Debates of Feb. 23rd, 2004

Sponsorship Program

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, as has been said on a number of occasions in the House, there is a public accounts process and a public inquiry process. Ministers on this side of the House have made it plain that if we are called to appear before either of those processes, we will be there.

[Rahim Jaffer, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, let us start with those ministers. The President of the Privy Council is neck deep in this scandal and still he refuses to answer questions as to his involvement. Now that we know the Prime Minister is targeting bureaucrats in the Privy Council Office for discipline, the minister must end his silence.

My question is for the President of the Privy Council. What is his involvement in this scandal and what steps did he take to cover it up?

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, as I have said before and I believe I have made plain before, ministers on this side of the House will appear before either the public accounts committee or the public inquiry if we are requested to do so. At that point the hon. member can be reassured that all of us will be forthcoming. All of us on this side of the House want to get to the bottom of this matter, just as do all Canadians.

Foreign Affairs

[David Kilgour, Liberal, Edmonton Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Questions have been raised about Haiti. Canada, since Rwanda, has spoken much about humanitarian interventions. Is he prepared to consider asking the UN to stage a humanitarian intervention in the case of the terrible situation happening in Haiti?

[Bill Graham, Liberal, Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, obviously there is a great deal of concern. We are working, as I said in an earlier response, with all members of our community: the OAS, the United States, CARICOM, la Francophonie. We are working together to ensure that there is a political context in which any intervention would be appropriate and would be successful.

Any intervention in Haiti has to be seen in a way which can be effective, but it has to be the international community working together. Canada is working with our international community to ensure that we can intervene in Haiti in a way that will be effective. It depends upon a political solution worked at by Aristide and his--

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Churchill.

Health

[Bev Desjarlais, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Talk about Liberal hypocrisy on for profit medicare. Bruce Young, a senior officer working in the Prime Minister's office, was a corporate lobbyist for a group of private surgical facilities in B.C. Earnscliffe hack, Mike Robinson, chaired the Prime Minister's transition team and lobbied for private diagnostic services. No wonder B.C. Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell expanded for profit health care, saying that he expected greater flexibility from the Prime Minister.

Will the Prime Minister clean house by firing his medicare corporate lobbyist today?

[Pierre Pettigrew, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, at least someone is paying attention to the situation of health, which is the number one priority of Canada. I was quite scandalized to hear the Conservatives continuing to talk sponsorship when we were talking about Haiti, as if they do not care at all about foreign affairs.

On this side, we will stand by the five conditions of the Canada Health Act. We believe in the universality of our system. We are attached to it, and we will defend it across Canada.

[Bev Desjarlais, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, that pitiful response as an answer to the serious issue of health care in the country is exactly the Liberal rhetoric to which Canadians are tired of listening. In fact Liberals changed the Canada Health Act and made it easier for corporate friends to profit from home care.

It does not stop there: private surgeries in B.C., open; private hospitals in Alberta, open; home care privatized in Ontario; operating tables for rent in Quebec; for profit MRIs in Nova Scotia.

Why is the government allowing profiteering from the ill health of Canadians?

[Pierre Pettigrew, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, we will continue to review any particular complaint that anyone has about the violation of the Canada Health Act. If the member of Parliament has precise cases to bring to our attention, she should please do so. However, in the meantime we should see that the government is standing by the Canada Health Act in defending every one of its five principles, as every one of them is widely supported by a vast majority of Canadians across the land.

Sponsorship Program

[Bill Casey, Progressive Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, when a regular Canadian applies for employment insurance or a disability tax credit or a fishing licence, he or she is normally required to complete all kinds of forms and go through all kinds of hurdles. There is always a paper trail. However, when it came to the sponsorship program the Auditor General says that there were no vouchers, no documentation, no paper trail.

Could a minister, any minister, explain exactly how a cheque was generated? Did a minister just phone up and say “Please write a cheque for a few hundred thousand dollars”? How was it done? Has the system been changed so ministers cannot order cheques verbally?

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, the sponsorship program was significantly changed over the last two and a half years to ensure that the proper safeguards were in place.

