Madam Speaker, it gives me no great pleasure to rise on this issue tonight during adjournment debate because the Prime Minister continues to evade, avoid and delay on the important question of why close to $9 million of government grants, loans and contracts end up in the hands of a select few: a criminal, a fraud artist and the Prime Minister's single biggest contributor in the last federal election.
The Prime Minister had the arrogance to stand before the House this afternoon and say that these shady Shawinigan shenanigans will help his re-election efforts.
I do not think the people of Saint-Maurice are all that impressed that the Prime Minister's office intervenes on behalf of a convicted criminal, with Yvon Duhaime getting close to $900,000 in grants and loans. I do not think they are impressed that someone with a record of not paying his taxes, not paying his creditors, should get his hands on their money.
Let us not forget the hotel owned by Mr. Duhaime, which he bought from the holding company in which the Prime Minister has a financial interest, was in serious financial difficulty prior to the Prime Minister's largesse starting to roll in.
Montreal business consultant Yvon Plante, MBA, stated in a March 27, 1997 report that the Grand-Mère Inn had a long term debt of $1.49 million, $350,000 above a manageable level; lacked $250,000 in working capital and required a $350,000 investment; had compiled $330,204 in unpaid bills, an amount considered by Mr. Plante to be three times an acceptable level for a company of its size; had scheduled mortgage loan payments totalling on average more than $210,000 annually between 1998 and 2002, payments which Mr. Plante viewed as unthinkable given the firm's financial situation at the time; had no well trained accountant; had no budget; and had no standard bookkeeping system, resulting in management not being able to obtain a monthly financial statement of the company's revenues versus expenses.
Furthermore, a final report submitted by Mr. Plante to the Government of Quebec on May 8, 1998, concluded that the Grand-Mère Inn's accounting system and budget planning had shown no improvement in one year.
If someone with a track record like Yvon Duhaime and the Grand-Mère Inn asked for more money from a bank or from private investors, they would be laughed off the street. Yet somehow the Prime Minister defends this type of government spending as working for his riding.
Is it working for criminals like Yvon Duhaime? Yes. Is it working for admitted fraud artists like Pierre Thibault? Yes. Is it working for Liberal Party financial donors like Claude Gauthier? Absolutely. Is it working for Saint-Maurice? Well, judging the high rates of unemployment and poverty in that region of Quebec, this apparent brand of “I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine” politics does not seem to be too effective.
Now the parliamentary secretary will no doubt stand up and say that everything was above-board with respect to the $6.3 million CIDA contracts.
If this is true, I challenge the government to prove it by releasing all the documents related to the awarding of the contract. Certainly Markham Electric, a company in my riding which lost the CIDA bid to Mr. Gauthier's company, would appreciate a substantive answer. Certainly the taxpayers would appreciate an answer on whether it takes $43,000 in donations to the Prime Minister's campaign and the Liberal Party of Canada to obtain multimillion dollar contracts.
Nobody wants to unduly besmirch the Prime Minister's name, but if everything was above-board, let him release all the documents related to these funding decisions and let them call in the auditor general to audit these deals.