House of Commons Hansard #12 of the 37th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was liberal.

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SupplyGovernment Orders

February 17th, 2004 / 3:05 p.m.

Liberal

Guy St-Julien Liberal Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik, QC

Mr. Speaker, I have carefully read the Conservative Party motion to be voted on. If we speak of the Conservative Party, we mean from 1984 until today. This motion accuses the Liberal Party of using public funds for personal benefit and to benefit friends, family and the Liberal Party of Canada.

Last night and this morning I made a number of telephone calls to my riding, which, I might mention, is the largest riding in the 10 provinces. I talked to some 30 people, who said I ought to speak. As a Liberal member of Parliament I am here to help the people of this vast riding. Back home, the name on my office and on our documents is “Bureau du citoyen” or citizens' office. It is like that no matter which party occupies the office.

Reading this motion, I see that the opposition is engaging in very partisan politics. Nevertheless, we hear a lot of talk about the report of the Auditor General of Canada. I am very pleased with this report. I understand very well. I was elected in 1984. I spent nine years and two months with the Conservative Party. Since 1997 I have been with the Liberal Party of Canada. I came back to my old political party. We see by this report that the Liberal government believes that the Auditor General fulfills an essential function. She carries out the audits and independent studies of government activities.

We know that this talk of sponsorships has been going on for several months. I made a statement in the House yesterday afternoon in which I said that I had asked a question in June 2003 to try to find out what was happening. In the vast area of Abitibi-Témiscamingue—some 800,000 square kilometres and 2,000 kilometres from end to end, as the crow flies—I have 63 municipalities to work with. I have to tell them about the programs that exist. I particularly wanted to know how they were organized and what applications were accepted.

According to the report I have obtained—which I was waiting to make public, and finally did yesterday—in my riding, all in all, we have received approximately $65,000. When we look at the sponsorship situation in the riding of Laurier—Sainte-Marie, in Quebec, the riding of the leader of the Bloc Quebecois, we see that they received in excess of $5 million. In contrast with a big riding like ours, I do not find it funny at all.

What all the members of this House and the public want is a comprehensive report. It is very hard to get. I cannot understand why the Conservative Party of Canada, Brian Mulroney's party, cannot ask today that the Standing Committee on Public Accounts draw up a list of all sponsorship projects from 1998 to now, by electoral district and political party, with the names of members and projects, the amounts allocated to the projects, the commission paid to the coordinating agency and communication agencies, as well as a complete list of refusals for each riding.

That is what is important to know. We know some of it. The Standing Committee on Public Accounts and the government should make this report public today, riding by riding, so that all members can see where the money went. It will be surprising to see where contacts are made.

What is hardest for us is to uncover a ring of thieves. When thieves want to rob government, a city or a company, it takes time to flush them out. The Auditor General got hold of the file. The Prime Minister of Canada stood firm. This is the first time I have seen a Prime Minister of Canada intervene so regularly. Even the opposition, even the Bloc Quebecois are not too pleased to see our Prime Minister on television standing firm. This Prime Minister will be doing his homework, he will clean house, regardless of whose name comes out.

There is something odd in all of this. We look at the Conservative Party across the way; it is not a new party, it has been around since 1984. I want to tell the members of the Conservative Party that I am the one who ensured that individual members' expenditures are made public. Every year, a report entitled, “Members' Office and Travel Expenses”, is produced. This report is tabled annually.

In the days of the Conservatives, this was not done. It took me months and months to obtain this report on the members' expenditures. Even today, this information is confidential. The Bloc Quebecois members are not doing this on the provincial level.

When the Parti Quebecois was in power, there was no authorization to divulge the details of expenditures by members of the Quebec National Assembly, meaning costs for travel, lodging, party dues—frankly, there is no party in Quebec anymore. The Parti Quebecois went to the Superior Court to prevent their expenditures from being disclosed. Today, there is a new government in power.

We in the federal government do disclose such expenditures. They are made public in a report tabled with the Speaker of the House. The report is referred to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, which notes the travel expenses. Given the size of my riding, people must be made aware of these expenditures.

This morning something odd occurred. I asked a question concerning travel paid for by sponsors, travel all over the world by one influential Conservative Party member. This is no secret, yet the person answering called it a stupid question.

However, Standing Order 22 stipulates that there must be a public registry of foreign travel by MPs. It provides details of travel by members, particularly those in the Conservative Party and the Bloc Quebecois.

This morning I was again looking at the details of trips by, among others, those of the member for St. Albert, Alberta, whom we often see on television and who is calling for the production of expense reports for Liberal MPs, the government, and executive assistants.

I find it odd that this member has neglected to mention that he has travelled all over. In the past ten years he has been away a total of 3 months and 23 days. He has been to Russia, India, Bangladesh, Belgium, the Ukraine, and several other countries, at a total cost of more than $500,000, that is half a million dollars. This is all very bizarre.

We have Standing Order 22, but the official opposition is not calling for expenditures to be made public. All spending by all members can be found in a report to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. The opposition is not talking about Standing Order 22. We can see that the member for St. Albert spent in excess of half a million dollars on accommodation, entertainment and plane tickets. We know that a flight costs between $7,000 and $8,000. I have the list.

The oddest thing about all of this is in a report I have before me. When we comment on others, we must speak of ourselves as well. I have made but the one foreign trip, and I will tell this to the public today. I kept notes on it because I knew one day I would have to talk about it.

In 1986, my wife and I were invited by the government of Belgium. That trip cost $1,941 for me and $1,948 for my wife and I received a $420 per diem for travelling from May 11 to 17, 1986. That is what the Speaker of the House of Commons at the time, Mr. John Fraser, wrote to me in a letter dated December 30, 1991.

