Mr. Speaker, I move that the second report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts presented on Thursday, October 28, 2004, be concurred in.
I will be dividing my time with the member for Prince George--Peace River.
Last February 10, 2004 a political storm burst over Canada and the dark clouds continue to spread out even today. Last year we heard from the Auditor General how $100 million had been spent with little or no value. Jean Chrétien, as the Prime Minister of the day, presided over a corrupt program that became the largest political scandal in our history.
Yes, we have had scandals before. We think back to the railway debates under our first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, and the pipeline debates in the 1950s, but both of these occurred as we were building our great country of Canada. The railways were to unite our land from sea to sea and the pipeline was to bring wealth and prosperity to the west. However, this corruption scandal has the capacity to bring an end to our great country, the Canadian dream, and the nation that is admired by people all around the world.
This scandal has fueled the separatists in the province of Quebec. The scandal has infuriated the people of Quebec and they have soured on the federal government that has manipulated and ignored its own rules on referenda, funneled taxpayers' money illegally into its own pockets to fight elections, and the litany goes on and on.
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said this program was all about saving Canada, yet the minister of intergovernmental affairs at the time has said that a few advertising sponsorships around the country would not change anybody's opinion. The Prime Minister of the day, Mr. Chrétien, said, “So there are a few million dollars wasted, lost or stolen. What was the big deal? This was going to save the country”. Now we know it may be the catalyst that breaks the country.
This is a scandal, not that we have lost $100 million, which in itself is horrendous, but the fact that it may be the catalyst that brings this great country to an end. That is the corruption scandal of this country; the greatest scandal that we have ever had.
Last year the public accounts committee was charged by the current Prime Minister to investigate this issue. We think of the litany of witnesses who appeared before the committee and how they tried to save their own skins by blaming other people. We had Chuck Guité, a middle level bureaucrat, telling us how he could run into the minister's office at a whim. He could run to the chief of staff of the Prime Minister whenever he wanted to see the chief of staff. He was the conduit for what appears to be a conspiracy at the top that has potentially brought this country to its knees.
We know that the chief of staff to the former Prime Minister has been involved because he admitted that to the public accounts committee and to the Gomery commission. When he has been involved, we know that the former Prime Minister is involved because they were the best of friends going back many years. They shared all their information and the chief of staff would never have worked without the concurrence of the former Prime Minister.
We know that Alfonso Gagliano was involved. He admitted that at the public accounts committee and at the Gomery inquiry, where he should never have been talking to middle level bureaucrats, but he was, in giving them direction as to where the money would go
We had André Ouellet, the former minister of foreign affairs and long time member of this House who ended up running Canada Post, involved in illegal contracts being funnelled through advertising agencies. The money went to Canada Post under his direction and then who knows where it all went from there. We know that André Ouellet was filling his pockets with expense accounts without a single receipt and collected $2 million to $3 million without a single receipt, claiming reimbursement. This is the calibre and the character of the people who were running the sponsorship scandal.
We cannot forget Jean Carle, the Business Development Bank vice-president, also a very good friend of Jean Chrétien, who admitted at the Gomery inquiry that what he was doing was money laundering with taxpayers' money.
The Prime Minister appears to be involved. He has denied his involvement, but nonetheless, he appears to be involved because all his friends were involved, so why would he not be involved? Jean Pelletier, chief of staff, Andre Ouellet, Jean Carle, Alfonso Gagliano, these people were friends. They also had the levers of this country in their hands.
They had a guy by the name of Chuck Guité, who was at the Gomery inquiry yesterday, spilling all the information that he was handing out. Chuck Guité could move among these people at will because he was getting their direction: spend the money here; give the money there; illegal contract over there; bags of cash somewhere else; spread it around. But, while it was spreading around, it was all going in one direction. It was going to the advertising agencies who were all friends and all getting rich with taxpayers' money. However, they had their directions too because they were giving the bags of cash back to the Liberal Party.
Can we tolerate that today? This is the worst scandal that we have had in this country. I cannot believe that we are sitting here tolerating a scandal and the government is saying not to worry, that it will look after it. Something must be done. Therefore, the House and the public accounts committee will do whatever it can to ensure that this never ever happens again.