House of Commons Hansard #26 of the 37th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was liberal.

Topics

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6:05 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Hinton)

In response, the member for Cumberland--Colchester.

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6:05 p.m.

Progressive Conservative

Bill Casey Progressive Conservative Cumberland—Colchester, NS

Madam Speaker, on the contrary, I usually do not know what I am talking about, but in this case, I know exactly what I am talking about.

This information was provided by the President of the Treasury Board and it says that this money was paid out. The President of the Treasury Board said the funds were received. The papers say $5,000 for downtown Truro partnership, but the cheque was for $3,625. What I am saying is that the current President of the Treasury Board misled the House of Commons.

The Minister of Public Works and Government Services acknowledged that a cheque was written for $2.3 million to the Bluenose foundation. The minister acknowledged that the government wrote a cheque for $2.3 million, but does not know what happened to it. That was only in 1997-98, five or six years ago.

The hon. member said there was post-audit accountability. The government did not have a clue about this lost $2 million until we raised it in the House. The government wrote a cheque for $2.3 million but did not pay any attention to it. A Liberal advertising organization appears to have taken 85% of the cheque that was written.

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6:05 p.m.

Liberal

Dennis Mills Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Kitchener Centre.

I note that the member for Etobicoke North is in the House and I cannot help but reflect on a comment that he made last week on national television about the performance of the government over the last 10 years in terms of its fiscal discipline. I call it sometimes a fiscal obsession. We have paid off some $46 billion in debt which is a savings of over $3 billion annually. By eliminating that deficit, there is a savings to Canadian taxpayers in interest payments of $115 million a day.

I am not particularly proud of that because I tend to be a little more left of centre. I would have preferred to have a little bit of that money invested in some of those other areas where we have people in pain. I want to bring this up because I want to illustrate the point that when a government's record is analyzed, we cannot just take one piece of a multi-trillion dollar budget over 10 years.

In regard to this so-called sponsorship scandal, I have listened in committee and I have heard over the last few weeks a series of misstatements that are so shameful to the House of Commons. I find it, quite frankly, hypocritical.

First of all, I want to make the statement to all Canadians that we had, in this hundred million dollars of contracts over five years, some stained contracts. There were some areas where there has been mismanagement.

The former minister of public works, Mr. Gagliano, acknowledged that last week in front of our committee and said he ordered an audit. When the audit said there were administrative mistakes and errors, he asked if he should bring in the police. He was told no, that these were administrative mistakes. He then ordered a 37 point program to begin the process of correcting this mismanagement on some of these files.

What drives me crazy is the hypocrisy of those members of Parliament and those members in the media that know $100 million did not go out the back door. The Auditor General acknowledged that the $100 million was made up of three components. There were $60 million in commissions to the advertising agencies. I checked with the advertising council of Canada and those are the industry's standard rates for advertising agencies. We cannot expect advertising agencies to get paid nothing. The standard rate is 17%. Now if there were agencies that on some jobs double-dipped, they should be punished, but they are still entitled to a basic fee.

We had $84 million in production costs on 2,000 special events across Canada. Only 60% of them were in Quebec. What drives me nuts is the way people are casting aspersions on the fact that all of this happened in Quebec. It did not because 40% of this work was done across the country.

I want to be very specific in my remarks because last week in committee a member of the New Democratic Party said that in the Pan Am Games in Winnipeg, where it said on our list that $2.2 million went to the Pan Am games, the organizers only received $600,000, and the balance went missing. That is not the truth.

That happened to be one project out of the 2,000 with which I had some familiarity. There was a 10,000 square foot exhibit celebrating the ingenuity of Canadians and $1.2 million of that money went to the design, manufacture and presentation of that exhibit for the period of the Pan Am games.

The opposition said that it went missing. I am telling all members, even members on my own side of the House, that we must stop the hypocrisy here. There were a lot of production costs in those 2,000 events across Canada over five years. We should punish the stained and bring in the police for those who tried to rip off the system, but we should not stain the entire sponsorship program.

I was involved in some of those projects. We looked after a family farm tribute and we used sponsorship money. It helped trigger the government to get an extra $1 billion for farmers six months ahead of schedule. We used some of the money for the Pope's visit on World Youth Day in Toronto. There was nothing wrong with that. We bought pilgrims bags that the prisoners of this country made. We used some of that money for the Rolling Stones for production costs. The money never went missing.

