Debates of Feb. 8th, 2000

Supply

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I commend the member for Calgary—Nose Hill. She has done a tremendous job in bringing forward much of the information that enlightens Canadians on the style this government has undertaken.

My question very much flows from the question posed by the previous member. Throughout this scandal we have seen that efforts have been made almost to point the finger at the past. It is almost unprecedented that a minister of the crown blames her predecessor. I would suggest and I would like the hon. member's response as to whether this is very much systemic. This goes far beyond one minister of the crown or even the previous minister. I would suggest this goes back almost to the very beginning of this administration.

There is an old maritime expression that the fish stinks from the head. I would suggest there are a lot of maggoty fish in the barrel. Does the hon. member agree this is a systemic problem that should be investigated in a much broader fashion? We have 37 projects of 459 projects of 30,000 in one year. I suggest it is much more widespread than the current minister would have us believe.

[Diane Ablonczy, Reform, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, clearly this is just the tip of the iceberg. When we have in a government a culture of gross mismanagement which is ignored, which is then covered up, which is then denied and minimized, then there is something very wrong in the whole administration of the government. This cannot be an isolated case because the Prime Minister himself is defending this course of inaction and negligence.

I believe that if Canadians knew all the truth and had full disclosure about how grants and contributions have been mismanaged by the government and how the departments across the board have been mismanaged, there would be a huge outpouring of outrage. We need to get to the bottom of this. There has to be independent audits and examinations now of how the government administers our affairs because the questions have been raised and the signals that the government is not doing a good job for us are too strong to ignore any longer.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Because of the member's excessive knowledge on this topic and the interest being shown, and I noticed the member for Durham had a question he would like to ask, I wonder if you would seek unanimous that the question and answer period be extended by five minutes?

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is it agreed to extend questions and comments by five minutes?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to spend some time talking to the Canadian people about some of the facts because I have some information they might be interested in. Members opposite will of course have their fun heckling.

The first fact was used by the member for Calgary—Nose Hill when she recently said that “the government ordered the audit”. That is interesting; the government ordered the audit.

I serve as vice-chair of the public accounts committee which is chaired by a member of the opposition. The public accounts committee hears from the auditor all the time. Every week he and his staff come in. They talk to us about areas they have audited which were not ordered by the government for which the agenda was set either by the public accounts committee or by the auditor himself. The important thing to establish is that the auditor is independent. Every member in the House must agree with that. The auditor is totally independent of any political interference whatsoever.

The integrity of the auditor of the government of this country is second to none. Anyone who knows him and his staff knows they are dedicated, fair and extremely thorough. They will go through programs, whether requested by a committee, the government, a minister or on their own, in such minute detail that some of the things they find out are truly quite amazing. Guess what happens. From time to time regardless of what party is in power around here, the auditor comes up with some problems. That is what he is there for. That is what the whole system is about.

The member for Calgary—Nose Hill stands in her place and says the government ordered the audit.

I spoke to a group of young people yesterday, high school students who were touring our precinct. They were quite astounded when I gave them the facts because what they had read about this supposed boondoggle were headlines screaming “A billion dollar boondoggle”. I explained to them, and they are obviously more intelligent than some of my hon. colleagues opposite, that the actual program is a job creation program. It takes $1 billion and funnels it out into community groups from sea to sea to sea to create jobs for young people, to supplement wages for small businesses, to assist in hiring people, to deal with people who need training, to deal with people with disabilities, to help aboriginal Canadians with a hand up to get jobs, training and skills so they can get on with becoming participants in our society and to develop partnerships with community groups. That is what this program is all about. Members know this.

The real danger here in the misrepresentation that has gone on, is it continues to go on simply for one reason and that is that the opposition smells blood and indeed all of us know that this is a blood sport. We have to be tough and we have to stand up and defend and make them accountable because being in opposition they can say whatever they want.

We know about the Reform Party's accountability. We know that the Reform Party fires caucus members faster than Brian Mulroney changed his Gucci's. We know that if there is one person out of line or out of sync in the Reform Party, even the venerable House leader, he is simply booted out of caucus by the leader who stands in front of Canadians and purports to say they have a new way of doing business.