I can now state my travel expenses for all the trips I have made in the world since 1986 at the taxpayer's expense, just think about that. I hear members from the Conservative Party of Canada saying this is bizarre. I find it very bizarre when they receive sponsorships almost on the sly from large global agencies to travel the world.

If they know of such travels, they have until the end of the day to disclose all the expenses. I can stand here and say that in 1986, my trip for two people cost nearly $4,000. However, I know what the Conservative Party of Canada opposite is talking about when it refers to sponsorships. They receive sponsorships to travel to Haiti, Hawaii and Russia.

When they are not present in the House, no need to ask questions. The same is true for the Bloc Quebecois. They travel all over the world. The NDP less so. They travel less, it is true. I also do not travel much; once in 15 years is not excessive.

The Conservative Party of Canada should ask for the tabling in the House of Commons of the complete list of all the trips made by Conservative, Liberal, Bloc Quebecois and NDP members who have travelled outside of Canada between 1984 and the present as well as the cost of these travels including flights, meals, and accommodation paid by the taxpayer and especially by the sponsors.

Major sponsors are involved in this. People would be interested in knowing. And yet, looking at things overall, we wonder why they are not declaring that now. They are prepared to corner the government during question period. That is their job.

It is the same thing with the Bloc Quebecois member for Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, who recently published a book that may have been funded by taxpayers in Quebec and Canada. The book criticizes the Prime Minister of Canada and his sons, their companies and the Barbados.

There is one thing to know about the companies that do business around Barbados. Of the 1,900 companies in Canada, there are about 700 in Quebec that do business in foreign countries.

Today, as it happens, I was looking at another book entitled, Ces riches qui ne paient pas d'impôts . This member of the Bloc Quebecois, who is a former Progressive Conservative by the way, and who travelled all over the world about twice a month, should get out his list and calculate his spending. But if one looks closely at what is written on page 166 of this book, one finds something bizarre.

This Bloc MP, who dumped on the family of our Prime Minister in his book, should have a look at his family, because it is written here, about his brother:

Nevertheless, it is interesting to look at the Irish “exile” of Luc Plamondon.

That is, the brother of the hon. Bloc Quebecois member.

Ireland is a very popular jurisdiction with artists, writers, composers and sculptors because they can take advantage of a tax exemption. By settling in Ireland, they do not have to pay tax on the income derived from their art.

It is important to point this out. The book has just been released, and I look forward to seeing the hon. member rise—

SupplyGovernment Orders

3:15 p.m.

The Speaker

The hon. member for Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, on a point of order.

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3:20 p.m.

Bloc

Louis Plamondon Bloc Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC

Mr. Speaker, that man just insulted one of the world's greatest francophone creators, my brother. Everything he says is a web of untruths.

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3:20 p.m.

Liberal

Guy St-Julien Liberal Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik, QC

Mr. Speaker, there is a saying where I come from that the truth hurts. We have just seen proof. We just witnessed it.

I have here a book written by Brigitte Alepin, CA, tax expert, entitled, Ces riches qui ne paient pas d'impôts . It is about business people, politicians, actors, officials of crown corporations and even church officials.

This book was published a few days ago. It is still a hot potato. When I read page 166, I was confused, because there is an attack on the Liberal Party.

A woman wrote this. By launching insults as he just did in the House of Commons, he is insulting the good woman who wrote this book. This books tells about all the people in Canada, all the rich people, who are not paying taxes. I find her competent, because she has appeared on television shows and been interviewed on the radio. She appears on shows and I have a great deal of respect for her.

I respect the book that the hon. member has written in terms of the knowledge it contains. However, if he can talk about the family of the Prime Minister of Canada, his sons and all his companies, we too can talk. I see that he intervened rather quickly. I think he ran. He was out of breath, because he was unable to speak for more than 30 seconds. We will come back to this book during the election campaign.

But, today, the important thing is to speak out. Consider sponsorships by major international corporations and countries. They are known as endorsements, but I still call them sponsorships.

A first class ticket costs about $7,000 or $8,000. We have the list today. We have studied it. It is quite simple. It is public information in Parliament. The strangest thing in all this is that there is no figure corresponding to each trip made by all the members of the House.

I indicated how much this trip cost me, about $4,000. I am not afraid to say so, because I have kept the records since 1986. I can say so today.

The book I mentioned earlier, published by Mérindien and written by Brigitte Alepin costs about $19. We need to know what is happening.

Coming back to the sponsorships, both opposition and Liberal members are right to speak up. However, the motion before us is very partisan. Our family, my wife, my grandson, my friends are under attack. I had telephone conversations about that last night.

There is nothing wrong with the opposition attacking the system, but it should be careful not to implicate everybody. Strangely enough, it is not rising in the House to accuse every member one after the other on this issue.

As regards the ring of thieves, a friend of mine in Val-d'Or just found one in his company. It took him four year to find it. He was disappointed, because one of his best employees was involved. There are many examples like this one.

What happened to the taxpayers' money? I am mad. I made statements on FM 102.7, in our region, with Félix Séguin. The public noted what I said. I said some pretty harsh things. I used words that I cannot repeat in this House for fear of being interrupted and told that it is way off base. Hon. members know me. When I have something to say, I say it. And many people get angry when you tell the truth.

Today, I am taking part in the debate on this motion. I am disappointed with what this motion says, but we are going to fight. The Prime Minister will continue to hold the reins of government and take action against those who misused the taxpayers' money. It makes no sense.

