Human Resources Committee on June 7th, 2007

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Chairman, we will oppose the amendment for the reasons raised by our NDP colleague, Ms. Savoie, including the program's transparency. An entire camouflage operation is underway to prevent people from learning that the Conservatives are fiddling with this program. They have centralized the program in order to politicize it.

One thing must be clarified. It is not true that it was MPs who chose who was entitled to jobs; it was public servants first of all. When there was a lack of resources to meet needs, a kind of arbitration was conducted among two or three organizations.

I'll give you an example. I intervened once. An MP from another party gave five positions to a municipality. We checked with the municipality to see whether it needed them, because it was able to pay for those positions. It had been like that for two or three years. But the municipality refused, saying that it had one because there was one that it could not create. That made it possible to give three or four more, but it was public servants who did the work.

We occasionally intervene politically to assist officials. Everything had been done in a transparent manner for many years in the region, with competent officials and criteria, contrary to what is being suggested today. People are talking as though they were no criteria, as though things were done in a slap-dash manner and people were incompetent. That's false, Mr. Chair. The officials in the regions were discouraged to see the situation this year, because they said to themselves that ultimately it was they who would have to clean up the mess.

To what extent is the emphasis placed on the new criteria? Do you know that, ultimately, the new criteria no longer even stood? Certain organizations were called and told that, if they had less than 32%, they weren't qualified. A number of organizations, in the last operation, had 20%, 21%, 22%. It was automatic. They were told that they had had funding the year before. They are going to hurry up, it's every man for himself, because it hurts politically, because the outcry is too great.

Three thousand organizations in Quebec wrote to the minister. My colleague has tabled copies of 3,000 letters to the minister since the Christmas holidays. There is serious discontent. It's not a question of MPs, because there are members from all parties. There are quite a few federalists and quite a few people who don't like the Bloc either, just as there are others who don't like the Conservatives. And yet they like to have students to help in humanitarians missions.

I think it's unfortunate that the Conservatives are taking these kinds of measures to prevent people from learning what is going on. We're going to vote against this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I have Mr. Lake, followed by Mr. Savage, speaking on the amendment.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Mr. Chair, it's very interesting to hear the conspiracy theories.

I think the department was very clear that this is not information that has been released in the past or in the present. It's not information they release. As a committee, we're asking them to publicly release information they've never released before. There's no hiding anything. We're asking them to do something different from what they've done before.

What we're simply saying is that before we go and release this thing publicly, perhaps we should review the list in camera. This isn't a matter of transparency and knowing where the money is going. We're talking about people who didn't receive funding. We're talking about people who applied for a program and didn't get it. They don't necessarily expect that to be public. We're going to command that the department release that information, which they've never released before.

I think it would be very prudent, it makes total sense, that if we're going to go down this road, we do it in camera.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Lake.

I have Mr. Savage and Ms. Dhalla on the amendment.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I'd just like to comment.

Mr. Lake refers so much to politics. The politics in this program was far less before than it is now. They talk about privacy. On Tuesday of this week, the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and the Conservative government went into a Bloc riding to announce one of these programs.

Are you taking the politics out? The politics is going in. This is about politics going in. It's not about politics coming out. That's one of the problems with this.

In terms of in camera, we don't have to meet on this at all. The clerk just needs to get the information and send it to us as committee members. That's fine. That's all we need to know. What are we going to do? Are we going to review every single grant in a meeting before we decide what to do about it? It doesn't make any sense. That would take longer than the employability study, which started in 1998.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay, I have one more on the list. If you all choose not to speak, I will be happy to call the vote.

Ms. Dhalla.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Just in terms of the amendment, I think we all have the right, as members of Parliament. We are there to provide services to our constituents, to be able to answer their questions. We have a right to see this list.

I believe Mr. Lake mentioned that no such list has been done in the past. That is completely incorrect. We as MPs, regardless of how long we've been elected for, all know that we saw a list last year for this program. Regardless of political party, every single MP in this country received a list last year. Last year this list that we received as MPs outlined recommendations by HRSDC as to the number of every non-profit, public, or private organization that applied for funding, and what the recommendation was by the department. I know there are many MPs who did not pick winners or losers. We simply went with the recommendations made by the department.

So I think this information was provided to us as parliamentarians in the past. We do not need to have an in-camera meeting for this to be provided again. I think this is public knowledge. I know the list provided in the past did not come with any other documentation stating that there should be a confidentiality agreement imposed upon it. I think there are not any privacy concerns in this particular case. I think we need to have the list in order to do our job as MPs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

If there is no further discussion, I will call the vote on the amendment, for review of the members of Parliament in camera.

(Amendment negatived)

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We will now move back to the main motion. I still have on the list Ms. Dhalla, Madame Bonsant, Ms. Yelich, Mr. Lessard, Mr. Savage, and Madame Savoie.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

I don't need any more discussion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

As I talk to you, you can remove yourself from the list then.

Ms. Dhalla, okay, thank you.

Madame Bonsant.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Lake said he wanted to accuse no one of fraud, corruption or whatever, but that seemed like an accusation. We worked with competent officials from Human Resources and Social Development Canada. Perhaps Mr. Lake has never seen the list or worked with the organizations, but I have done the rounds. It isn't corruption, but rather assistance to organizations that need it, such as organizations of persons with disabilities.

