Gerry Ritz

[Mountain Pine Beetle, April 30th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House and take another shot at the Liberals on their spending priorities.

This stems from a question that I asked on April 17. I asked the public works minister about an untendered contract, if I can use those terms, for Health Canada telecommunications training.

The contract was signed on March 31 which is the end of the fiscal year. To get that $300,000 contract in place the government had to really rush it through. The quirky part is that the training was stipulated to be delivered on that same day. That was physically impossible.

The public works minister said in his reply that this was not an outrageous abuse of taxpayers' money. That was my assertion. He said the government followed closely the rules in contracting and processing the payment and so on. However, the auditor general, in looking over that same program, said that the contracting process was not open, it did not qualify for any exceptions that would close the process as the minister was claiming.

Health Canada misidentified the requirement as R and D which it was not and thereby threw off any other bidders. Health Canada had no idea if it was going after any kind of value at all in that by delivering it in one day.

As a contracting authority public works was cited by the auditor general for indulging in split contracts on some other things, that it lowered contracts to the $25,000 no tender required system and slammed a bunch of those through.

In answer to my second question the public works minister stated that there was no overpayment and so on. That is not what we were citing. We were citing an abuse of taxpayers' money, $300,000. March madness spending during the last day of the fiscal year by ramming through a contract that had to be delivered that same day. As I said, it was physically impossible.

The public works minister said no overpayment was made in regard to that contract for $300,000, but then he failed to mention in that same report that in $6.5 million of contracts that his own department audited, $800,000 in overpayments was found out of $6.5 million.

Then we started to get concerned about that extra $300,000 that was not part of that particular go around. It made us scratch our heads as to where taxpayers' money was being spent with these guys.

In the second question, I asked the minister if there was a quote that the program did not address the requirement to properly control and manage government assets. The auditor general agreed with that in her response.

The minister in replying to that part of the question said that policies were followed very closely. The auditor general said no. He said his department followed the approved policy using the advanced contract award notice. The auditor general again said no, the 15 days were not posted.

In addition, and perhaps most important, there was no overpayment in this regard. We did not specify overpayment. The overpayment came out of the other $6.5 million in public works where there were overpayments of $800,000. It did not address the $300,000 at all.

The auditor general said that the advance contract award notice was not used, the 15 days did not happen, and Treasury Board guidelines were not followed. The auditor general called this another example of non-compliance with government regulations.

Taxpayers have a right to know where their money is going and why the Liberal government thinks it can get away with that type of expenditure at the eleventh hour of the last day of the budget year, and then not have any requirement that those goods were ever delivered.

[Government of Canada, April 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Prime Minister ranted and raved and tried to blame everyone else about his government's continued failings, but no matter how he rants and raves the public is no longer buying that self-serving Liberal spin.

Untendered contracts that clearly benefit Liberal friends is not a false impression, as the Deputy Prime Minister would have us believe, of any corruption.

When will the Prime Minister clean up his cabinet and rein these guys in? Who is in charge?

[Government of Canada, April 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, 70% of Canadians are openly condemning the Liberal government as corrupt. A litany of untendered deals. Contracts are missing. Liberal leadership candidates hide behind ethics counsellor's rulings but when we check them out, there are no rulings or no record of any discussions.

Is not the real issue here and the real problem the missing ethics of these guys on the other side?

[Supply, April 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, in his opening comments the hon. member for Scarborough Southwest said there seems to be an idea among opposition members that the government is dragging its feet on making changes to the legislation.

That is a reality. The Liberals have been in government for over nine years in which time the Internet has become a household appliance. This has exacerbated the problem. We are no longer talking about pictures in books. We are talking about things on the world wide web.

The government should have made changes years ago when the Internet became a reality in homes from coast to coast, but it has not done that. When we talk about dragging feet we are saying the government could have done that. It come have used the notwithstanding clause on the Sharpe decision. It was not done. When we say the government is dragging its feet it is grounded in reality.

[National Defence, April 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, according to the contract breakdown the minister tabled on Friday, the two new jets are budgeted for almost $10 million in special military instrumentation. According to DND's own reports, the existing Challengers have been kept up to date with this hardware.

Would Canadian taxpayers not be better served by transferring the existing instrumentation, or does the Liberal government intend to shelve it beside the $174 million satellite system it never used?

[National Defence, April 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, we see today that 69% of Canadians do not buy the excuses made by the Liberal jet setters over there. No one questions that the Challenger 604 is a better aircraft, after all it is 19 years newer, has better technology and we are pre-buying $8 million worth of spare parts. That goes a long way toward warranty claims.

What Canadians really want to know is who over there ordered the immediate replacement of the Challengers instead of the heavy lift aircraft and Sea King replacements our armed forces really need?

[Government Expenditures, April 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I will take 34% more holidays.

It is tax time again and Canadian taxpayers have serious doubts about the Liberal government's priorities. When they see $100 million going to upgrade the Prime Minister's flying circus instead of the very real priorities of water treatment plants or highway improvements, they get upset, and rightly so.

Would the minister not agree that newer, faster, more efficient jets should at least carry a newer, faster, more efficient government?

[Government Expenditures, April 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, another Liberal ad going there.

The numbers on the new Challenger jets just do not add up and there is a very good reason for that. It is March madness spending at its worst. There is nothing in the budget, nothing in the main estimates, no planning whatsoever.

I am sure the auditor general will have a hoot with this program come the next time she tables her report.

In November 1992, the current minister of public works asked:

--when will this old and tired government learn that the taxpayers' money does not belong to the Tories and that they cannot use it to reward their friends?

What has changed?

[Points of Order, April 18th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, in response to a question from my colleague from Macleod, the Minister of National Defence twice stated that he would be happy to table the cost breakdown on the contract for the new Challengers.

Unfortunately, I guess he forgot shortly after question period. I am wondering if the Chair could maybe expedite that for us. Maybe the minister could table it today.

[Government Expenditures, April 18th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, nobody is concerned about the quality of the Challengers. What we are concerned about is the quality of the contract. In 1986 while in opposition, again the Minister of Public Works and Government Services said “Sole source contracts can only be given where there is a pressing emergency in which a delay would be injurious to the public interest”.

Now that he is on the government side, will he just admit that his department has broken all the rules to purchase two Challenger jets from his friends at Bombardier? It is a kind of sneaky subsidy thing. When will he just cancel the order?