The Reform Party kicks people out of caucus faster than it takes to change the name from the united alternative to CCRAP. I should not say it because children may be watching. We all know what the acronym is. The Reform Party kicks people out of caucus faster than it takes to change the acronym from CCRAP to some other one. They woke up and there was this word which they normally associate with something on their—

[The Deputy Speaker]

Order, please. The hon. member for Elk Island on a point of order.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this member is speaking in favour of being truthful. The name of the party is the Canadian alliance. The member is not correctly expressing the name of the party.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I am not sure that is a point of order.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is another name but I guess that is the short form. Who would want to wake up and see CCRAP as the name of the newly formed party? I understand.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The member for Elk Island did not have a point of order the last time. It was a point of debate. I hope he is not doing the same thing this time.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in the interests of truthfulness, the name of the party is the Canadian reform conservative alliance. The member has it wrong.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is clear to me that the party is struggling in that regard. The point is that Reform Party members talk about accountability and telling Canadian people the truth and putting forward issues of concern.

I want to stress this point. We are talking about an entire project of $1 billion. The audit was done on 459 individual projects within the $1 billion program representing a total of $200 million. One-fifth of the HRD job creation program was audited. Out of that one-fifth, 37 files were identified as having problems. Those problems ranged from as small as not putting all the paperwork in the right order to as serious as not having the proper documentation at all. This is not acceptable to the government and it is certainly not acceptable to the minister.

The minister came forward and indicated that an audit had been done and she provided us with the results. She gave us the six point plan that will be put in place to deal with the mistakes. I do not think any Canadian would expect an organization the size of HRD or indeed the entire government to be without its share of problems. But to suggest that because an auditor requested to come in by the Government of Canada has identified some problems in the files and that a cabinet minister needs to step aside over that is political hysteria.

Members know full well that they are churning the pot and feeding the hysteria through the media. The only thing that would make their day a success would be to force a cabinet minister as dedicated and as hardworking as this one to resign from the job because of some trumped up nonsense.

That is not to say the government does not recognize there are problems. The government asked for the audit in the first place. I do not know how many times we have to say that. The minister released it. The opposition would take credit for that saying “She heard we were going to ask for it”. Excuse me, I am under the impression it was on the Internet. We do not get much more public than that. The minister came out with it and said “Here is the result of the audit. Here are the problems we have identified and here is the action plan that we will put in place to fix it”.

What really bothers me about all of the hysteria by the members opposite and frankly by the media is that the real victims in all of this will be the community groups in British Columbia, in Newfoundland or in Ontario. They will be young people who need summer jobs. That is what this is about.

I say to hon. members to put themselves in the position of a bureaucrat sitting down somewhere in Halifax, Mississauga or Vancouver with an application before them while all of this is going on in the media. Might one not just be a little nervous?

The Reform Party is the party that demands less red tape. In fact we will potentially see more red tape and more concern.

We want to have rules in place that the bureaucrats must follow. There must be financial accountability. The minister has said that she has put forward the plan that will do that, but we will drive wedges between the offices of HRDC.

I would ask any of these members, some of them I am sure have but I know many of them have not, to go to the HRDC office and look at who is there. There are single moms looking to get retraining in computers. There are 45 to 55 year old men who have been displaced in their jobs and are looking to find a new career, a new alternative. They need our help and why should we not help them? If we can help them with a grant that creates a job, then they have a job and they will pay taxes and they will become productive, proud members of society.

The risk here in all seriousness is that we will damage the relationship our dedicated HRDC offices have. I have one in my community on Glen Erin Drive that services Peel and Halton. We will risk the relationship those offices have with the community.

There is an organization in Mississauga called the Centre for Education and Training. It does tremendous work. It would access funds through the HRDC office to provide training, retraining and motivation. It provides job skills and job search skills. It helps people develop resumes. It helps people get back on their feet.

The problem we face is that we tend to be in such a strong economic climate. Unemployment is at the lowest rate it has been since the 1970s for all levels. Whether it is for women, for youth, or for the entire sector of society, the unemployment rate is at its lowest for all levels. Interest rates are low. Inflation is virtually non-existent. The economy is humming. The books are balanced. We are in a surplus and are awaiting a budget at the end of February that I believe will deliver tax cuts to Canadians. Yet people are sitting around saying that there has to be something wrong here, it cannot be all that good and they will not sit back and accept all this prosperity. We have too many problems.