It is really shameful that before we cast aspersions and condemn people, we do not take a look at the production costs of every single one of those 1,987 projects, because surely to goodness people would admit that in 1,987 projects over five years there had to be production costs.

We saw the signs. Hon. members may not agree that we should be supporting CFL, lacrosse, tulip festivals or francophone games. They may not agree with it, but if they went to every one of those events, they would see that there was signage. They would see that there were all kinds of services and the Government of Canada presence was there.

Before we condemn people, before we say $100 million went out the back door, which is a lie, we should ensure that we get all those production costs and separate the real solid value for money production costs, and the real solid industry standard commissions from those that are stained. My prediction is that when this is all over, yes, there will be stain, but this will go from $100 million out the back door to probably less than $10 million.

I am not condoning in any way, shape or form anybody ripping off the Government of Canada of $10 million over five years, but this notion that we perpetrate and promote $100 million out the back door on production costs of 1,987 events is a sham. We should stop it and get it back on the right track.

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6:15 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Ken Epp Canadian Alliance Elk Island, AB

Madam Speaker, I am amused by this speech. It is a whole bunch of huff-and-puff trying to defend the indefensible. There are areas of corruption here that are so great they totally neutralize any positive effects the program could have had. It just so happens that when we get that kind of activity in a program, it destroys the value of the whole program.

Besides that, I will tell this member that in Edmonton, which used the sponsorship program to produce those funny little balloons that are banged together and handed out at football games, I had way more complaints about the waste of government money in doing that. In fact, that is the only response I had to it from constituents. I did not have a single person say to me that they were so glad the Government of Canada did that and it made them feel so good about their country. Not one person said that. I asked some people. They said no, that those things were useless, and they asked why we were wasting the money on them.

So even though some of it, as the member said, did not have any of this taint to it, it still was a mostly useless program. If we want to build unity in the country, what we need to do is to run the government in such a way that it is beyond reproach and taxpayers know that their money is being well spent and well managed. That is how we build unity, not through these phoney programs.

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6:15 p.m.

Liberal

Dennis Mills Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON

Madam Speaker, I respect the member's views on that particular bit of sponsorship. It may not have met the objective, but I have never yet met a businessman or anyone who has run a perfect organization. As for the notion that people sit around here and think that everything we touch is going to be perfection, I think it is bogus. I think it is hypocritical. I think it is hypocritical of the opposition to try to cast aspersions and make a point of saying $100 million went out the back door when it knows darn well that never happened.

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6:15 p.m.

Bloc

Paul Crête Bloc Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC

Madame Speaker, I think that our Liberal colleague has just absurdly proven that it is essential to vote in favour of the motion presented by the opposition today.

We are talking about a loss of confidence. Is it justifiable to defend a system that allowed expenditures to be made to enhance visibility, give disproportionate percentages to sponsorship agencies and funnel monies to the Liberal Party of Canada, all in a highly organized manner? Is this acceptable?

I ask my colleague another question. Is it also acceptable that no one is responsible for anything? Mr. Gagliano, who was then Minister of Public Works and Government Services, is not responsible for anything. Mr. Chrétien, who was then Prime Minister, said that he had answered 200 questions. For ten years, the current Prime Minister, who was finance minister at the time, got budgets passed which contained secret funds for national unity, and no one was the wiser.

Does my Liberal colleague not realize that the public is fed up with the actions of this Liberal government, which is behaving essentially the same as if it owned a company, when it has a country to run?

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6:20 p.m.

Liberal

Dennis Mills Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question by the hon. member for the separatist party.

The people in my community would never ever support people ripping off the government, or stained contracts, nor would any part of this country, but this party, the Bloc Quebecois, has one mission in mind: to separate this country, to destroy this country. If other people in this chamber or in other parts of the country have a better way of promoting the federal presence or pulling the country together than all of the various ideas that we used to keep the country together, then they should bring them forward.

The fact of the matter is that what we did over the last three or four years brought the country together. We have to look at the numbers. We have to look at the record. We now have a federalist government sitting in the province of Quebec under the leadership of Jean Charest.

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6:20 p.m.

