Lost his last election, in 2006, with 38% of the vote.
Petitions April 12th, 2005
Mr. Speaker, the second petition I want to present was circulated by the Canadian Coalition for Democracies and calls for the recall and dismissal of Yvon Charbonneau as Canadian Ambassador to UNESCO because of his various positions on international policy, in the Middle East in particular.
Petitions April 12th, 2005
Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions to present today.
The first is a petition calling on the federal government not to join U.S. President George Bush's missile defence shield. This is evidently a very popular position in Quebec.
Border Security March 24th, 2005
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is back from a meeting with the presidents of the United States and Mexico, during which border security was discussed.
How can the Prime Minister imagine he has any credibility at all in talks about security when his government refuses to deploy the minimum resources necessary at the borders, closes RCMP detachments in border regions and is rapidly making the border as watertight as a sieve?
Border Security March 24th, 2005
Mr. Speaker, closing RCMP detachments in Quebec is a poor decision which negates the goal of increasing security, especially in border regions. Everyone has opposed this decision.
How can the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness refuse to shoulder her responsibilities and listen to a unanimous request by the 54 Bloc MPs and, according to the hon. member for Brome—Missisquoi, the 21 Liberal members from Quebec who are asking her to review this poor decision?
Border Security March 23rd, 2005
Mr. Speaker, not only have they closed down nine detachments, but the customs officers themselves are saying that they lack the resources to do their job and as a result thousands of cars cross the border illegally and unquestioned.
How will the Prime Minister justify to his counterparts the contribution these decisions have made to turning the border into a veritable sieve?
Border Security March 23rd, 2005
Mr. Speaker, it is rather ironic to learn that the Canadian border has become a real sieve, as the Prime Minister is this very day meeting with presidents Bush and Fox and this matter will be at the heart of their discussions.
How will the Prime Minister be able to justify to his counterparts that the best decision to ensure a safe border is to cut manpower by closing down nine RCMP detachments?
Royal Canadian Mounted Police March 22nd, 2005
Mr. Speaker, how can the minister continue to say that it is not her role to review administrative decisions by the RCMP, as she did in the letter this morning, when section 5 of the RCMP Act states in black and white that all decisions by the Commissioner are under the direction of the Minister, that is, her direction?
Royal Canadian Mounted Police March 22nd, 2005
Mr. Speaker, representatives of the customs officers and members of the Quebec mounted police association appeared this morning before the Standing Committee on Justice, Human Rights, Public Safety and Civil Protection, where they told us that the Prime Minister was unable to give President Bush a guarantee that border security was properly in place.
How then, Mr. Speaker, can the Minister of Public Safety and Civil Protection continue to support the RCMP's decision to close nine regional detachments in Quebec?
Auditor General Act March 21st, 2005
Mr. Speaker, obviously, it is a great pleasure for me to speak today to Bill C-277, an act to amend the Auditor General Act (audit of accounts).
First, I want to pay tribute to the efforts of my colleague from Repentigny, who is expertly leading this battle. Everyone knows he is an experienced, dynamic and clever MP, who has been here since 1993. I hope that Bill C-277, an all-encompassing bill, will therefore receive strong support from both sides of the House and all four political parties, in order that it may pass.
For a long time, the Bloc Québécois has been trying to make the various federal foundations more transparent. In our opinion, the best solution would be to abolish them and ensure that parliamentarians retain control over public funds. If that is not possible, we believe that it is imperative to increase our control over these foundations, as well as their accountability.
So that everyone both inside and outside the House can truly understand what we are talking about, we need to ask ourselves a few simple questions and try to answer as best we can.
The aim of Bill C-277 is to refocus the public debate on the approximately $9.1 billion that has been allocated to federal foundations since 1997.
We are introducing Bill C-277 because the federal government is misappropriating part of its huge surpluses by investing in foundations that are outside Parliament's control, and therefore outside the control of the people's elected representatives and the Auditor General.
This tactic allows the federal government, among other things, to invest in an underhanded manner in areas of jurisdiction for which Quebec and the provinces are directly responsible. So this is a way for Ottawa, in this case, to use the back-door approach when it cannot use the front door.
The way to avoid this is, first, to adopt Bill C-277, which will give the Auditor General the right to examine how taxpayers' money is spent.
