minister who wants to wrap himself in the flag and was against Meech Lake. He should spare us the righteous indignation.

When will the Deputy Prime Minister stop rolling his eyes, shrugging his shoulders, blaming journalists, bureaucrats, his own caucus and the opposition and do something to show some ethical leadership?

Last night the Prime Minister said he admitted to gross mismanagement of taxpayers' dollars. What is his plan to recover the money? Will he turn over the evidence to the RCMP? What will the Deputy Prime Minister himself do about it?

Government ContractsOral Question Period

11:25 a.m.

Ottawa South Ontario

Liberal

John Manley LiberalDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure and Crown Corporations

Mr. Speaker, it will be hard to stop rolling one's eyes while that member is asking questions.

On the substantive issues, the truth is that we saw support for separatism rise in Quebec and we saw the visibility of Canada disappear during nine years of Tory government. We saw appeasement by Mulroney as he brought people like Lucien Bouchard and Marcel Masse into his cabinet repeatedly.

If our Prime Minister wants to wrap himself in the flag, I can say that everyone on this side of the House is prepared to wrap ourselves in that very same flag with him.

Government ContractsOral Question Period

11:30 a.m.

Canadian Alliance

Scott Reid Canadian Alliance Lanark—Carleton, ON

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Prime Minister declared to reporters:

If you want to have a good story, give me the names of the guys who are leaking to you. You will have a lot of foul words. And you will have a lot of very easy stories for many months to come.

Then last night he used a $300,000 fundraising dinner to leak the new information that “perhaps there were a few million dollars that might have been stolen” from his national unity sponsorship campaign.

Is the Prime Minister saying that new information on the extent of Liberal corruption should only be publicly released at Liberal fundraising dinners?

Government ContractsOral Question Period

11:30 a.m.

Ottawa South Ontario

Liberal

John Manley LiberalDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure and Crown Corporations

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister said the same thing that he has been saying in the House. In a $170 billion a year organization mistakes are going to occur. They occur in the public sector. They occur in the private sector. Really what is at issue is transparency.

Once again, when is the Alliance Party going to truly buy into transparency? When is it going to support transparency in election campaigns so that the contributors of all those who participate in campaigns, even through the National Citizens' Coalition, are made public? Why is the Leader of the Opposition in the courts trying to hide money that goes into election campaigns?

Government ContractsOral Question Period

11:30 a.m.

Canadian Alliance

Scott Reid Canadian Alliance Lanark—Carleton, ON

We are of course, Mr. Speaker, most eager to see the list of $25,000 donors to the members of the leadership campaign.

Last weekend the Prime Minister had to skip a $10,000 per guest cocktail party in Montreal in order to sack his disgraced Minister of National Defence. Happily the minister of immigration was able to make the party where he apparently enjoyed a temporary respite from the laryngitis that affects him every question period.

Given that the immigration minister has still not come clean on which of the two completely contradictory stories about his sleeping arrangements is true, to which fundraising event should we buy tickets to find out what the truth is?

Government ContractsOral Question Period

11:30 a.m.

Ottawa South Ontario

Liberal

John Manley LiberalDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure and Crown Corporations

There are a lot of drive-by slimings in that one, Mr. Speaker, but what about the Alliance's $25,000 fundraiser? The member for St. Albert thought that was okay. He said:

People tend to think that people who are well heeled are not grassroots, but they are individual Canadians with only one vote and therefore no different from anyone else in the country.... These people happen to be affluent and we're going to represent them as well as represent anybody else.

The member for Wild Rose said:

That's the way you do politics nowadays, you have to have money.... As long we keep reminding people, no matter who gives support and who comes aboard, it's one person, one vote.

Then they said their position on Kyoto was going to help them with their fundraising--

Government ContractsOral Question Period

11:30 a.m.

The Speaker

The hon. member for Laval Centre.

Government ContractsOral Question Period

11:30 a.m.

Bloc

Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral Bloc Laval Centre, QC

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister admits that there may have been a theft, but in the same breath follows up with an intent to cover it up, by intimidating those who blow the whistle on abuses. As for the minister of justice, he is trying to have us believe that he has no influence whatsoever when it comes to identifying the companies that are getting nice fat commissions for the sponsorship programs.

How can the Deputy Prime Minister justify this attempt to make official this political interference and this trading of favours in the process of awarding contracts?

Government ContractsOral Question Period

11:30 a.m.

Wascana Saskatchewan

Liberal

Ralph Goodale LiberalMinister of Public Works and Government Services

Mr. Speaker, as I have indicated in the House and outside on many occasions, all previous sponsorship files between 1997 and 2000 are currently under review by officials in my department. I am also currently reviewing all pending sponsorship applications for 2002 as well as the criteria and delivery methods for the program.

These reviews are also on top of the value for money audit that was announced earlier by the auditor general. As well, if any matters come to our attention that merit inquiry by the police officials, that will be done.

Government ContractsOral Question Period

11:30 a.m.

Bloc

Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral Bloc Laval Centre, QC

Mr. Speaker, instead of condemning the theft of public funds and putting a stop to it, the Prime Minister is getting riled up about the leaks that are bringing the sponsorship program frauds out into the open.

Does the Deputy Prime Minister not think that, if the Prime Minister is convinced that millions have been stolen, the first and only reflex he ought to have had is to punish the guilty parties rather than threatening those who have brought the situation out into the open?

Government ContractsOral Question Period

11:35 a.m.

Wascana Saskatchewan

Liberal

Ralph Goodale LiberalMinister of Public Works and Government Services

Mr. Speaker, I have been very clear and the Prime Minister has been very clear.

Where there have been administrative mistakes, those will be rooted out and corrected. If there have been any overpayments, they will be recovered. If crimes have been committed, they will be prosecuted.

Government GrantsOral Question Period

11:35 a.m.

Canadian Alliance

Kevin Sorenson Canadian Alliance Crowfoot, AB

Mr. Speaker, the solicitor general's lobbying activities extend far beyond passing along one grant application. Now we learn that he lobbied Correctional Service Canada for another grant of $3.7 million for Holland College on the same day he lobbied the RCMP commissioner. An aggressive political agenda to centralize Correctional Service Canada staff training for all of Canada at Holland College in P.E.I. has been revealed.

How can the government continue to tolerate the minister's serial lobbying of his own department for his brother's college?

Government GrantsOral Question Period

11:35 a.m.

Ottawa South Ontario

Liberal

John Manley LiberalDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure and Crown Corporations

It will be news to Mr. MacAulay that he owns a college, Mr. Speaker. It is a public institution in Prince Edward Island.

I note that the Conservative premier of Prince Edward Island said “The justice institute at Holland College has been recognized as the justice training centre for Atlantic Canada for over 20 years, long before Alex MacAulay was president or the present solicitor general was in his portfolio”.

I think what we are really seeing here is the corollary of what the Leader of the Opposition said “There is a dependency in the region that breeds a culture of defeatism”. He does not think that Atlantic Canadians are capable of it--