Debates of May 29th, 1996

Minister Of Human Resources Development

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, if I were to ask for the resignation of all those in this House who support the unsupportable, there would not be one Bloc Quebecois member left.

Minister Of National Defence

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Beaver River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it has been well documented that the defence minister gave his campaign pals over $150,000 in questionable public contracts out of his ministerial budget. Stephanos Karabekos, one of his campaigners, received $100,000 to help soothe feelings in the Greek community in the minister's Don Valley East riding.

Instead of coming clean with Canadians, the minister and the Prime Minister have chosen to defend this patronage saying that it was really good value for the money. It was good value for his money, but the Canadian taxpayers are paying the bill.

How can the defence minister justify doling out thousands of dollars in public contracts specifically and explicitly to his former campaign workers?

[David Collenette, Liberal, Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad at my first opportunity to be back in the country to deal with these very troubling issues which have reflected on my reputation.

Yesterday the President of the Treasury Board outlined the general response to this question. As members of the House of

Commons we have budgets to hire staff. We hire them either as full time employees or for project work. That goes for the members of the Reform Party as well as other parties. Similarly ministers have budgets that can be used for project work or for exempt staff.

In the case of the arrangements that were referred to in the House, as the President of Treasury Board has stated, those arrangements were made within Treasury Board guidelines.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Beaver River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is easy to talk about Treasury Board guidelines, but I want to talk specifically about project work. A ministerial budget is one thing, a member of Parliament's budget is another.

The Canadian public that is paying the bill for this wants to know why in the world this soothing of the Greek community is always happening in his riding. Surely there are enough communities across the country from which he can hire people to do the work for him out of his ministerial budget.

It seems ironic that every time a name comes up it is someone specifically from his constituency. The Liberals railed against this when the Mulroney government was in power. Now they are saying that they are proud of it, that everything is okay.

Will the defence minister admit that he is guilty of the same Mulroney-like patronage that he and his colleagues criticized while in opposition? Will he repay the $150,000 spent on these unethical contracts?

[David Collenette, Liberal, Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, we had better get our facts straight.

The hon. member accused me of unethical behaviour. I hope she withdraws that before I give the answer to the question.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Beaver River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your rulings on these things, not those of the minister.

I grant what we are talking about here is a tender issue for the minister. It is so tender that every contract more than $30,000 is literally supposed to go out to tender and this has not happened.

Stephanos Karabekos has received more than three contracts, every one of which should have gone out to tender. When it is split up, then it looks okay because it is under $30,000.

Mr. Speaker, you can call that unethical, I can call it unethical, I know the Canadian public thinks it is unethical. It is deplorable. Why has the minister allowed this contract splitting to take place? Why has he allowed this to become such a tender issue?

[David Collenette, Liberal, Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, it is not a tender issue. It is a factual issue.

The hon. member says this is unethical. I am surprised that language is allowed to stay, but I obviously respect your ruling on that, Mr. Speaker.

What she is saying by extension is that the officials in my department, the assistant deputy minister of finance who said that these contracts were within the guidelines, the Treasury Board officials who said that these arrangements were within guidelines, are also unethical.

It seems that when the Reform Party casts its net, it casts it widely. It does not pay attention to the facts. It does not pay attention to the reputations of individuals.

With respect to the specific contract that the hon. member raises, I would like to draw her attention to the fact that the Hellenic Canadian Congress, the umbrella group of all Greek Canadians in the country, issued a statement last night in support of the work that was done in this very difficult circumstance-

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[David Collenette, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

-and in a letter to the hon. member for Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt condemned him for the false statements that he made in connection with this issue.

Varennes Tokamak Project

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski—Témiscouata, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Natural Resources.

The federal government announced that it was cutting off its annual $7.2 million contribution to the tokamak project. By withdrawing from this project, the government is adding to the huge research and development deficit and jeopardizing the potential of scientific research in Quebec.

Why is the minister standing by this bad decision to no longer participate in the Varennes tokamak project?

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, as I believe I have made clear in the House on a number of occasions, because of the fiscal situation in which the government found itself, having been placed there by the previous government, some very difficult choices had to be made. It is not possible for the government to continue to do everything it had done.

In relation to the future of AECL and the nuclear research program, it has been decided to focus on the export sale of Candu reactors. That export market provides benefits to both Quebec and other parts of Canada.

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski—Témiscouata, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is changing her versions, even if she thinks she keeps telling us the same thing. This is the first time she has admitted in this House that CANDU reactors are producing spinoffs elsewhere than in Quebec, quite a few other places in fact. She is cutting in Quebec in favour of British Columbia, about which-

It would be nice if everyone could agree that the federal contribution to the tokamak project in Quebec is money well spent, and since she will be saving only $7.2 million, what are the minister's real motives for-

[The Speaker]

My dear colleagues, we must not question the motives of our hon. colleagues. If the minister wishes to reply to the question, she has the floor.

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, I will simply reiterate what I have said before in the House to the hon. member and others. Government is about making choices and we have had to make some difficult choices.

