Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today on behalf of the Progressive Conservative Party to take part in this very important debate. Canadians have many questions about what went on at Human Resources Development Canada.
It is certainly a pleasure to enter into the debate today because we still have many questions that are unanswered. The government has tried to downplay what has happened in HRDC. Not too long ago the Prime Minister got up in the House and said that it was only 250 some odd dollars. I said what did we do? Was that a mistake? Obviously, on our part, it was not. Something went terribly wrong in HRDC and something went terribly wrong with the administration of public funds.
When it all started about six or seven weeks ago, this was supposed to go away really quickly. This was supposed to be buried underneath the carpet. It would take a couple of days and we would not hear any more questions on HRDC.
The department first started auditing the grants and contributions programs in 1999 and it came up with a report in January 2000. We certainly were not aware that there was an audit going on. It did well in keeping us in the dark. When the department released it, as critic for HRDC for my party, I called for a copy of the audit so I could go over it and review what had gone on with HRDC and the grants and contributions programs.
When I called for my copy, I received it. Maybe 10 minutes later I received a call from HRDC to tell me that it had sent me the wrong cover sheet and if I would be so kind to destroy the cover sheet, it would send me a new one. La-di-da, I still have the original cover sheet on my desk today. I did not destroy it. Is that not a shame? I received the second cover sheet. I do not want to use the sheets as a prop, so I will not put up the cover sheets. When I look at the both of them, the original one is dated October 5, 1999 and is signed off by the director, Gilles Duclos, and James Martin. On the other one, there are the names of the people who signed off but no date. The date has been deleted. This is a major cover-up. This is the biggest scandal in Canadian history. It is scandalous to try to keep Canadians in the dark on the goings on in a government department, a department which is owned by Canadians. This is Canadians' parliament. They have a right to know the truth. From the very beginning everything that has gone on has been tainted. The government has tried to cover up important information from the Canadian taxpayer.
When we look at and read about this issue we keep uncovering something new everyday. Every opposition party goes through it. We have been working hard to try to get to the truth. We even asked for the audits for 1991 and 1994.
We have asked for a copy of the 1991 audit, an audit conducted nine years ago, as well as the 1994 audit. That was three weeks ago. Why have we not received anything yet? Let me tell you why.