People say we do not do anything for the homeless. Our minister went to Toronto and announced $743 million in partnership with the municipalities, provinces and the private sector. They should be able to leverage that $743 million into a couple of billion to create housing and help people get off the streets. Is it enough? I guess not. Maybe we would like to do more. I am sure many of us would. The government is trying to respond.

What we see is a feeding frenzy of mass hysteria that is absolutely unfair to the Canadian people, who, because they have read the headlines, think that somehow we have lost a billion dollars. We have not lost one cent. They know that. What has been potentially lost is the faith and the confidence that the community groups have in working with HRD.

Meet the men and women who deal in this business. Meet the Ray Fernbacks of this world, a dedicated civil servant who wants to help young people, people who are without jobs and people who are without hope. There are people like him all across this country. Simply because of the hysteria and the nonsense we are in danger of losing people like him and losing the relationship.

Opposition members know full well that many of the job fund programs have gone into their ridings. The hypocrisy of being in the House and listening as they wax on is terrible. Let us read what they have actually said.

The member for Dauphin—Swan River said: “I am writing to express my support for the TJF application made by the Rolling River First Nation”. The member for Selkirk—Interlake said: “I strongly recommend that the TJF provide funding for this excellent creation program”. The member for Vancouver Island North said: “This is a great opportunity for creating new jobs and new wealth in the Comox Valley”. The member for Battlefords—Lloydminister said in a letter to the minister: “I would like to ask that you seriously consider the request for funding and give the Voice of the Blue Rose Advocacy a favourable response”. The member for Nanaimo—Cowichan, regarding an organization called “Loaves and Fishes”, said: “I would like to request that any and all avenues of financial resources be considered in assisting this important work to continue. I fully support the TJF application put forth by Tough Duck”. It is interesting that these are all Reformers.

What this is really about is that the Reform Party wants to kill this program. The Reform Party thinks it is more important to give tax cuts to the rich than it is to help those small community organizations. It will not be tough duck; it will be tough luck. That is what will happen if the Reform Party has its way and runs its scalpel through the human resources development ministry. It will slash, burn and destroy programs.

Some of these names might seem funny, but these are community organizations that are working in the community. The money goes to hire people to help them deliver the programs. We should not laugh. Reform Party members, of all people, should not laugh at funny names. Goodness knows, they have so many up their sleeves that we never know what they are going to come out with. That is the real agenda.

The member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, one of the few in the Reform Party whom I respect, said: “I believe that it is a worthy, viable and visionary undertaking which warrants your consideration and ultimately your approval of the applications”. Another quality member in this place, the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, said: “I hope that the money will be forthcoming from the transitional jobs fund to bolster the economy of Port Renfrew. My hope also is that other projects will be considered in the future that will provide for job training opportunities that are sustainable over the long term”.

There are some real mixed messages.

Thirty-seven projects have been identified. Interestingly enough, out of those 37, which represent $30 million—not $200 million, not $1 billion, but $30 million—which is still a lot of money—three of those projects have already been investigated. The files have been put in order and no further action is required by the ministry staff. Those three projects represent almost $12 million of the $30 million, which is almost half. Certainly over one-third of the entire area which was identified has already been dealt with, cleaned up and put to bed. The recommendation is that no further action need take place.

The rest of the investigations are ongoing. We can rest assured that in every HRDC office in the country people probably spent a fairly busy weekend going through the files, and so it should be. Because we refuse to buckle to the nonsensical demands of the opposition does not mean that the government, the minister and the prime minister do not take this seriously. This is serious stuff. When the auditor says “We have identified problems”, any government had better react.

In fairness, why not allow for a reasonable length of time for the government to do the work to clean up the mess? If there are not changes put in place, then perhaps the opposition's demands would make sense. If the government does not correct the problems that are there, whether they are systemic or they happen once, it has to investigate these things because Canadians expect no less than that kind of accountability, openness and transparency, that kind of serious effort by their government. Frankly, that is what is going to happen.

It is not just the Reformers. I will share with the House what the Conservative member for New Brunswick Southwest said: “It would not be fair to suggest that party affiliations play a role in the awarding of money”. I agree. They got over half the projects. He went on to say: “The resulting employment during construction and the permanent jobs to be created from the project will greatly benefit the people and the economy of the St. Stephen area”.

We all know the importance and the significance of this job creation fund. We know what it means to our youth, to our women, to our aboriginals, to our people who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. We know the importance of the partnerships and the relationships that occur right across the land, and we have the serious potential of doing damage to programs that are fundamentally important to all Canadians.