I have explained over and over again that one of our choices was in relation to the future of the nuclear program in this country. We are going to focus on the export sale of Candu reactors.

Let me remind the hon. member that the sale of one Candu reactor represents potentially over $100 million to the province of Quebec and 4,000 person years in jobs.

Minister Of National Defence

[Jim Hart, Reform, Okanagan—Similkameen—Merritt, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Defence has been trying to defend his pork barrel abuse of his budget. He says he saved the taxpayers millions of dollars. This is bogus. In fact, the minister and Karabekos cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

According to information I have received directly from Veterans Affairs, it admits that Karabekos was instrumental in extending benefits that the government had planned to cut off in the March 1995 budget.

Will the minister not admit that he abused his budget, rewarding campaign pals with cushy contracts that cost Canadians millions of dollars?

[David Collenette, Liberal, Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I will not address the specific accusation, the comment the member got from Veterans Affairs, except to say that what the hon. member said is absolutely and totally false.

I want to deal with the fact that these particular arrangements, that is hiring people either on exempt staff or for specific projects, is open to ministers and is also open to party leaders, the Leader of the Opposition, for example, the leader of the Reform Party.

I would like to know if the hon. member has asked his party leader how he hires and retains the services of people. Does he have people just as full time employees or does he have people who are hired on project work.

As to the propriety of this, the fact is that these particular arrangements are within Treasury Board guidelines. It was stated by the President of the Treasury Board, gone over by the various officials. I think the facts speak for themselves.

[Jim Hart, Reform, Okanagan—Similkameen—Merritt, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will ask the questions. The minister's job is to answer them.

I have the contracts, I have the guidelines. The minister has broken the guidelines. Canadians can see that there is no value for money in these contracts. The minister hired a musical conductor to do partisan work in the minister's riding. Karabekos is not the only political hack that the minister has rewarded with cushy contracts. There have been three others as well.

Will the minister tell the House if the pork barrel contracts end here, or does he plan to hire every campaign worker on his team?

[David Collenette, Liberal, Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, far be it for me to defend the people he has described as political hacks. Perhaps he would refer the term political hack to the former Reform candidate for Ottawa-Vanier who is an employee in his office.

Atomic Energy Of Canada Limited

[René Canuel, Bloc, Matapédia—Matane, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Natural Resources.

On top of the withdrawal from the tokamak project in Varennes, now this Monday the parliamentary secretary has confirmed that Atomic Energy of Canada is looking at the possibility of moving its offices from Montreal to Toronto, which would mean a direct loss of 120 jobs to the Montreal region.

Can the Minister commit at this time to maintaining AECL's activities in Montreal?

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, AECL is going through a process of restructuring and rethinking its main lines of work and its main objectives. That process is ongoing. At this time no final decisions have been made.

[René Canuel, Bloc, Matapédia—Matane, QC]

Mr. Speaker, why is the minister concentrating on systematically destroying Quebec's scientific potential all the time, always in favour of Ontario?

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe what I have just heard from the hon. member. He should consider the hundreds of millions of dollars that are spent in the province of Quebec by the federal government in relation to science and technology.

In my department alone, some of our best research facilities presently exist in the province of Quebec and will continue to exist in the province of Quebec. I suggest that the hon. member get his facts straight.

Justice

[Jack Ramsay, Reform, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Justice acknowledged that a senior official of his department inappropriately tried to influence a chief judge of the Federal Court. What the minister did not reveal was that the meeting between his assistant deputy minister, Ted Thompson, and the chief justice took place on March 1.

Who within his department authorized the meeting and why has it taken him three months to acknowledge and respond to this obvious violation of judicial independence?

[Allan Rock, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, the meeting was held, according to the chief justice, at the request of the chief justice. The meeting was for the purpose initially of discussing concerns with the pace of litigation generally in the Federal Court.

As I said yesterday, we have also acknowledged that it was inappropriate for the meeting to discuss specific cases without notice being given to counsel in those cases and an opportunity for those counsel to participate.

In specific response to the point raised by the hon. member about the timing, I can tell him that it was Mr. Ted Thompson who brought to the attention of the department the fact that the meeting had taken place. He brought the correspondence to the attention of the department. We then brought that to the attention of counsel in those cases.

In the weeks since March 1 our focus has been on the litigation. Lawyers for the parties involved in the three litigation cases have brought a motion, to which we have responded. We have been in the courtroom resisting their application for stay.

At this point it is appropriate for me to make a statement. I propose to do that. I will address in that statement the response, internally, of the department to these circumstances.

[Jack Ramsay, Reform, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, Chief Justice Isaac of the Federal Court, in my opinion, should never have met with Mr. Thompson to discuss this matter in the first place.

In 1990 the current Tory leader resigned as minister of fitness and amateur sport after it was revealed he had called a judge. That particular judge was not implicated in that case because he had the integrity to hang up on the minister.

I ask the Minister of Justice if he has laid a complaint before the Canadian Judicial Council to have Chief Justice Isaac's participation in this matter dealt with.