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3:20 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Diane Ablonczy Canadian Alliance Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Mr. Speaker, what a rant. I find it just totally unacceptable for the member opposite to say the things he has.

He talks about the wealthy paying no taxes. Whose fault is that? Who has been running the tax system for the last decade? It is these Liberals over there. Then he has the nerve to complain about his own tax system. Hello?

He says members of Parliament took trips. It might interest the member to know that no Conservatives took the most expensive trip of all, which was with the Governor General. The Governor General took a trip that cost over $5 million. Who went on the trip? No Conservatives did. Were there Liberal members on the trip? Yes, there were. I did not hear the member mention that, for some reason.

Then he has the nerve to criticize an artist for moving to Ireland. People move out of Canada and back into Canada every day of the week, but he singled out somebody for having the nerve to move somewhere. Is this person opposite in touch with reality?

I would like to ask this member what he has to say about a Prime Minister who was a finance minister and who owns a huge shipping company, a finance minister who was in charge of the tax system that obviously this member finds somehow deficient. This former finance minister, now Prime Minister, registers his shipping company in a loophole that he himself created and allowed to stay so that he can avoid paying Canadian taxes. Now he wants to be the leader of our country.

What does the member have to say about a former finance minister who will not pay Canadian taxes, will not fly the Canadian flag, sets up a system that shelters his own company, and then asks to be Prime Minister? Why is he not outraged about that?

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3:25 p.m.

Liberal

Guy St-Julien Liberal Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik, QC

Mr. Speaker, I know that people do not like to hear the truth. The hon. member has referred to travel by the Governor General of Canada. We know that this, being travel, will be recorded in the public accounts.

I have already referred to the registry in Standing Order 22. She claims Conservative MPs could not travel. If we look at this—

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3:25 p.m.

An hon. member

Oh, oh.

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3:25 p.m.

Liberal

Guy St-Julien Liberal Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik, QC

We see the Bloc Quebecois is trying to intervene. The member ought to sit down and shut up. The member of the Bloc Quebecois may have nice white teeth, but his mouth could do with a bit of cleaning up.

Now for the matter of the question from the hon. member, the matter of the Alliance members' trip to Morocco at the taxpayers' expense. That is what we were addressing. We were saying that the government is seeking solutions. The Prime Minister will find solutions to ensure that those who have defrauded the taxpayers will be dismissed.

This is clear, with the figures to back it up. The registry is public. It is available here in the House of Commons. The only thing missing, which the member does not mention, is the cost. We see what all the other members spent. We all agree on public accounts such as travel by the Governor General.

We can also see what they have been doing. Between 1985 and 1990, I raised the issue of making expenditures of MPs public. I am the instigator. I was in the Conservative Party at the time. We have the list from 1984 to the present time. It can be consulted and their spending identified. I can understand their annoyance. This is the first time they have heard about it.

They are hearing how much it costs these major world bodies, these major sponsors. For sponsorships they are. A whole system of sponsorships, but only for those travelling to Russia, Taiwan, Washington, China, Israel, California, Yemen, Washington again, and to the United States. I have the whole list. A person could take hours talking about it.

But what is important is for the taxpayers to know what is going on. If they know what the sponsorship situation is, they also need to know about the sponsorships by major organizations, which for the sake of the Conservatives I will repeat in English: sponsors.

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3:25 p.m.

NDP

Lorne Nystrom NDP Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member. If I recall correctly, the member switched horses. He was a Progressive Conservative under the Brian Mulroney government and now he is a member of the Liberal Party.

Does he remember former members Richard Grisé, Diane St-Jacques, Gabriel Fontaine, Michel Côté? They were Conservative MPs who had a lot of problems. Brian Mulroney also had a lot of problems.

I want to ask him whether or not he remembers these people and all the sleaze, all the scandals and all the corruption in that Conservative government. I wonder if he can make some comparisons between the two governments and tell us something. With all the sleaze, scandals and theft that happened under the Conservative government, let alone in my own province of Saskatchewan where there were 16 criminal convictions and the Conservative deputy premier went to jail, why would all that happen? Why would the Liberal government across the way not learn from history and not repeat the same kinds of mistakes made by the Mulroney Conservatives?

What we have in the House today is a case of the kettle calling the pot black. The Conservatives are talking about the very thing they used to do year after year across this country and in a province like Saskatchewan. I wonder if he can give us a commentary and compare the two.

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3:30 p.m.

Liberal

Guy St-Julien Liberal Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik, QC

Madam Speaker, that is a very good question. I really appreciate the question from the member of the NDP. He asked this question and he is right to a certain extent. Today we are dealing with a network.

Before answering his question, I would like to point out that he made an error. He mentioned the name of the member for Shefford. He made an error. I would like him to make a correction. He mentioned the name of the member for Shefford, who is here today and who is an honest, upstanding woman. She was not part of that group. Would he please stand up and correct his error.

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3:30 p.m.

NDP

Lorne Nystrom NDP Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I want to make the record clear. I was referring to Carole Jacques, not to my good friend across the way.

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3:30 p.m.

Progressive Conservative

Peter MacKay Progressive Conservative Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS

Madam Speaker, the member opposite must be having some kind of out of body experience. He is in here railing about how bad it was in the prior government but he has joined a government that is embodying a scandal 10 times worse. What has gone on in the Liberal government makes Watergate look like a shoplifting charge.

He stands up now and tries this sleight of hand to suggest that somehow there is something that the opposition is doing in terms of their travel budgets. He makes this bizarre analogy that members out west are abusing their budget.