I will reject this motion, as will my colleagues. It is unworthy of the opposition.

[Paul Forseth, Reform, New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, what a lot of bluster.

The member minimizes this by saying that there are routine audits. Thank goodness we have audits. He uses laudable platitudes to tell us about the efficacy of these programs. However, schools of public administration, academics of management science will always say that these kinds of programs are wasteful and may actually do more harm than good.

Cash transfers without comprehensiveness really do not work. For example, the Compass program described today in the Globe and Mail said that the analysis of programs given under the same rosy kind of outlines that the member describes shows that the clients who had reduced their reliance on income support was not significantly different from zero.

Will the member work within his caucus to end these kinds of vote buying programs and actually try to develop programs that really help people, rather than these types of programs which sprinkle money around the ground to try to grow votes?

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, first, I apologize if the member thought it was bluster. I get a little excited at times trying to make a point. However, I think that Canadians need to hear from some of us who will, as demonstrably as possible, put the facts on the record.

The member just said it all. He has proven what I said and have suspected; that is, that the intent of the Reform Party is not to get the head of a minister. The intent of the Reform Party is not even to embarrass the government. The intent of the Reform Party is to kill the job creation funds that are in HRDC which go to the communities. They want to take that money, rip it out of the system and give it to their wealthy friends in the form of tax cuts. That is what he said.

My answer, sir, is no, I will not work toward that. I will defend these programs and make sure they get out to the people who need them.

[Ghislain Lebel, Bloc, Chambly, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the member if the fact of choosing a minister—as was the case with the current Minister for International Trade and the current Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs—includes as a criterion the ability to properly place the knife in the public's back.

I wonder whether this criterion did not lead us to this scandal involving the management of Human Resources Development, that is, that the sole function of the minister, who is no longer in the position today, but was in it for at least three, if not four years, was to report to the House without either question or audit, to respond to the opposition and to say pretty much anything.

My colleague, the member for Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques spent three months at least questioning the minister on his management, on who were and were not likely to receive employment insurance after paying fairly significant premiums. When we told the minister that not even 42% qualified to draw what they had paid in insurance and the minister gave us any old answer, was his answer based on actual figures or on what his officials were telling him? Did he manage his officials? Did he look into his department's internal administration? No. Because his only talent was an ability to denigrate the Quebecers who elected him. He became the Prime Minister's accomplice in manhandling Quebecers, as we called it in Quebec. Now we end up with the problems.

I ask the member if he is not afraid that we will soon find ourselves with the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs facing a similar situation and that we must repudiate him or criticize the management of his department in its entirety? These questions need to be asked and I put them to the member who has just spoken.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that members of the Bloc are only interested in discrediting, in whatever way they can, any member on this side of the House who happens to be from the province of Quebec.

The fact is that the minister is in a different portfolio and the audit was requested by the Government of Canada. I do not know how much more transparent we could possibly be. The audit identified 37 out of 459 projects—$30 million out of $200 million—as having some difficulties. Three of those 37 have been investigated, representing almost $12 million, and they have been put in proper shape. I do not know how much more transparent and fair the government could be, except to continue investigating the remaining 34 files, representing about $20 million.

The member wants to attack someone from Quebec so that he can make headlines which will somehow further the only thing these people care about, which is the destruction of this country and their attempts to take the province of Quebec out of Canada. It will not work.

The minister is responding to the issues at hand. She has a six point plan that will put in place the kind of transparency and accountability that is needed. Any money that has been improperly spent, as the Prime Minister said yesterday, will be recovered by the government. We will not tolerate any of that nonsense. The situation at HRDC will be cleaned up and it will be cleaned up by the current minister.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Mississauga West for a very entertaining presentation. It is always good theatre when he speaks. I think he has the toughest job in the country, trying to gloss over what absolutely has to be the worst public relations disaster imaginable. I admire that he has the courage to stand there and spout that kind of thing.

It was gracious of him to concede that there is definitely a problem with the administration of the programs. What he failed to comment on is that there is a huge problem in the allocation of the programs and who gets the benefits from the particular funds. The transitional jobs fund is the one that most comes to mind.

Statistically I have the third poorest riding in the country. Does the hon. member know how many transitional jobs funds grants we got in our riding? I can tell him. None. Zero, not one red cent, because we were told we did not qualify. With an incidence of poverty of 32% or 33% in the whole riding we did not qualify because of some magic formula that they cooked up so they could allocate it all to their own ridings.