Five organizations and crown corporations do not fall under the authority of the Auditor General but would if the bill introduced by my friend from Repentigny were adopted. They are Canada Post, the Business Development Bank of Canada, the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, the civil service superannuation plan and the Canada pension plan.
As for the foundations, we are talking about those paid $100 million or more. I think we agree that $100 million is a bit more than pocket change. Obviously we are talking about some very large amounts that require at the very least some scrutiny by parliamentarians. In fact, one of MPs' primary responsibilities is keeping an eye on taxpayers' dollars, the various types of taxes that millions of Quebeckers and Canadians pay into the federal coffers.
I certainly do not wish to denigrate the work done by my colleague from Repentigny in any way, but he really has not reinvented the wheel in fact. He merely wants to put into practice within a legislative framework the recommendations of both the Auditor General and the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
The idea behind this bill, contrary to what some may have heard, is not a reaction to the sponsorship scandal, although I could spend a lot of time on that. As you know, the Gomery inquiry has almost as large a Canadian TV audience as popular series like Les Bougon . The source of the initiative is not the sponsorship scandal, but rather three specific documents.
First of all, there is the Auditor General's report. I would remind hon. members that the Auditor General is not political; she is instead an officer of Parliament, that is of all of us. In April 2002 she tabled her report, and the accompanying press release reads as follows:
Substantial amounts of public money have been transferred to foundations. I am concerned by the limits placed on Parliament's ability to scrutinize them.
Later, she stated:
The audit found significant gaps and weaknesses in the design of delegated arrangements;
limits on what the Auditor General can look at, which prevents her from giving Parliament proper assurance that the use of federal funds and authorities is appropriate;
the “parking” of billions of dollars of the public's money in foundations, years before it is to flow to the intended recipients;
little recourse for the government when things go wrong; and
limited opportunity for Parliament to scrutinize these delegated arrangements.
We found that the essential requirements for accountability to Parliament-credible reporting of results, effective ministerial oversight, and adequate external audit-are not being met.
So that was back in April 2002. In accordance with parliamentary procedure as we know it, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts examined the report in April 2002, and tabled its report in turn in May 2003. It will soon be two years since that date.
What did it say? There was one key recommendation, which read:
That, for those foundations either created through legislation, or receiving significant federal funding [...] the federal government appoint the Auditor General of Canada as external auditor of these foundations.
The Standing Committee on Public Accounts was talking about $500 million. My colleague from Repentigny wanted to reduce that amount to $100 million, which, in my opinion, is quite reasonable.
However, in response to this recommendation, the government said:
Requiring foundations to accept the public sector type standards and operations as well as establishing the Auditor General of Canada as their auditor as identified in recommendations eight through thirteen, could undermine the independence of foundations, reduce their operational flexibility—
In my opinion, this response is completely false and foolish, perhaps even slightly crazy. I hope this was merely a slip of the tongue by the government and I hope the government will support Bill C-277.
The purpose of this bill is simply to make public funds management more transparent. The Prime Minister is the one who described himself as the slayer of what he called the democratic deficit. One way to get rid of the democratic deficit is to give back to elected parliamentarians all the tools and means necessary to closely monitor the work of parliamentarians, legislative work and governmental work. One way to help parliamentarians do so is to provide all the information they might need, for example: where do taxpayer dollars go? What do the foundations do with these billions of dollars in public money? What do Crown corporations do with this money from Quebec and Canadian taxpayers?
In conclusion, I want to reiterate my congratulations to my colleague from Repentigny for being highly effective in this matter. I urge my colleagues from the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party and the NDP to support this bill, which I would describe as inclusive, as it is non partisan. Simply put, this bill will provide us with all the necessary tools to do what is required of us under this British parliamentary system, which is to control the actions of the government and thereby help the Auditor General help us.
Supply March 10th, 2005
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank our colleague from the Conservative party for his speech and the support he demonstrated for the motion that our party introduced yesterday. I know as well that he is a very distinguished member of the Standing Committee on Justice, Human Rights, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. I know that he works very meticulously on issues related to public security, public protection, and more generally, all justice issues.
My question is as follows. Since it is very rare to have unanimity in this House—especially when the proposal comes from a member of the opposition and not a member of the governing party—does he think that it is necessary to speed up the process? Once this motion is passed, once the government brings in its bill by next May 31, would he agree to speed up the process, while still studying the bill in depth of course?
The result would be that, by the end of the year, the bill to reverse the burden of proof would be enshrined in Canada's statutes.