Between 1997 and 2001, there were significant problems. The Auditor General has reported on them. We found them in internal audits. References have been made to the RCMP. The public accounts committee and now the public inquiry will look into the very questions in detail that the member has raised.

[Bill Casey, Progressive Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my question was, in the end, whether ministers could still call up and request a cheque for a few hundred thousand dollars with no voucher, no documentation and no paper trail. The question is this. Can ministers still phone up and order cheques?

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, I will not attempt to prejudge the decisions of the public accounts committee or the public inquiry with respect to the past, but with respect to the present, I would say no.

Access to Information

[Kevin Sorenson, Canadian Alliance, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, despite the Prime Minister's promise for openness and transparency in government, crown corporations are still exempt from access to information requests and reviews by the Auditor General.

Will the Prime Minister put his money where his mouth is? Will he immediately amend the Access to Information Act to cover crown corporations?

[Reg Alcock, Liberal, President of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board]

Mr. Speaker, if the member would read the announcements that we made on February 10, he would see that we talked in the review of crowns corporations of government about the possibility of extending the Access to Information Act to them.

[Kevin Sorenson, Canadian Alliance, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's actions unfortunately speak a lot louder than those empty words from him and this government. Not only once, but twice, the Prime Minister stood in this House and voted against expanding the Access to Information Act to cover crown corporations. Now, that this government suddenly finds itself in some type of damage control mode, it stands up with all these empty promises.

Why does this government only agree to make promises after it is caught?

[Reg Alcock, Liberal, President of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board]

Mr. Speaker, I will send the member a copy of the information that we put out on February 10. The fact is this is a huge and complicated issue. We have agreed to study it and we have agreed to put legislation before the House to do it, so all members can look at it, make an evaluation and decide how they will vote on it.

National Defence

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Defence is continuing to shilly-shally and now says that, instead of financing the missile defence project, they are looking at opening up Canadian territory to deployment of interceptors and radar stations. For weeks now, contradictory statements by ministers have been coming thick and fast.

Will the Minister of Defence admit that, regardless of who says what, the government has already decided to go ahead and participate in the missile defence system? Let him admit that.

[David Pratt, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I will repeat my answer to the earlier question, which was this. The government has not made a decision on whether to participate in the U.S. national missile defence program. Nor has there been any request by the United States to use our territory.

In any event, as I said before, there are two levels of speculation involved here. I want to quote from the article that appeared yesterday, in the The Gazette .

We're not saying no. We're not saying yes. We want to understand precisely how the security architecture of this system is going to function.

Beyond that, I would simply say that what we are looking at is a limited system of land and sea based interceptors.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

And yet, Mr. Speaker, in his letter to his American counterpart, he said a very clear yes. We do not understand the minister's hurry to take part in the missile defence system when Canada's defence policy will not be debated until next fall, and Parliament has not yet had a free vote on the merits of this system.

[David Pratt, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, the world does not stop. We do not have the opportunity to get off the world in terms of the security issues while we are studying our defence policy. This government is taking action with respect to what we feel is in the best interests of Canadians, action consistent with Canadian interests and values.

Protecting Canadians from a possible ballistic missile attack is one of the things that is under consideration.

Justice

[Vic Toews, Canadian Alliance, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, this Liberal government has allowed judges to become the most powerful force in setting social policy in Canada. Whether it is by allowing convicted murders to vote or by changing fundamental institutions like marriage, this government has substituted the supremacy of an elected Parliament with unelected judges.

What steps will this Prime Minister be prepared to take to ensure that Parliament will participate in the future appointment of any Supreme Court of Canada judge?

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, on the question of the role of judges it is not what the Liberal Party has conferred. It is what the Constitution has conferred.

[Vic Toews, Canadian Alliance, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is the refusal of this government to pursue legitimate efforts to ensure that Parliament remains supreme that has allowed this reversal in roles to take place.

The vacancy of a Supreme Court of Canada judge that has recently been created presents this Prime Minister with the unique opportunity to address the democratic deficit insofar as the appointment of judges is concerned.

Will this Prime Minister assure Canadians that no future Supreme Court of Canada judge will be appointed without a review and the consent of a parliamentary committee?