The riding of Edmonton West is where most of the country goes to get a job because there is so much prosperity there. The Minister of Justice is pulling in transitional jobs fund grants: $1.3 million to band trees to prevent Dutch elm disease. There is a meaningful and significant project. We did not get any, not one red cent.

Regarding the administration of the fund, would the member agree that one of the biggest problems is that one cannot hack, cut and slash 30% of the public service and still expect to get the same amount of work done? Would he agree that maybe the Liberals cut too deep when they laid off a third of the public sector? Now they have lost track of the administration of their programs. Could the member explain just what the rules are to qualify for a TJF grant? I would like to know. It just seems to change from day to day. Could he answer those questions?

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his questions. He actually made an interesting point. He said that I was standing here defending what he called a public relations disaster. I think that is what it is, actually. It is a PR disaster. We have not been able to get the message out because of the hysteria and misrepresentation by members in the opposition and frankly in the media. How do we defend a headline that says a billion dollars is lost when in fact it is not.

There is an old axiom in politics that says when one is trying to defend something one is losing. I understand that. It is very much public relations, and the public happens to be the voters and citizens of the country. The reason I stand here and say what I say is that it is our job and responsibility to get the facts out. It is not just the one-sided nonsensical arguments put forward by the opposition. There are a government position, an explanation and an action plan put in place.

I also tell the member in relationship to his other question that the minister informed the House on February 7, as reported in Hansard that:

Of the 250 projects across Canada that qualified for transitional jobs fund money where the unemployment levels were less than 12%...half of them were in opposition ridings.

I am sorry if the member has not been able to somehow persuade or have some influence, but I would suggest that he should keep trying. He should get himself someone in the ministry with whom he can deal and work. If his riding needs these funds, I want the member who I think is a very caring and socially well balanced conscientious member to know that the danger we are facing with all this stuff is that there will be no transitional jobs funds for anyone in the country, whether in his riding or mine. They will kill this program as sure as I am standing here through the misrepresentation and misleading hysteria that is going on.

I want Canadians to know that government accepts the responsibility to clean this up. The government accepts the fact that some mistakes have been made and it will be cleaned up by the minister.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in today's debate. I intend to be as non-partisan as possible. I have been a member of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development since 1994. I have been working with that committee for several years and a number of issues have been referred to us.

Let me read you today's motion from the Reform Party:

That this House express its concern over the gross mismanagement of more than one billion annually in grants and contributions from the Department of Human Resources Development, its support for the doctrine of ministerial responsibility, and its lack of confidence in the Minister of Human Resources Development.

The Bloc Quebecois will support that motion.

Why do we find ourselves in that situation? In early January 2000, the current Minister of Human Resources Development—who, unlike the Prime Minister, did not consider this issue to be a minor problem involving only 37 cases—released an internal audit report which told Quebecers and Canadians that “there is a serious problem in the Department of Human Resources Development. The department has lost control over at least $1 billion. An internal audit investigation was conducted”.

It is important that people know what an internal audit is all about. It is really a sampling. In this case, 459 files were pulled out and reviewed. We were told that they took 459 files out of 30,000 in the department. So, it is a very small sample. Out of these 459 files, 37 were found to be very serious cases involving some $30 million.

When the Prime Minister tells us that the present situation is not serious, that only 37 projects are problematic, he is abusing statistical science and misrepresenting how internal audits are done. I urge the Prime Minister to find out from chartered accountants what such an internal audit means. It is a test done to check whether in fact a department or a company is operating properly.

When a certain number of cases are unacceptable, a red light goes off. This is what the Minister of Human Resources Development made public on January 17.

What we now have is the government trying—and the remarks by the member who preceded me were irresponsible—to tell us that in the whole of the department there were 37 problematic projects, when the number of projects audited was 459 out of a total of 30,000. Statistically speaking, these 37 projects represent almost 2,400 problematic cases. This could involve nearly $2 billion.

That is the fact of the matter and that is what the motion before us is critical of. If the federal government, because of the position taken by the Prime Minister, says there are only 37 cases, it is being completely irresponsible. We see the result. The result is that the parties opposed to job creation programs are saying that such programs are no good. In an attempt to get itself out of hot water, the government is accusing the Reform Party of wanting to kill these programs.