Guess what, Mr. Speaker? They have to travel to get back to their constituencies. I have been to the member's riding. It is a big, beautiful riding. They have the same problems in his riding that we are experiencing in the large riding I represent in Nova Scotia.

My question for the member is the following. Is the principle of this scandal now the priority of the government with respect to the inquiry? Are the people in his riding satisfied with the priorities of this government? Will priorities for health, security and education be overshadowed by this scandal involving the unspeakable waste of public funds? Do the people in his riding have a big problem with unemployment, for instance?

Why is the member disagreeing with the opposition? He needs to take a look at the government he is supporting right now.

He should turn that finger around and point it directly at himself. If he has a problem with how the government has been operating, why does he not say something to the front bench of his own party?

I know he likes to jump back and forth, and he has done so in the past, but he now has an opportunity as a member of the governing party to do something. Trying to go back 10 years and distract members' attention away from what is going on in the Liberal ranks right now will not work.

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3:30 p.m.

Liberal

Guy St-Julien Liberal Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik, QC

Mr. Speaker, I could throw the ball back in his court. I knew his father, the hon. Mr. Elmer MacKay, very well. He was a member of the Progressive Conservative Party with us. Today, his son is on the other side, history will not be rewritten.

I liked the end of his speech. He read the Speech from the Throne twice.

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3:30 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Gerry Ritz Canadian Alliance Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK

Madam Speaker, we are embroiled in quite a debate today. It is a bittersweet week for Canadians. Taxpayers get a look at where their dollars are going and where they would like them not to go.

The whole principle of what we are talking about here is not necessarily the program or what went wrong. We are talking about the concept that the Liberals felt that this public pot of money was theirs to do with as they saw fit. The icing on the cake in this corruption is the kickback scheme. Those guys felt that it was okay to tithe their hand-picked companies to get 10% or 15% back into the Liberal Party of Canada. They saw nothing wrong with that.

This was all pointed out years ago. The Auditor General looked at this before and brought in a scathing report. We have heard lines like “Who's minding the store”? How can the bureaucrats go this far off track and their political masters not realize it?

Therefore, when the members on the front bench stand up day after day in question period and say that they did not know, that they had no clue, we have questions to ask. If this is not a legalistic problem of commission then it certainly must be one of omission. Their line of defence is that they are not corrupt, just ignorant. They are saying that they do not know what they are doing, and that is after 10 years of governing our country.

We have known about this since 1999. Again and again we have had public works ministers come and go in this place because they know where the bodies are. They are shipped off to the witness protection program in Denmark. Now the Liberals are at risk because by bringing the guy back they have ticked him off and he may say a few things. That is good. Canadian taxpayers deserve that.

The whole problem we are getting into here is the government's idea of how to run the public service. It has companies of record that it uses on untendered contracts. It takes a MERX program that has all these tenders out there but no one is allowed to bid because the government has already picked the winner. It just notifies companies to let them know that the bidding it is over and that they should not bother applying. That is how this thing is run. It has gone off the rails, and I wonder why.

We do not need more rules and regulations. The Treasury Board, the last time around, and the finance minister now, who was the public works minister, came out with a whole new set of rules. The rules do not mean a damn thing if nobody follows them. More rules just mean they will bend some more things and still look the other way.

We had heard that this program was frozen, that it was cancelled and that it was cancelled again. How many times do we have to cut the head off this snake? It just goes on and on.

Canadians are finally getting an eyeful of the frustration we feel here and in committee as to how these guys steamroll through their own ideology and then backstop it, hide it and say that is the way things are done, that those are the rules and they are following them. Who made the rules? Who is assessing the rules and who is applying them? It is the government's own folks. It is an internal situation and it is just horrendous.

The former minister of intergovernmental affairs from Quebec said that the whole sponsorship program was not working and that it was not needed in Quebec but the Liberals pressed on with it. Not every program was bad. It was the way they kicked back into their own pockets that was the problem, which is why the public is so upset over this.

The Prime Minister is out there on his “I am not a crook” tour. He is going door to door and program to program professing his innocence and the Liberals are dropping in the polls. The more he says “It's not me, I didn't know”, the more people are saying that he was there, that he was the guy in charge of the money, the vice-chair of the Treasury Board, the referee in all of this, how could he not know. They are saying that if he did not know, then he was not doing his job and therefore he was incompetent, so why would we want him as Prime Minister.

The public is finally getting an eyeful of that, which is good. The honeymoon is finally over after 10 years due to this. It will only get worse. It is the kickback portion of the sponsorship that really put it over the top.

When people have been in Parliament for their second term they become very cynical of what is going on here. When I started looking at how I would address this today I did not know how to get it out to the people. I take calls from folks who are so upset. The BSE situation, the livestock industry and agriculture in the country is my portfolio, but it has been usurped. It has been pushed to the background because of this horrendous program and the callous attitude of these Liberals to use public money. We start to see why they cannot address agriculture in the proper way. It is because they want to funnel the money in their own way.

The Liberals do not give a darn about the agriculture guy, the guy at the farm gate. We have seen that for 10 years. They have ignored an industry to death; death by a thousand cuts. This is where their money is going. Their priority is on what is good for the Liberal Party of Canada, not on what is good for the taxpayers and, of course, the farmers.

I receive many letters. I received one from a lady named Rose Graw of Battleford. I want to read a couple of lines from the letter because it really encapsulates the calls that I have been receiving and how I am feeling. She writes “I watched the Prime Minister yesterday and while it is all fine and dandy, some of the things he says, it is nothing more than political rhetoric. I have absolutely no faith that true justice will be done in the most recent theft of public money. The Prime Minister's inquiries will cost us millions as other inquiries, commissions, et cetera, over the years have cost us. They will only gather dust on some politician's desk”.

