Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Vancouver East.
I am pleased to speak today on the Bloc Quebecois motion calling for a public commission of inquiry into the HRDC contributions scandal.
The mismanagement of contributions programs by this Liberal government is not just a matter of financial management, it is also a question of credibility.
Because this government has not assumed its responsibilities and has neglected to manage this contributions program, Canadians no longer have any confidence in the government's role in job creation. And yet, the transitional job fund is not a bad program in itself.
The government definitely has a role to play in job creation, but by using these funds for political purposes the Liberals have taken away Canadians' confidence in their government and in their MPs.
The government has a role to play because Canadians have always asked “What are we getting in return for all the taxes we pay?” From 1986 to 1993, the Conservative government initiated the cuts to employment insurance, and now the Liberal government is continuing these cuts. What was needed, supposedly, was something to try to get some jobs back.
Is it working? Perhaps not, but there are certainly some for whom jobs have been created. In my riding of Acadie—Bathurst, the money helped businesses in my region. The people who got work, who were able to work, are proud of it. At issue in the House today is the way it was managed, and I will get back to that a little later.
It suits the Reformers to have the government's credibility undermined by this mismanagement, but it is not in the interest of Canadians. The Reform Party wants us to end government assistance programs.
I put questions twice in a row to my Reform colleagues. They told me specifically that they are not in favour of job creation programs. They did say it was all right for the handicapped—perhaps they will have a hard time answering that—but they are willing to drop the rest.
I have to say that I believe that when a person has no work, that person is almost handicapped. When a man has no work and has a wife and children to feed and the children go to school on an empty stomach, he is almost handicapped.
It is important to maintain the programs and for the government to gain back some credibility through them. If the government has hidden nothing regarding the programs, it should undertake a public inquiry, it should put it out on the table. For the past five or six weeks this House has been held hostage because of government credibility in the programs it has mismanaged.
The Reform members would be happy to see the government get out of pension, health and income security programs. Now the Liberals are helping the Reformers with their agenda of reducing the role of government.
As I just said, this House has been paralyzed for five weeks because of the scandal at Human Resources Development Canada. What is clear is that, in spite of the efforts of all the opposition parties to shed light on what happened, we have no answers to fundamental issues surrounding the management of HRDC grants.
We must immediately set up an independent public commission of inquiry to get non partisan and legitimate answers. Canadian taxpayers' money was mismanaged and there are clear indications that it was used for political purposes.
It is not normal, for instance, for a company in the region of Mataquac, to receive about $16,000 and then, during the same month, to give the Liberals over $7,900, just before an election campaign. This is not normal. We have to look into this.
It is not normal for the Prime Minister of Canada to sell his share of a business to a friend who does not even have the money to pay him and then, all of sudden, for that friend to receive a grant from the government. When will Canadians wake up, once and for all, indicate in the polls that their support for the Liberals is much less than 60% or 50%, and tell the Liberals that the programs are being mismanaged by the Prime Minister? This is the same person who authorized the cuts to employment insurance. My riding of Acadie—Bathurst loses over $65 million a year because of these cuts to EI benefits, and people are suffering.
Let us take an example. The riding of Vancouver East, my colleague's riding, could not even qualify for the transitional jobs fund, since the unemployment rate there is over 13%. Before she was elected as an NDP member, her predecessor, the incumbent before 1997, was entitled to the benefits of the transitional jobs fund. Is this not an issue that should be looked into?
Last week I was at the meeting of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. I asked the question: When was the transitional job fund criterion changed to allow projects in regions with unemployment rates of 8% when there are other regions with higher rates of unemployment?
The answer was that it was changed in June 1998. How was it that the Liberal member for Vancouver East received money before 1997?
We are sick and tired of these lies that are offered up day after day. We want a public inquiry to lay the matter to rest once and for all and to save our programs. That is why the NDP will be voting in favour of this motion and I congratulate the Bloc Quebecois on moving it.
Is the Prime Minister afraid of the truth? Does it make any sense that an American company such as Wal-Mart, which is making billions and which has just set up a warehouse in Canada and does not need money, should receive $500,000 from the government, when this same government and the Prime Minister are saying that Atlantic Canadians abused the EI system and that that is why benefits had to be cut?
This sort of thing looks bad. It is the sort of thing that is going to lose us programs. This is why it is very important that this commission of inquiry be created, so that some light can be shed and so that the House can be freed up to deal with other problems facing Canadians, such as health, which is the number one problem in this country, and the cutbacks in our health care programs. Right now, the NDP is the only party in the House that has risen every day and asked questions on health since the budget was brought down.
If we did not have this problem at HRDC, maybe the opposition parties could do their job and take their responsibilities.
If the Prime Minister of Canada has nothing to fear from whatever was done in Shawinigan, then he should allow the setting up of a public commission of inquiry that could finally shed some light on this scandal and on the lack of credibility of this government.
People in our ridings tell us “This does not make sense. These things have to stop. It is high time this matter was cleared up once and for all. We want you to be able to work on other issues, such as our health care system, which we are in the process of losing”.
I think this is very important, and I will repeat it again. They say sometimes you have to repeat something 27 times before it gets into people's heads. The transitional jobs fund was created only and specifically because of EI cuts. Today, the Reform Party would like that program eliminated. The only reason for that is that they do not have any member in our part of the country. In winter, in the Acadian peninsula, the unemployment rate, can reach 40%, because the fishing industry is closed.
Again, I am asking the House to support the motion brought forward by the Bloc Quebecois for the creation of a public commission of inquiry to enlighten parliament and all Canadians.