The problem we are now facing is not the relevance of job creation programs but the Liberal government's management of them. In so doing, the Liberal government ends up negating the effectiveness of the job creation programs, and that is very serious.

As for the scandal itself, what the internal audit showed up, let us recall that, out of the 459 files examined, 15% contained no application from the promoters. This means that, in 15 of every 100 projects, the project promoter could not be identified.

In 72% of the remaining applications there were no forecasts; in 46% there was no anticipated number of participants; in 25% there was no description of the activities to be supported.

And so it goes on. Most impressive. If something like this happened in a small five-employee business in the private sector, the boss would call operations to a halt and say “Everybody into my office. We are going to see what is going on. This makes no sense. We're in an awful mess here”. The fact is the business would likely have already closed, if it were in such a situation.

There are some other very important elements. For example, 97% of files bore no indication that the promoters had been checked for outstanding debts to HRDC. In 70% of project files, there was nothing about expenditures. In other words, 7 out of every 10 files contained no invoices or payslips to justify expenditures.

[An hon. member]

Scandalous.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

That is the right word for it. Scandalous it is.

In my opinion, the government had two responsibilities in a situation like this. It ought to have decided to lay all the cards on the table, which would have been the ideal situation, because we are faced with a rather peculiar situation here as far as parliamentary operations are concerned.

The present Minister of Human Resources Development, in that portfolio only since the summer of 1999, has some responsibility because she learned of the situation as early as last fall but waited until January to make it public, while parliament was not sitting, so as to keep things as quiet as possible.

We must remember her announcement was made at the same time the Minister of Industry was getting involved in hockey clubs. But between her announcement and the end of the hockey club saga, the Minister of Industry withdrew his proposal because of the hooha it raised from the public. So the grand announcement, which was meant to be hidden while parliament was not sitting and be kept as quiet as possible, moved into the limelight.

Why did it move as far into the limelight as it is today? Primarily because the public, who pays taxes and thinks it is already paying too much, did not like having its money wasted. The current Liberal government was getting hot under the collar about Emploi-Québec, which had just been set up, was beginning to operate and was established to make a success of providing proper manpower services.

We even heard the Prime Minister say, when I was in Hull as an observer at the Liberal convention, “My God, that is really embarrassing for us Quebecers”. At the same time, his department, which had been in operation for several years, is unable to account for a billion dollars. The department is faced with a situation where the number of scandalous cases uncovered by the internal audit is such that as much as $2 billion may have disappeared through programs, with no one knowing where the money went.

This is why taxpayers find this unacceptable. No one in Canada is buying the Prime Minister's claim that there are only 37 cases. Indeed, we all know that we are talking about an internal audit involving only a small sampling of overall government operations. It is important to realize that. We are stressing that point because we know people will understand it. We must take what was said and go to the bottom of the issue if we can get all the information.

This week, at the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development, we will be asking that not only the current Minister of Human Resources Development but also her predecessor appear before the committee to tell us about the period targeted by the internal audit, that is from April 1997 to June 1998, when the current minister's predecessor was in charge. He was the one responsible for that department at the time. That period also encompasses the election campaign. This is a good example of what this government attempted to do.

Yesterday morning, two rather uncomfortable deputy ministers gave a 90-munite briefing in the press lounge, to explain the status of those 37 cases. The government is acting in an irresponsible and petty way by trying to make public servants look like they are the culprits.

Let us take the example of the transitional jobs creation fund. When officials in Quebec working for the Department of Human Resources Development meet with a sponsor, they open a file, complete it, have it approved at the regional, provincial and Canadian level and the minister signs.

When a project operates this way, usually things go reasonably well, but what is now coming to light is that there is a group of projects that, instead of working their way from the bottom up, proceeded from the top down during the election period. Looking at the whole of Quebec, 54% of the projects approved in the three years between April 1996 and April 1999 received that approval in the months immediately before and after the election.

The scenario goes like this. The previous Minister of Human Resources Development who, during the election campaign, found himself being pressured, receiving telephone calls or visiting a business, told people not to worry and promised to see that things were sorted out after the election.

And we are talking about an election campaign. During that period, they were not just spreading their favours in Liberal ridings; they also went after other ridings. Fortunately, however, Quebecers do not go for this sort of bait. They resisted the temptation.