She is a cynic as well. She tops the letter off by saying “To say I am angry, disgusted and ashamed of the political rhetoric is an understatement. I would like to withhold my taxes but the government would probably send me to jail”.

That is the feeling out there. I know a lot of my colleagues are getting those same types of e-mails, letters and phone calls.

This tars all of us with the same brush; that we do not understand what the public purse is all about.

We have seen spending under the Liberal government notch up 9% and 11% a year to buy what? Has everybody got a better quality of life in this country? My constituents are not calling in and saying that they are doing so much better under this finance minister and his fiscal prudence that he talked about. It is not happening.

Canadians do not want to see something like this sponsorship fiasco and the culture of corruption. Whether they are taxing junior hockey teams for no reason at all and then stopping it in a Liberal riding, people start to step back and say that everything the Liberals do is about politics. It is not about practical solutions to anything. It is about politics. It is about furthering the Liberal agenda. It has nothing to do with getting Canada back on track and becoming the economic tiger we can be.

After 10 years in government they are now talking about an ethics package. That was in the first 1993 red book. The Prime Minister, who was the finance minister at that time, was the author of that book. Why does it take 10 years, until they get their fingers caught in the cookie jar right up to the elbow, for them to finally start talking about ethics and start to expedite things like whistleblower legislation?

We have introduced many private member's bills from this side that have been rejected again and again. Now the Liberals are starting to say that those bills might be a good thing.

The new President of the Treasury Board, who used to be the chair of the government ops committee, was at public accounts today. He said that it was great. He said that under the whistleblower legislation people would be able to come forward and say their piece. I just cannot understand why they will not allow that to happen. Of course, there is an election in the offing.

Madam Speaker, I am splitting my time with my colleague from Strathcona so I will wind it up there because I know he has a lot of good things to say.

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3:40 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Grant McNally Canadian Alliance Dewdney—Alouette, BC

Madam Speaker, I want to commend my colleague for his comments and point out the fact that perhaps we need some whistleblower protection for cabinet ministers from Quebec to come clean on the information they have. Their lips were glued shut during question period today on that matter.

I want to ask my friend about something that happened back in 1997 when he and I first arrived in this place. There was a story about a Liberal fundraiser whose name was Pierre Corbeil. He was brought up on charges of fraud and was convicted of those charges. He had a list of companies that were receiving grants from the federal government in Quebec and he was shaking them down for cash. He would go to those companies and say “You will kick back $10,000 to the Liberal Party of Quebec or your grant from the federal government will be cancelled”. That was unbelievable. Surely the government must have noticed that but that did not seem to put an end to the kind of thing we see happening today.

I wonder if my friend might comment on that and this culture of corruption that has continued under the Liberal government.

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3:40 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Gerry Ritz Canadian Alliance Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK

Madam Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. We came here as rookie MPs. I know we worked together on committees and so on.

People get their eyes opened in a big hurry when they get here. This is the big leagues, and there are big mistakes made too, no doubt about it. However, it is not even so much that is allowed to go on, it is the cover-up that goes along with it. Somehow the Liberals seem to think that this is okay, that they can do this type of thing and get away with it. It is just $10,000.

When the former prime minister was first called on the carpet over this sponsorship fiasco, he said “A few million dollars went missing, so what?”. Somebody worked their heart and soul out to send those tax dollars in, to have them literally blown off by the Prime Minister and his front bench.

We sit here in question period day after day going after these guys looking for answers. They want to be open and transparent, but there are no answers. We look at all those Quebec folks who have had their lips zipped shut. They are glued to their chairs. They are not allowed to stand up and speak. They sit there like kids who have not done their homework, with their heads down hoping they will not be asked. It is a serious error of omission in not coming forward.

We have seen letters from folks in Quebec who were members of the Liberal Party, who pointed this out and said to the finance minister, who controlled all the ridings in there, that he had to do something and that they would be killed on this issue. Turns out they are right.

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3:45 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

James Lunney Canadian Alliance Nanaimo—Alberni, BC

Madam Speaker, my colleague talked about the culture of corruption that has spread. He talked about Groupe Everest, Groupaction and some of the firms that gave kickbacks to the Liberal Party. I think Canadians are outraged by this, and rightly so. A half a million dollars was spent on a report that was not done or was the same as the one done previously, with no words changed.

The saddest thing about the corruption is that it spreads from the top down. This latest one involves other respected crown corporations like VIA Rail, Canada Post and even the RCMP. This is just tragic for the confidence of Canadians in all of the government, in all our crown corporations, and the cost is tremendous.

Then we had the privacy commissioner with his extravaganza and his reign of terror. Worse yet, we have the situation in Virginia Lafontaine Centre. Officials again were spinning off cheques. They went on a cruise and bought jewellery in the Caribbean, paid for by Health Canada dollars.

Would the member comment on the infiltration of this culture of corruption.

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3:45 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Gerry Ritz Canadian Alliance Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK

Madam Speaker, it certainly permeates the whole government and the civil servants that it controls. The Deputy Prime Minister kept saying today that the Liberals wanted to get to the bottom of this. I think when they do, they will find that it is their reflection looking back at them. When the benchmark is set that low, it will not take that long to get to the bottom. We see the polls dropping already.

