Debates of March 12th, 1998

Dna Identification Act

[The Speaker]

Oral questions, the hon. Leader of the Opposition.

The Budget

[Preston Manning, Reform, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, the auditor general says the government has violated the rules of public sector accounting and he might not even sign off on the Prime Minister's budget without a serious disclaimer.

The Prime Minister hopes that this will be written off as some argument about accounting methods but this is a lot more than that. It is about using unethical tricks to hide billions of dollars in surpluses from taxpayers who should get that surplus in tax relief.

Whose idea was it to hide the surplus from the taxpayers? Was it the Prime Minister's idea or was it the finance minister's idea?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, there is no hiding of anything. If anything, the auditor general is saying that we are too open.

The Canadian people did better than previously. At the end of the year we took $2.5 billion and put it aside so that there will be 100,000 scholarships a year for 10 years for young Canadians to be ready for the 21st century.

It is so open that everybody knows about the money even before anybody receives any.

[Preston Manning, Reform, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, the auditor general did not see transparency, he saw trickery in the budget.

The auditor general says he cannot trust the Prime Minister's budget because of accounting tricks that misrepresent the size of the surplus.

Yesterday the finance minister said he learned these tricks in the private sector. But suppose the management of a public company did not want to pay a dividend to its shareholders so it used accounting tricks to hide the surplus. Today that treasurer would be making licence plates in some penitentiary.

Why is the Prime Minister playing fast and loose with the financial statements of the government?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, this is the first time that a government is being criticized because it is doing much better than anybody predicted.

Yes indeed we had $2.5 billion available at the end of the year and we decided that the money would be used to have the greatest millennium project of any country in the world, to invest it in young people for the 21st century.

[Preston Manning, Reform, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's memory needs to be jogged. This is not the first time that the auditor general has raised questions about his financial statements. This is the third year in a row that the auditor general has raised those questions.

He said he found serious breaches in accounting rules. There is a pattern to these breaches. Every one of them works against the taxpayers' interest in tax relief.

Why do the Prime Minister's dubious accounting practices always work to the disadvantage of the taxpayers?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, last year we had an $800 million fund for innovation. I say it is a very good thing for the scientists to prepare Canada for the 21st century.

Yes, a year ago we invested $800 million for innovation to prepare Canada for the 21st century in science and this year we are investing $2.5 billion in the young people of Canada to have them ready for the 21st century.

National Defence

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Edmonton North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, an ordinary maintenance worker named Simone Olofson tried to speak up at a defence committee hearing about problems on her base.

She was threatened by the department's lawyers and they told her to keep her mouth shut, and the minister knows it. These people are bullies.

After denying that there was even a problem yesterday in the House, the minister now claims to have sent a letter of apology. He released it to the press but Simone herself does not even have a copy of this.

This department is always playing catch-up. It is always playing fast and loose with people. My question to the minister is this, and I demand an answer. Why do these people write these letters at all? Why should they—

[The Speaker]

The hon. Minister of National Defence.

[Art Eggleton, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that the letter was sent and there has been an apology. In fact, the apology was sent earlier this week, long before the matter was raised by the opposition.

There is also a long history of a complaint by a former employee no longer hired by the community centre that she worked at on the base. She has grievances against different employees and supervisors. It has had a long history.

It was in that light that the letter was sent, but the letter should not have been sent. It has been withdrawn and an apology has been issued. The legal adviser involved is also being counselled on the matter.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Edmonton North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is just unbelievable that this minister would stand in his place yesterday and say that the opposition did not even have its facts straight and then about 27 minutes later was out in the scrum saying everything has been taken care of.

It is a responsibility of this minister to make sure that this kind of nonsense is not happening in his department. Simone Olofson deserves an answer to this today.

Why in the world is this minister allowing his officials to personally harass this woman?

[Art Eggleton, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, that is a good example where again they have it wrong. There is no harassment. Poor judgment was exercised in this case. The letter has been withdrawn and an apology issued.

Members of the Canadian forces and their families should feel free to appear before the SCONDVA committee and to testify before it.

Option Canada

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on November 5, 1997, the Minister of Canadian Heritage received a memo saying that Option Canada had not followed the procedures set out for that kind of program.

Yet, that very same day, the minister told the committee: “I checked to see if these funds were spent in accordance with Treasury Board regulations. It would appear that they were”.

How can the minister justify telling the heritage committee the very opposite of what was written in the memo she received the same day?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, I have nothing further to add to what I said yesterday. Treasury Board only looked at how the money was handed out. The follow-up was not good, which I stated several months ago. There is nothing to add. We have made the necessary changes so that it does not happen again.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, how can the Minister of Canadian Heritage justify the fact that, on November 5, 1997, she told the heritage committee that everything was fine, that everything had been done properly, when a report dated March 31, six months earlier, said that only two of the 22 conditions had been met? How can she justify that?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, what I told the committee is that what was asked of Treasury Board before the money was handed out was done properly. What was not done is the follow-up with the documents, and I have already sent a letter on this subject to the parties concerned.

I am troubled by the fact that, yesterday, the member for Rimouski—Mitis made false statements in this House concerning the way cheques were handed out. She should check the facts and stop telling lies.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Speaker]

Colleagues, as you know, that type of word is not permitted in the House of Commons. I would like the hon. minister to please withdraw that word.

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Hamilton East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw the word “lie”.

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

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Minister of Heritage told the leader of the Bloc Quebecois that she had just written Option Canada president Claude Dauphin asking how he had used the $4.8 million her department had put into Option Canada.

How can the minister justify such a long delay before writing Mr. Dauphin, when she has known for a year, from the Bloc Quebecois' questions and her own department's reports, that something was very fishy at Option Canada?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, I acted as soon as I had the internal audit report.

I would like to also ask something in good faith of the hon. member for Rimouski—Mitis. Yesterday she made statements she knows to be incorrect. I trust that, in this matter, she will respect the truth and will take this opportunity to clarify her past statements.

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

Mr. Speaker, in 1995, with each of the three funding instalments to Option Canada, the former Minister of Heritage called for a report on their use. We are still waiting.

Ethically speaking, is the Prime Minister not concerned by the fact that an influential advisor to the Minister of Finance, with responsibility for Quebec matters, is incapable of explaining, two and a half years after the fact, what he did with Option Canada's $4.8 million?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, in this House, the hon. member for Rimouski—Mitis made statements she knows today to be incorrect. Will she take the time today to clarify yesterday's statements? If she really wants to address this, she must at least tell the truth.

Employment

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Prime Minister. This government has shoved 730,000 Canadians off unemployment insurance and on to welfare, and 1.4 million Canadians remain unemployed. In my province of Nova Scotia alone 51,000 people cannot find work. Yet in Halifax this very day high tech firms offer $1,000 finders fees to get the employees they need because of a skills shortage of 20,000 software programmers.

How does the Prime Minister justify training and employment policies that create these disastrous results?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, the change in the economy has created a million new jobs in the last four years. Because the economy is growing fast, at this moment there are some shortages in skilled labour. That is why we have programs to help people get ready for the economy of tomorrow.

We are very sorry there are people who are unemployed but we are investing money to make sure they can be trained in areas where they can find jobs. I am glad that growth in Canada is creating a situation in which young people who train themselves properly will find proper jobs.