But now we are looking at a group of projects that public servants inherited on June 10, July 1 and in August, for which the minister had given his word. The word went out that the minister had given his word and that now it was up to them to produce results. Now, two years later, an internal audit reveals that no sponsor was listed for 15% of the projects. No problem; they got their money anyway.

In 70% of the files, there was no financial monitoring. No problem, they got their money anyway. Today they are trying to tell us that this is not possible, that there were just the 37 cases. No way. They did not look at just 37 cases during the election campaign; it was way more than that.

I believe that what we have here is a shocking scandal, because this was going on in the department that had launched an all-out an attack against the unemployed, one that has been going on for several years. On the one hand they were unable to manage employment programs, while on the other they knew very well what their objective for recovery was. Every Canada employment centre had an objective setting out how much had to be recovered from the unemployed.

They looked at eligibility in order to ensure that as few people as possible would be entitled to benefits. They organized things to ensure that as few as possible would receive benefits. They put on more employment insurance investigators while at the same time, at the other end of the system, there was no monitoring.

All in all, they were acting like a business and decided to focus only on increasing revenues. However, we are not dealing with a business here, but a department, the one responsible for the social function of the federal government of Canada. It is the department most responsible for sharing the wealth, and here it is being used to gain votes for the Liberal Party of Canada. This is totally unacceptable.

If that had been the only problem in the department, one might have said that there was a crisis relating to the management of those particular programs. However, over the course of the past four or five years, there was also a scandal over the use of social insurance numbers, because in Canada there were more people over the age of 100 than in the entire world with a social insurance number. It took an opinion from the auditor general; it took a unanimous report by the committee to call for a change in things, and the answer we kept getting from the predecessor of the current minister, the member for Papineau—St-Denis was “Everything is fine. There is no problem”.

That is in fact what this minister keeps saying. They have the same tape. I think the prime responsibility of the current Minister of Human Resources Development is to not have changed the machine; to have taken the recording of her predecessor and played it endlessly. I think she has a lot of responsibility in this respect.

Today we learn—and this is another incredible example—that the youth employment strategy, which served as the weapon of the minister's predecessor, the member for Papineau—St-Denis, when he was Minister of Human Resources Development, who said “See how the Government of Canada does good things”, that 33% of the money allocated produced no results. This program did not create the jobs it was supposed to create. It has not brought young people back to work as it should have done, and it is in the hot seat, like the Canada jobs fund, like the youth employment strategy and like all the other programs that were evaluated.

One of the things that has been mentioned is literacy programs. Do members think that Canada can afford to waste money? Can it afford to squander literacy funding? I think that this funding is needed to do something about the problems of our illiterate citizens.

But if the money is improperly spent and the use to which it is put unknown, I think that the desired results have not been achieved. Perhaps what is most tragic about the whole affair, when all is said and done, is that there are people who need these programs, and we have argued in favour of programs to revitalize the economy in areas of high unemployment. We have never challenged the need for such programs.

What can be challenged is when the minister directs funding to her riding for a program for which only ridings with unemployment rates of 10% and higher should qualify, when unemployment in her riding stands at 6%, and at the same time turns down funding for the Gaspé with its 22% unemployment rate. That is dishonest and unacceptable.

How did we get to this state of affairs? How did this situation come about?

Let us go to the heart of the problem. There is a Prime Minister who appoints ministers. He is the one who appointed the incompetent individual who is now the Minister for International Trade. At least he pulled him out of a department which gives out a lot of money and assigned him to the part of the job he can handle, which is public relations. But appointing him Minister of Human Resources Development was an incompetent move.

By appointing the member for Papineau—Saint-Denis Minister of Human Resources Development, the Prime Minister showed his incompetence. He went for first impressions. The Prime Minister told himself “He will make a good spokesperson. He will repeat exactly what we want for the department. He will keep saying for years that everything is fine and then, when things get too hot, when I know the results, I will move him elsewhere”.

The Prime Minister then appointed the current Minister of Human Resources Development. During the period that she has been in charge, there has been no concrete information on the situation in her department. It was only in January 2000 that she said she inherited a department that was coming out of the middle ages. The middle ages are a dark period of our history, a period when civilization did not exist, a period when people did not know how to make things work. But patronage was thriving then. This is the period to which the current minister is referring when she talks about her predecessor, the member for Papineau—Saint-Denis. He was the one in charge during that dark period, during the middle ages.