The PM's favourite consultants, Earnscliffe, received over $6 million in contracts since 1993, including $800,000 during his leadership run. Again with those, as in Gagliano's MO, there were no written reports. Therefore, the government cannot just point to the former minister of public works and say that he did not like to write things down. These guys do not request things written down.

There is a quote from Thomas Sowell that I noticed. He states, “Politics is the art of making your selfish desires seem like the national interest”. The Liberals are masters at that and it is about to come crashing down.

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3:45 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Rahim Jaffer Canadian Alliance Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Mr. Speaker, I have always taken so much pride in representing the riding of Edmonton--Strathcona, and I have always taken so much pride in being able to stand up in this place to represent Canadians, to talk about pertinent issues and to do the best I possibly can as a member of Parliament to advance great goals for Canadians. Yet here we are on a day like today dealing with the culture of corruption that has existed in the government since it has taken power. The exact same things those members said they would try to eradicate while they were in opposition seem to have become ten times worse than any previous government.

I stand up today with a saddened heart to discuss these issues because we should be discussing issues pertaining to BSE, softwood lumber and our place in the world. How can we deal with these issues and the integrity of the country when we have a government that seems to be corrupt to the bone? We just cannot do it. Canadians are finally coming to the end with this government and what it represents.

This is not something new. It is a trend that has continuously been building since the government took office. I want to take a moment to read today's motion into the record. It states:

That, in the opinion of this House, the Liberal government has and continues to nurture a culture of corruption through the abuse of its influence and the use of public funds for personal benefit and to benefit friends, family and the Liberal Party of Canada.

Just recently the Auditor General's report was tabled in the House. According to that report, the sponsorship program has cost at least $250 million. We hope, through the process of a public inquiry, that we can get to the bottom of this and find out if there has been even more abuse. It seems $100 million of these fees went to commissions for Liberal-friendly advertising companies that did little or no work.

It is bad enough that this sort of abuse has taken place, but the person who is in charge, the top dog, the Prime Minister of the country, is claiming that he had no knowledge of any of this happening. Let us look and see.

Since this report was tabled, he has given on separate occasions a number of different excuses. A number of my colleagues have highlighted them. I would not mind going over them because I was floored when I heard some of the excuses, particularly after hearing that the new Prime Minister would do things in a new way and that he would bring a new level of government. It seems like he has brought a new level of ignorance and corruption to the government.

First, he claimed that he did not know anything about the scandal. The next day he blamed a rogue group of public servants. When people were not buying that story, he admitted that he had heard about a number of administrative problems, when it came to the actual sponsorship program. He said that he really was not aware of it until the final Auditor General's report was tabled in the House.

It is hard for us on this side of the House to believe that the Prime Minister, who was one of the most prominent ministers in the government over the last 10 years and who was one of the chief members of Parliament at cabinet, would know nothing about the scandal and the abuse of taxpayer dollars. Now that the government has been caught, we are starting to find out more about the truth. Hopefully, before the election is called, Canadians will know the full truth about this matter and how much the Prime Minister and many of his ministers knew about the whole scandal evolving on that side of the House.

The truth of the matter is I think there has always been this sort of abuse, neglect and disrespect of taxpayer dollars. Only when they get caught do they make an effort to change any of the things that have happened on that side of the House. We have a number of examples to show even before this Auditor General's report.

I can speak from my own experience. When I worked on the revenue file, I dealt with the GST fraud issue. Some members may remember that issue. We did not know the figures involved. One of my colleagues has said $100 million. We thought it could have been up to $1 billion that was lost by the government because of its lack of control in the department of revenue to ensure that people who made false GST claims did not get the moneys. There were no checks or balances in the Department of Finance when it came to cheques being mailed out for false claims. It is incredible that this would happen. It took an inconsistency where someone actually received a cheque and was shocked because that person had put a false claim in. This story came to the media.

We started to investigate it and found that millions of dollars had been abused because of the lack of respect on that side of the House for taxpayer dollars. It is outrageous. Only when the government got caught did it say that it had a whole department that was focused on GST fraud and that it changed the accounting practices. We actually had to grill the previous minister in committee. Finally she decided to change the reporting process so Canadians could find out how much was lost throughout the years of the government being in office, especially on the GST fraud.

Because the government kept lumping the amount of money that was lost into general revenues for the department, in accounts receivable which it was still in the process of trying to track down, the number could have been in excess of a billion dollars. That is another billion dollar boondoggle of which we never got to the bottom.

I do not have to remind Canadians about the ones that were more topical and that gained a lot of interest from the media. The HRDC boondoggle was the same sort of abuse on that side of the House. It was a disrespect for taxpayer dollars. A continuous flow of money went to people who should not have received it. Ultimately, there is still no accountability.

We have the gun registry about which we have heard more and more. Again, only after the work on this side of the House by one of our diligent members, the member for Yorkton--Melville, who kept hammering the government saying that the numbers were not adding up and it was not coming clean with Canadians, did we start to find out the abuse of taxpayer dollars in that department. Now the costs are upwards of $1 billion. This is unacceptable. That program was supposed to be no more that $2 million. Now some estimates are that it will reach almost $2 billion. This is outrageous and is another example of abuse by the government.

Even when it comes to the Prime Minister's own backyard, how can we trust what numbers the government puts out? I think that is the crux of the problem. Canadians have lost confidence in the government. When initially questioned about how much the Prime Minister's companies, Canadian Steamship Lines, had received in grant money, the government put out a number of some $137,000. We would like to take the government at its word, but obviously through the diligent work of one of our colleagues, the member for Edmonton Southwest, who put a question on the Order Paper to find out how much that money was, we found it was $161 million.

