Bob Rae

[Ethics, March 19th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, this is truly incredible. A Prime Minister is refusing to admit that his member of Parliament broke the law, that the investigation by Elections Canada is not yet over and already on the floor of the House of Commons he has started a campaign with the same disgraced member of Parliament.

When does the Prime Minister start to apply some standards of shame to his conduct and the conduct of the members of his cabinet?

[Ethics, March 19th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, let us talk a little more about the difficult circumstances. The difficult circumstances that Mr. Penashue found himself in involved buying an election, paying back $47,000 to Elections Canada. Now the Conservative Party is starting a campaign before Elections Canada has completed its work and its investigation.

Could the Prime Minister please tell us, when do his standards start taking effect? When does he start applying these standards to his own members and to his own party? When is that going to start to happen?

[Public Safety, March 6th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, ever since the Gouzenko scandal at the end of the Second World War, the response by the Government of Canada to a serious leak of information was to hold an inquiry. We now have two things that have happened. Never before has a chairman of SIRC been questioned with respect to his or her integrity or his or her appropriateness for that office. Never before have we had a situation in which information has been leaked to a foreign power, described by the government itself as an attack on our relationships with our allies, with no such inquiry being held.

Why is there no inquiry?

[Intergovernmental Relations, March 6th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure we are all just astounded to hear the Prime Minister say that the Liberal Party voted against the Conservative Party's budget. Really, though, how is that surprising?

What is surprising is that the government is changing who is responsible for training without talking to the provinces. It is not consulting Quebec or the other provinces, which are very involved in this area.

How can the Prime Minister justify his government's unilateral action on this?

[Employment, March 6th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, just before the recession started in October of 2008, the unemployment rate was 6.1%. It is now 7%. The youth unemployment rate was 11.7%. It is now 13.5%. The number of discouraged and involuntarily unemployed workers has increased dramatically since the date that matters: October of 2008, the date on which the recession started. That is the date that matters. That is the comparison that matters.

I would like to ask the Prime Minister this: can he give us his categorical assurance that his budget will in fact address this growing calamity for workers and the growing inequality that plagues the Canadian economy?

[National Defence, March 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, at the sentencing of Mr. Delisle, the federal prosecutors and the defence witnesses emphasized the unprecedented nature of the leak that had taken place and the damage that had occurred to Canada's reputation, in particular with our allies with respect to the information.

Every other security breach of this kind has been met by an independent inquiry reporting to the government and reporting to Parliament. Can the government please tell us why it has yet to establish such a committee of inquiry in to this particular instance?

[Public Safety, March 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the political neutrality of the chair of the Security Intelligence Review Committee, a position Mr. Porter held, has been monitored very closely by both Ms. Gauthier and Mr. Filmon, who are both former chairs.

First of all, can the Prime Minister explain why Mr. Porter completely broke with this tradition? Can he explain once again how the security system and the security reviews have been changed by this government?

[Finance, March 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, two former officials of the Minister of Finance's department have criticized, deeply, the pattern of secrecy and the abuse of Parliament by the government.

The question is, now that the cat is out of the bag with respect to the $2 billion program which the government is intending to recapture and take away from the provinces, does the Prime Minister not agree that it is now time to consult, not broadly, simply saying it is consulting with all Canadians at all times, but to sit down with the provinces and talk about this program before the government suddenly announces it, springing it on the people of—

[Public Safety, March 4th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, another clear example of the double standard is with respect to the lack of security clearances for people serving the population of Canada. We not only have the case of Dr. Porter, who said that he did not have an extensive security clearance. We also have the cases of Bruce Carson and the appointment of Senator Brazeau. This was not the case prior to 2006. I can speak personally about two top security clearances in 1998 and 2005.

Why did the government loosen the standard with respect to security clearance for some of the most important and significant jobs serving the Canadian public?

[Employment Insurance, March 4th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, Inspector Clouseau might as well be in charge of the Senate investigation. But Javert is the one in charge of dealing with the unemployed.

My question for the government is very simple: does it acknowledge the issues that were revealed last week? Does it accept that as a standard for Canadians and Canadian democracy?