Liberal

Karen Redman Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to speak on the opposition day motion, because the drafting and passing of legislation, as important as it is to the House, Canadians and Canada, is not the full measure of government action.

The world matters increasingly to Canada and to Canadians. Canadians look to their government not simply to legislate but also to define Canada's role in an increasingly complex international environment.

Globalization internationalizes every aspect of Canadian life. We are part of a global community where interdependence is increasing. We have gained enormously from this aspect of our economy. Our society is becoming one of the most diverse in the world. We are building something new in Canada, constructed from the contributions of individuals and communities right around the globe and from the unique way in which we sustain and celebrate our increasingly rich heritage.

For centuries our economy was based on trade and it has expanded and strengthened as we have pursued new frameworks for a more open, economic relationship not only within North America but indeed throughout the world. Today our prosperity depends not just on trade but also on investment in Canada from abroad as well as Canadians investing in other countries.

It depends as well on the free international exchange of ideas in science and technology, on the wealth of our cultural ties and on links among educational institutions as well as student exchange programs. And we can never forget the engine of tourism.

Canadians have seized the opportunities offered by this more open world to take their creative impulses, their innovation and entrepreneurship to global heights. Our security, too, has benefited from an international framework founded on the rule of law as enshrined in the United Nations charter and given effect through our alliances with the U.S. as well as our European partners.

Canada has a tremendous record of achievement in advancing our own and global security by building and innovating international architecture. I think of the Ottawa treaty on banning anti-personnel landmines as a great illustration of how we took an idea that came from the NGOs and lifted it onto the world stage. Indeed, we have seen it reverberate around the world.

Finally, our identity has been powerfully shaped by the distinct role that Canadians have played internationally. We are peacekeepers. We are humanitarians. We are known as champions of human rights and human dignity as well as human security. For decades we have been one of the world's great activist countries, recognizing that in order to be the kind of country that we want to be at home we must do our fair share, and as a matter of fact even more, in the global community.

Not only does the world increasingly matter to Canada, Canada and what it stands for increasingly matter to a world that is changing rapidly and in very many ways is becoming a very uncertain place. The global village that Canadian Marshall McLuhan wrote about 40 years ago is today a reality, and in a village there are both advantages and disadvantages of this increased proximity. Although the global economy has grown and hundreds of millions have been able to leave poverty behind, many remain, and the inequity is even more stark.

There are new vulnerabilities, some reflecting the dark side of global interdependence or the reaction to this interdependence. Terrorism is one such reaction. Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is another. Trafficking in people from impoverished to rich countries is another. We have the issue of global warming and the destruction of global fisheries. These are all examples of problems without borders.

In Canada we have experienced the effects of SARS, a new disease that moved with the speed of globalized public travelling by merely having a Canadian who was visiting a foreign country get on a jet and come back home.

Clearly no one country can manage all the consequences of an interdependent world. No single state can shape the international environment according to its own plan. No country can afford to simply withdraw from the world.

This new interdependence can only be managed with an interdependent way, a new approach. Countries must work together and their leaders must take responsibility for doing so. Our international institutions and practices, many designed for a simpler context at the end of the second world war, are showing their age. We need to be a part of this renewal. We will need to find creative, practical ways to tackle the emerging issues and to include more voices from all regions of the globe.

This is a responsibility which Canada will proudly take on, maintaining its great tradition of strong and effective international engagement. Few other countries have had such an important stake in ensuring not only that they stay abreast of change but that they are actually at the forefront of managing and shaping this evolution.

That is why the government is committed to a comprehensive modernization of our international policies and a strengthening of our capacity to act and to remain as a catalyst to international change. We will ensure that Canada has the means to retain and enhance its place of pride and influence internationally.

We have launched this renewal through a series of decisions, among them introducing new legislation to help combat the HIV-AIDS plague as well as tuberculosis, malaria and the other epidemics that are devastating Africa. Bill C-9 will facilitate developing countries' access to pharmaceuticals crucial to combatting these diseases.

We have also committed no less than 5% of our research and development dollars for knowledge based assistance to developing countries. We have committed to the implementation under the UNDP's report on helping establishing private sector growth in developing countries, including, through the project with the UNDP, a creative private sector link between developed and developing worlds and a local enterprise sector in Bangladesh.