How can the government stand in this place and ask Canadians in almost a repentant style to forgive it and trust it when it comes to bringing openness and transparency into this place? How can the government even imagine that Canadians can trust it to do so?

When these numbers come out in such flagrant ways, there is no accountability. The government does not seem to know what is happening in its own departments. The Prime Minister himself is not aware of how much money, even during the portion of the time when he was finance minister, that his companies were able to obtain. This is outrageous.

We finally are seeing the straw that has broken the camel's back. The member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot has come out and said that he cannot remain with a government that seems to be void of ideas, full of corruption and obviously is heading in a completely opposite direction of where he as a member of Parliament is heading. Many of us came to this place to try to strive for Canadians, to put Canadians first, to give them the best government possible. He cannot remain in that government. I would like to echo the end of his press conference when he said that maybe it was time for change.

I hope Canadians will remember that if the government has the audacity to go to the polls in the next couple of months.

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3:55 p.m.

Liberal

Peter Adams Liberal Peterborough, ON

Mr. Speaker, a part of this discussion is about truth and transparency. They are both concepts which I think are extremely important for the House. I know my colleague likely did not mean it, but I really thought he said that the gun registry had cost $1 billion. I know he would not want to leave that in the minds of people watching this.

Is it not true that the billion dollars to which he has referred, and to which the Auditor General has referred, is the amount of money that will be spent by 2005, which is in the first 10 years of the gun control program. Roughly one-third of it is to be spent for screening. Roughly one-third of it is being spent for licensing, training and things of that type. Roughly one-third of it is being spent on the registry which he mentioned?

Like him, I deplore the money that was wasted on new software and things like that for the registry. However, before he goes into the rant about the waste, which I do accept in that program, would he not agree with me that is the billion dollars to which he was referring, yes or no?

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3:55 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Rahim Jaffer Canadian Alliance Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Madam Speaker, I think the point this hon. member is missing is the fact that the government put out numbers for the gun registration program; and it is not gun control as he referred to, because quite frankly I think we could have looked for a much more effective means of gun control than this registration would ever have accomplished. How could it go from $2 million to administer this program, which is what the government said it would cost, to now over $1 billion and rising? We still do not even know what the final amounts are.

Every day on this side of the House when we stood to ask the government how much it would cost to maintain this registry and how much would it cost to complete it, we never got an answer. The government does not know the answer and that is why this number continues to grow.

Quite frankly, the money that was spent on this registry would have gone to a much better use for control if we had looked at policing our streets more, beefing up our border security when it comes to the flow of illegal guns, and all these different angles that should have been explored rather than this registry, which has just been a boondoggle.

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3:55 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

James Lunney Canadian Alliance Nanaimo—Alberni, BC

Madam Speaker, I know the member has a lot of concern for the many Albertans and the many Canadians who are suffering because of BSE, but I would like to draw attention to another issue.

In my own riding I have a family about to lose a farm of prize goats, which are not affected by the mad cow disease and which the family used to export to the United States. This family has been shut down totally. Animals that they used to sell for $9,000 have had to be sold for $200 or $300 to slaughter them for meat to feed their other animals. They are in danger of losing their entire farm because of this. There is no compensation for affected non-bovine farms.

How do we explain to them that there is no compensation, no money to help them out in their hour of need, when we have the Governor General going off around the world, spending $5.3 million globe-trotting with some of her friends when it was supposed to cost maybe $1 million? What value do Canadians get from that?

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4 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Rahim Jaffer Canadian Alliance Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Madam Speaker, there is no doubt about it. Many of the agricultural producers in this country, especially those dealing with many forms of livestock, are facing some incredible challenges, still because of this particular government's lack of influence when it comes to dealing with border problems with the U.S. and because it is not stepping up to the plate when it comes to trying to compensate many of these families. It is a terrible situation.

I know that from my own experience in Alberta. Even though I am not in a rural area, I hear from a number of my colleagues who are doing their best to try to help many of these families, but still the government has not stepped up to the plate and I think it is becoming a very serious problem for many of these families.

On the flip side, as hon. colleagues say, we see, as I constantly referred to in my speech, a blatant disregard for taxpayers' dollars. There are some people who cannot put food on the table, yet we have a Governor General who goes five times over budget from the original cost to take many of her friends on a cultural promotion trip. Although some of this can be very important, there should be a limit as to how much some of these public servants spend, and the Governor General is no exception to that rule. To go five times over budget, especially when farm families are starving, is completely unacceptable.

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4 p.m.

Vancouver Quadra B.C.

Liberal

Stephen Owen LiberalMinister of Public Works and Government Services

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the Minister of Health.

I think all members of the House are here for honourable reasons. We come here to try to improve the public good, and I think Canadians generally do not appreciate the long hours and the dedication to the public interest that members of Parliament on all sides of the House bring to this difficult task.

We have heard aspersions cast upon the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister of this country, our Prime Minister, is involved in perhaps the most courageous act of political leadership in a generation as he goes before the Canadian people to say openly and honestly, “I want to hear your concerns. I share your anger. We are going to get to the bottom of this and we will do it in a very disciplined way that gets to the truth”.

It is not going to be just wild accusations. It is going to be in disciplined processes before the public accounts committee, before the public inquiry, and through RCMP investigations that are underway. If and where evidence indicates, we would hope that more will be initiated.

Let us go back, because it keeps arising, to the question about when the Prime Minister or other ministers in the government knew about the scandal. And of course that is what it is. I can tell members that the constituents in Vancouver Quadra are angry, as we all are, and want to get to the bottom of it.