He asked a question concerning people who benefited from the former Summer Career Placement Program that had not received funding, which is entirely normal, in view of the increasing number of applications and declining funding year over year. Last year, there wasn't a lot of funding, and there will probably be even less this year because the Conservatives have cut the budget by $11 million and are preparing to cut $45 million next year. Their budget will be worth even less.

We are now in the service of a right-wing government, and, to be entitled to have students, organizations are required to change their criteria in order to please the government. It should be the contrary. The government should establish criteria with a view to helping organizations. It is not up to the organizations to change their criteria in order to have a little money that will enable them to get help during the summer.

I will vote in favour of the motion. I find it unacceptable that the organizations are compelled to change in order to comply with certain ideas.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Madame Bonsant.

We're going to move to Ms. Yelich, Mr. Lessard, Madame Savoie, Mr. Savage, and Mr. Lake.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

On Mr. Savage's point about the agriculture announcement in a Bloc riding, of course we'd want to make sure that the Quebeckers in that riding know that this is a Canadian program, that it's from the Government of Canada, not from the separatist party. I just think they'd probably have to let people in that riding know this.

However, I don't think it's possible to have riding by riding. It's a new program. I think that has been overlooked again. It's a new program. It was the deputy minister who all of the opposition parties commended for the competence of the department. They're doing very well at what they're doing; they know what they are doing. Therefore why do they question the deputy minister when she said that privacy is an issue? I don't know why we are challenging the deputy minister on that. So I don't think it's possible to get it riding by riding, because it's a new program.

How many applications are they going through—60,000, 80,000? I don't remember right now.

They're working very hard. As you can see, we already took one hour out of their time, and they have precious little time. There are a lot of objectives and criteria that they have to review and get this money flowing. I think it only speaks to how the opposition are more concerned about their political points than about getting this program to the people who need it—the new program for all of Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Ms. Yelich.

We'll now move to Mr. Lessard.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I don't know whether there has been follow-up concerning the motions that we agreed to in the week of May 15. I had introduced two motions that were then adopted by this committee. They were of the same nature as those on which we are preparing to vote. However, my motions did not concern organizations that had not obtained funding, but rather those that did. For the organizations that received funding, that doesn't appear to pose a problem. I would like to know why this list hasn't been updated. Were you informed of that, Mr. Chairman, Madam Clerk?

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

I believe Mr. Lessard's information is coming.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I can't speak on behalf of the department, Mr. Lessard, but I know some of that information was part of Mr. Savage's motion as well. So if Ms. Yelich says it's coming, they are probably compiling it right now.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

No. Mr. Savage is talking about organizations that did not obtain funding. Mr. Chairman, the two motions that we adopted refer to organizations that received funding in 2006 and 2007. That information was not provided to us either. The date appearing on the document—

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

His motion did include those who received funding and those who did not, so there was an overlap of those two motions.

Go ahead, Mr. Lessard.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Look, Mr. Chairman. I don't know whether the same thing appears in the record, but here it states: [...] a list of organizations that were granted funding along with those that were denied funding, under the Summer Career Placement Program in 2006 and the Canada Summer Jobs program for 2007. It was the same for 2006. In my two motions, I referred solely to organizations that had obtained funding. That doesn't appear to pose a problem for them. I believe it was Ms. Charette who told us that this morning.

Why haven't we received them to date? If I'm not mistaken, the date given was June 1, 2007.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Yes, and I believe the response from the department indicated the individuals who did and a list of the reasons why they felt they could not. We have a new motion here by Mr. Savage to deal with that issue.

As I said, I can't speak on behalf of the department. Ms. Yelich seems to think they are compiling that information, but we have a new motion before us that will cover off that information. I believe that's what Mr. Savage was trying to do with that.

I recognize you had a motion before that, requesting similar information, and I now realize that Mr. Savage has a new motion covering those same things again.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Since you are our Chairman, it is important that we be on the same wavelength. Do you acknowledge that Mr. Savage's motion, which he had to introduce today, includes the same requests as those contained in my two motions of May 15? It's exactly the same thing. At least that is what I understand.

Do you also acknowledge that the minister has no objection to providing this information, but that he is not providing it? However, he does object to providing it, on the grounds of confidentiality, in the case of organizations that did not obtain funding. Do we agree on this matter? It's important for me because I want to know how to handle the motion before us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I understand, and now we'll wait to hear what the department has to say.

Thank you, Mr. Lessard. That is correct.

We will now move to Madame Savoie.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you.

In response to the comments that were made by the Conservatives, I'm going to clarify certain points. This is very important.

Obviously, on the second round, the criteria absolutely no longer stood. It was said that funding was granted in response to calls by members. On the pretext of removing the program from the politicians, these people simply mixed politics into it. If the intention was really to remove politics from this issue, why is it that, for the opening of the student placement office two or three weeks ago, a directive was issued directly from the minister's office, according to Service Canada, asking that the MP be “disinvited”, but that the provincial representative be invited, whereas this is a federal program? In fact, I think that politics is being mixed into this program. That's clear on all sides. It's become a kerfuffle, chaos. As representatives, we deserve an explanation.