We have invested in the capacity of our armed forces through a new armoured vehicle and helicopter acquisition. We have committed to establishing the Canada Corps, which will assist Canadians in playing an important part in building democratic good governance abroad. We are sending our forces and other assistance to help Haiti restore the rule of law, democracy and prosperity. We are strengthening our commitment to multilateralism, including through a visit with the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He was our first foreign dignitary to visit. He came so that we could discuss how we could help the UN meet its new challenges.

Finally, we have also begun a comprehensive international policy review. It is the first in almost a decade. It will take a new approach, for the first time undertaking a fully integrated examination of all of our international goals as well as what the instruments are that we need in order to achieve these. It will seek to identify better ways for development assistance and promotion of good governance. I can say that throughout my environmental work in all of the international fora I have been in, good governance continues to be a thread that is woven through all of these. We will be more targeted in how we approach these factors.

We will improve defence capacity, consider our representation abroad and determine how to expand trade and investment, how to better manage the U.S.-Canada relation and how to support multilateral renewal. Last will be how best to showcase Canadian creativity and know-how around the globe.

The outcome of the review, to be tabled in Parliament this fall, will reflect not just a “whole of government approach”, but will also make proposals to ensure that Canada's global commitment, reflecting both our values and our interests, is implemented through a new partnership with Canadians.

I held a forum on foreign policy dialogue last spring in my riding. It was one of the best events I have had. There was a great deal of interest, not only in Canada but in how Canada's international policies are reflected in the world. There was a real commitment, not only through our decision not to go to the war in Iraq unless through multilateral means but clearly in how this multilateralism is in a large way the essence of how Canadians view themselves.

The review will put forward an international agenda for Canada, an agenda for the 21st century based upon the best attributes of the country: respect for diversity, creativity and innovation, and democratic governance within the framework of law.

We have a rich and full agenda, and I look forward to working on this with my fellow parliamentarians as well as my constituents in Kitchener Centre as we go forward.

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6:30 p.m.

Liberal

Roy Cullen Liberal Etobicoke North, ON

Madam Speaker, I listened to the very informed remarks of my colleague from Kitchener Centre, and prior to her, the member for Toronto--Danforth. It was refreshing to hear the positive stuff.

The government has recognized the mistakes made with the sponsorship program, and the government is dealing with it. I listened to the member for Cypress Hills--Grasslands and the member for Cumberland--Colchester. They rattled off some events in our financial history of which we are not that proud. In fact we would rather they had not happened, but they did. It is a big organization. The government spends $180 billion a year.

There seems to be an absence of some other events in our financial or fiscal history that the members opposite seem to be ignoring, for example, the elimination of a $42 billion deficit in three years. My colleague was right. When we were at a level of a $42 billion annual deficit, $150 million every calendar day was leaving Ottawa. We have eliminated that in three years.

The government has paid down $46 billion against the debt, and that is saving all of us over $3 billion every year in perpetuity. Those are funds that can be redeployed to other areas.

We have had one of the strongest economic growth performance records among the OECD and the G-7. Perhaps the members opposite have forgotten that.

We have had strong job creation, in fact stronger job creation than in the United States. We have had low inflation during all this period, and low interest rates. Many Canadians can afford to buy homes now, and are buying homes.

We have had the largest single tax cut in Canadian history: $100 billion.

We recognize the problems. The members opposite talk about the numbers, such as with HRDC. Remember the difficulties we had there? I am sure my colleague will remember that. The figure of $1 billion was mentioned. Of course politically it is quite attractive to throw out the figure of $1 billion. I think it was something like $6,000 which was finally reconciled as being a problem.

Does my colleague from Kitchener Centre think the members opposite are simply forgetting these milestones in our economic history, which are recognized worldwide, or are they deliberately hiding those facts because they know it makes partisan sense for them to do that?

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6:30 p.m.

Liberal

Karen Redman Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

Madam Speaker, I absolutely concur with my hon. colleague, and I do think the members opposite have waited for a very long time to find something that could counterbalance the incredible record we have.

Nobody is more outraged than the government members on this side when we look at the fact that there has been criminality in the sponsorship program. However, we can talk about the Auditor General's report because an internal audit was done. The government reacted to it and asked the Auditor General to come in and review it. I look forward every year, as does the government, to having those incredibly well thought out reports by the Auditor General so the government can continue to improve.