As my colleague says, we were also able to see—with the figures provided by the Bloc Quebecois on the impact of the election campaign—that this was not only a dark and black period, but very much a red period as well.

We are trying to find out who is responsible for this situation. We mentioned that the Prime Minister appointed someone who was not competent for the job, but who remained in charge of the department for several years. Then, the Prime Minister appointed another minister. We did give that minister a chance, did we not? Just last week, the Bloc Quebecois was saying “We need all the information. We will not ask for heads to roll. We will not ask for people to resign, but we will ask questions in the House”.

Yesterday I did ask a question to the minister. I asked her why, between December 1 and December 16, 1999, she continued to defend the programs here in this House, whereas she had been aware of the audit since November 17, 1999. I was expecting an honest answer, one that would say “I became aware of it and in fact—”, with an attempt to find an intelligent answer. But no, off she went again with the same old tape from the member for Papineau—Saint-Denis, the one that says that everything is fine, even if the place is burning down. The old story of “Don't worry, be happy”.

The present minister continued along the same lines, which is why I find that the motion of the Reform Party is in order. When they refer to their “lack of confidence in the Minister of Human Resources Development”, it is because she is the one who took on the burden of the situation created by her predecessor.

Had she been responsible, she would have said right from the time that the situation became known, “I am going to encourage my predecessor to come and testify; I am going to ask Mel Cappe, the deputy minister responsible for the entire Government of Canada, the top civil servant, to come and testify”. He was, after all, the deputy minister of the department the whole time that this was going on, during this whole scandal.

This is one more example of the responsibility of the Prime Minister of Canada. After appointing the member for Papineau—Saint-Denis as Minister of Human Resources Development and then, after he proved incompetent, the present minister, who is incapable of taking on her responsibilities, he also appointed Mel Cappe to the highest position in the public service. Now we know that the Government of Canada is, at the top deputy ministerial level, being managed by a person who has created a scandal in all of Canada's social programs. This is totally unacceptable.

Thus, the primary responsibility for all this lies with the Prime Minister of Canada. He appointed successive ministers incapable of doing their job; he took advantage of their inconsistency to create the transitional jobs fund in order to get himself and his Liberal colleagues re-elected. He tried to dump all the responsibility onto the public servants. This whole attitude of disregard for democracy, which means making things known so that there may be transparency in order to allow people to make the proper choices, leads us to vote in favour of the motion. The primary responsibility for this scandal lies with the present Prime Minister of Canada.

[Louise Hardy, NDP, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I know members of the Bloc have fought very hard and very long for a fair employment insurance system. I would like to hear their comments because many aspects of it have bothered me. One was the minister's comment that there was no witch hunt of those within her department.

I was surprised at how quick they were to let themselves off the hook, that they would presume innocence on their own part, but when it comes to any poor soul who has ever made a mistake on an employment insurance form there is never a presumption of innocence. I know of people who have been hounded for two to three years for an innocent error on an employment insurance card.

If the minister is to be so quick to assume that everyone in her department and herself are innocent, that everything was just a bit of a mistake, then that sort of standard should be applied to Canadian citizens who have made innocent mistakes on their employment insurance forms. I would like the member's comments on that.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member has raised an excellent point. We must not forget that the Employment Insurance Act is based on the presumption of guilt. If there is any doubt about someone, that individual is guilty until he or she has been able to prove his or her innocence before the whole bureaucratic system.

In the case before us, it is the opposite. There is a proof of guilt, we are sure the person is guilty, but someone—not just anyone, the Prime Minister of Canada himself—is telling us that an internal audit has shown problems in 37 cases out of 459. He claims that only 37 cases are problematic, and the rest does not exist.

He denies the fact that this department handled 30,000 cases. hope the auditor general puts these facts on the table next fall. He will be asked to appear before the committee so that we can look specifically into this matter. My assumption is that, once our review is over, these 37 cases out of 459 will not look like a little sore but rather as the sign of a growing cancer within the department, a cancer which has been tolerated by the present government, which wanted it and took advantage of it in the 1997 election.

In this sense, the member is perfectly right. There is a double standard, and we are here to speak out against this situation and to bring the Canadian government to put all the facts on the table so that we can make a final judgement on these issues. government, particularly the predecessor of the present Minister of Human Resources Development, is responsible for wasting billions of dollars, which is totally unacceptable.