This first came to public attention and to government attention in terms of ministers in 2000, with an audit that was started internally in the Department of Public Works and Government Services. That was, by letter of the minister of the day, given to Treasury Board in early 2001. In the fall of 2000, it was on the public works website, including with the audit an action plan to fix some of the managerial and administrative problems that were found.

Let us go forward a year and a half to June 2002, when the public accounts committee, chaired by a member of the opposition in the House, held hearings into the sponsorship scandal, as it was then known. Let us remember that in May 2000 it came forward in the Auditor General's report on Groupaction that there were severe problems with this issue.

The two deputy ministers, one up until 2000 and one after that, gave evidence before the public accounts committee that in their review of both the audit and the action plan there was no breach of statutes, no illegality. What there were, were administrative and managerial problems. There was no breaking of the Financial Administration Act, but there was a breaking of Treasury Board guidelines for contracting.

What they said as well, both of them, before the House committee, was that they as deputy ministers over a four year period had had no political influence on them. That may not turn out to be the truth, but that is what they said and that is the knowledge we had.

Because of the referral from the new Minister of Public Works in March 2002, the Auditor General was invited to look at Groupaction. She reported in May that she found illegality and she referred three cases around Groupaction to the RCMP.

We froze the program. Four million dollars of payments to those companies were frozen; it was anything that was outstanding. The new Minister of Public Works of the day, now the Minister of Finance, revised that program completely and referred 10 more cases to the RCMP in fall 2002.

So to suggest that ministers knew about it and did not act is simply not true. We knew about certain things, the people in government at the time, and we acted on them. When more information came out, the people in government acted further.

Let me just go ahead to December 13, 2003, the day after the current government was sworn in. The Prime Minister cancelled the sponsorship program, even as it had been improved, because of the horrible reputation it had because of the misdeeds that had occurred. He said he would get to the bottom of it.

Then came the Auditor General's report. Showing respect to her and the House, we waited until the Auditor General tabled the report in the House, because of course all hon. members know we cannot refer directly to a report of a parliamentary officer until it is tabled. Otherwise we would be disrespectful and in contempt of Parliament.

Within minutes of that report being tabled, the Prime Minister described and put into action the widest, most comprehensive list of processes to deal with what actually happened in this program: to root out those who are responsible, to chase money, and to have criminal sanctions where appropriate.

He called a public inquiry. We will hear probably tomorrow the exact terms of reference of this wide-ranging, judicial independent public inquiry.

There is the public accounts committee. Last week, the Prime Minister asked in the House that the public accounts committee sit that very afternoon, February 10. It did, and it continues, and people are coming forward. That is what should happen.

The Prime Minister has said he will appear before the public inquiry and the public accounts committee to say exactly what he knew when. To suggest, as it has been suggested, that somehow last week the Prime Minister tried to blame this all on 14 public servants is frankly simply not what happened.

The Prime Minister rose in the House in answer to a question to repeat what the Auditor General had said in public that very morning. The point was that there were 14 public servants, as distinguished from 14,000 public servants in my department, that had been involved on the administrative side of this program. It was not said to in any way excuse or suggest that ministers, that people involved in the political side of government were not involved, and, frankly, quite the opposite. The Prime Minister was inviting everyone who knew anything about this scandal, because that is what it is, to come forward to these processes.

We have now appointed a special counsel for financial recovery. That will be a rigorous pursuit, a further rigorous pursuit, because we have about $3.5 million now seized. It is a pursuit of public funds that have been misappropriated and the criminal investigations continue.

Let me tell you, Madam Speaker, and let me say on behalf of the government what we have heard the Prime Minister say from one end of this country to the other. We will get to the bottom of it. We will find the facts. We will determine who is responsible. We will chase the public money that was misappropriated. We will ensure that it will never happen again.

In conclusion, let me mention some of the tools beyond the inquiry, the public accounts committee, the special counsel and the RCMP legislation. As of January 1 of this year we have, to my mind, the strictest political financing rules in the democratic world to ensure that corporations and unions cannot influence or even give the slightest appearance of influencing public decisions.

We have an independent ethics commissioner being appointed through legislation which is now before the House. We have whistleblower legislation that will be introduced in the House before the end of March. We are reviewing the Financial Administration Act to extend its reach to post-employment politicians, as well as public servants, so that if they are responsible for misdeeds when in office they can be chased after their employment, and also to strengthen the Financial Administration Act to bring the crown corporations properly under the control of the Treasury Board and ensure that their governance and audit committees are strengthened.

This is an extraordinary range of processes and legislative actions. This is why I am in the House and this is why I have been in public life for some time: to ensure that where breach of the public trust occurs we get to the bottom of it, that people are held accountable and that we learn from the experience to put in further rules to protect against it in the future.

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4:10 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Grant McNally Canadian Alliance Dewdney—Alouette, BC

Madam Speaker, the sad part of this whole scandal is that a member such as the minister, who came to the House with a good reputation and was respected in his former role, is tainted by this entire scandal, as are other members of the government side even though it may be a few who engaged in corrupt activity. It could lead to more people being involved. We do not know where the inquiry will go.

I do want to ask the minister about the missing $100 million. That, of course, is of great concern. I also want to refer him to the incident in 1997 where a Liberal fundraiser, Pierre Corbeil, from Quebec, was charged and convicted of influence peddling and of fraud, I believe. He had a list of grants being given to companies in Quebec and he was basically shaking them down for cash, saying that if they did not contribute $10,000 to the Liberal Party they would lose their grant.

I know that the Minister of Health has referred to this. The minister might want to refer to it in his comments as well.