Our colleague from the Danforth area said that there were no multibillion dollar firms that had perfect systems. The government is able to talk about how we will bring improvements, whether it is the human resources structure or the sponsorship program. It is taking responsibility, finding improvements to go forward in the system and is standing up to the problems that exist. That allows us to discuss this.

I think the members opposite have overlooked the fact that we have taken action, and we will show that responsibility. The Prime Minister has undertaken not only to deal with the parliamentary process, but has put a judge in place to get moneys back, if it is at all possible. As well, the RCMP investigating. We are acting.

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6:35 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Ken Epp Canadian Alliance Elk Island, AB

Madam Speaker, this is quite incredible. I appreciate all the members on the other side as persons, but we have to keep our focus on what we trying to do.

When she brags about having paid down something on the debt, the debt is still higher than it was when the Liberals took over a little over 10 years ago. They allowed it to grow and part of that reason was the mismanagement of the funds. It is time that they own up to that.

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6:35 p.m.

Liberal

Karen Redman Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

Madam Speaker, there have been incredible investments made by the government over the past 10 years. There has been an incredible vision laid out by the Governor General in the other place on behalf of the government and the Prime Minister.

We have listened to Canadians. We are investing in health care. We are looking at the issues that matter to the people in Canada rather than trying to use cheap political tricks and score political points, as the members opposite are doing.

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6:35 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Hinton)

The member for Calgary East will have four minutes before I will have to interrupt for further business.

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6:35 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Deepak Obhrai Canadian Alliance Calgary East, AB

Madam Speaker, my colleague's motion states that this House recognize that the current government is not new, but is one that is linked to the past decade of mismanagement, corruption and incompetence. That is the essence of this motion.

We should listen to those members of Parliament because at the end of the day they are the same members of Parliament in the same government. The finance minister was with the old Liberal government. This is not the new government. Now these Liberal members stand and say that they are as angry as other Canadians.

My colleague from the other side mentioned HRDC and said that it was not $1 billion, but that it was $600 million. That is $600 million of taxpayer money. Now it is $6,000, and then maybe he will say $600. This is the same government which mismanaged Canadian taxpayer dollars. It has a huge record. I talked about that today in statements by members. We even had a flag scandal. Flags were given to the Canadian public. A gentleman in Vancouver said that he was paid $5,000 for the delivering nothing, not a single flag. The invoice was sent and the money was taken. That is how the government operates.

What did the Auditor General state? Quite clearly she identified that the government was not taking care of taxpayer dollars. We now have the Liberal members of Parliament on the public accounts committee literally attacking her and trying to discredit her. Today the Liberals stood and tried to defend their record. They said that they were not responsible for all the mismanagement and that they provided a stellar government. Canadians will tell them at the polls what they think about their stellar government. We are talking about incompetency.

Let us talk about something else such as the immigration department. We know the Liberals claim that they are absolutely a pro immigrant party, that they want immigrants, that they want new Canadians. They even used the figure of 1% of the population, which is 300,000 people. Let us forget about the 300,000. They cannot even manage the current immigration, the 220,000 people who are coming into Canada. People are coming into my riding. It used to take 18 months to process an application. Now they are talking 36 to 38 months, and it keeps increasing.

The lives of refugee claimants are hanging in the balance. It was two to three years. Now it will be six or seven years. When I spoke to the immigration officers in India and elsewhere, there was one simple answer. There are no resources and what the government says does not match the rhetoric.

I see I have used up my four minutes. I could have used my full 20 minutes to talk about the incompetency of the government.

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6:40 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Hinton)

It being 6:42 p.m. and this being the final supply day in the period ending March 26, 2004, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the business of supply.

Is the House ready for the question?

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6:40 p.m.

Some hon. members

Question.

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6:40 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Hinton)

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

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6:40 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

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6:40 p.m.

Some hon. members

No.

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6:40 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Hinton)

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

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6:40 p.m.

Some hon. members

Yea.

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6:40 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Hinton)

All those opposed will please say nay.

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6:40 p.m.

Some hon. members

Nay.

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6:40 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Hinton)

In my opinion the nays have it.

And more than five members having risen:

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6:40 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Hinton)

Call in the members.

Before the taking of the vote: