Maybe a drunken defence would be good. That might explain some of it.
The justice department went into court and said: "Your Honour, we should not be paying any compensation to the contract holders because they are mainly looking for compensation for lost profit and the actual fact is this was a terrible contract. They would have gone broke, lost their shirts and would not have made any profits so why should we compensate them for any?"
Is it not interesting that the government talks out of both sides of its mouth at the same time. That is quite a trick. Mind you, the Liberals have had decades and decades to practise with many years in opposition. I do not know how well they could practise it on this side of the House because when they go to the other side they say everything differently. Perhaps they got confused and thought half the time they were on this side of the House and the other half they were on that side and that is why they have two different stories on the same thing.
The Prime Minister has repeatedly misinformed the public on the matter of lease revenues. He said that we are giving up all these revenues that we currently get. That is a-well, I cannot say what I was going to say; I almost let it slip out. That is wholly inaccurate. I think that term is acceptable. It is wholly inaccurate because we have public government documents which clearly show that the lease payments are deferred during the construction period but they are repaid with interest. That is hardly what the Prime Minister has been telling everyone.
The Prime Minister also deliberately disregarded government reports. Again these were stamped as secret all over them. These government reports clearly pointed out that cancellation of the contract would leave the government open to damages ranging from $500 million to $2 billion of taxpayers' money. Right now it is in court defending an action for over $600 million plus the cost of defence.
The manner in which the Prime Minister cancelled the contract brings into question the value of a contract signed by the government in the event that the government changes. The Prime Minister again deliberately disregarded secret government documentation which pointed out that the legislation limiting the government's liability left the crown open to many problems, including severe capacity and congestion problems at Pearson, increased construction costs and the danger of undermining the government's future leasing and contracting process. This is in a report that went to the government before it brought forward this odious piece of legislation.
The Prime Minister has spent $2 billion on false government job creation, the infamous infrastructure program. Call it infrastructure, fine. If we need some money to kickstart the infrastructure repairs in this country that is one thing, but to call it job creation is an absolute farce. The government spent $2 billion on this and it has virtually no permanent jobs. It is something like 4,500 permanent jobs.
The cancelled Pearson contract would have created 14,000 person years of construction employment with 1,200 new jobs at absolutely no cost to the Canadian taxpayer whatsoever. Now the government, in addition to this $600 million or $700 million worth of compensation that it could lose in court, in addition to all the legal costs that it is incurring, still has to do something about terminals 1 and 2. The consortium was going to spend $850 million of private investors' money in that.
The costs have gone up so we are now looking at $1 billion, or $1.2 billion which was the last estimate I heard. Where is the government going to get this money? It is not in its wonderful budget. Maybe it is going to spend the surplus money, but gee, it cannot. That is the money it is giving to Atlantic Canada to try to buy away the GST. I do not know where the government is going to get it.
The Prime Minister's mishandling of the Pearson contract has jeopardized 1,140 airport jobs, 560 direct off airport jobs and over 3,000 indirect jobs in the metro Toronto area. It also results in a tri-level government tax loss of $72 million a year.
Bill C-22 works against the interests of metro Toronto and all Canadians because after introducing open skies, things that have been long awaited for in the aviation industry, it has now jeopardized the future potential of Pearson airport as Canada's primary hub.
The final point I would like to raise is an allegation. I stress it is only an allegation that has come from many sources. The allegation is that the Prime Minister solicited a $25,000 contribution from one of the principals in the Pearson consortium for his leadership campaign fund.
There have been lots of allegations of this. The Prime Minister had the opportunity to at least partially dispel this. Part of the reason we cannot prove this one way or another is that his law partners refused to disclose documents because they are confidential. They are covered by the Privacy Act of lawyer-client confidentiality. The Prime Minister could have released all those documents to the public but he did not choose to do so. I think we should have a full and proper investigation to determine what these are.
I will close by making the same offer to the new Minister of Transport which I made to the old Minister of Transport. It can be the Prime Minister, I do not care who it is, who stands. If he is going to defend this then he had better be prepared to defend it publicly. I offered to publicly debate this with the previous Minister of Transport anywhere, anytime. One of the nation's television networks was prepared to cover it. I pointed out to him then as I point out to the new minister now, that the balance should be in their favour.
The Minister of Transport can go armed with all his assistants, the deputy minister, the assistant deputy ministers, all his special assistants, executive assistants, all the justice department lawyers, and I will come armed only with the truth. The venue for the new minister, if he wishes, can be the University of Victoria in his riding or it can be one of the lighthouses he vowed to save after they pulled his bacon out of the straits when he was about to go under.
The offer is open and it stands but there needs to be full public disclosure on this. It has not happened and I suspect with the Liberal government it never will.