Debates of March 24th, 2000

Human Resources Development

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Order, please. I cannot hear the answer.

[An hon. member]

There are limits.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Yes, there are limits to the noise in the House. Everyone is talking at once. It is impossible for the Chair to hear anything at all.

[Bonnie Brown, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the obsession of Bloc members with this file makes me question their desire to bring jobs to their province. Everybody knows that in areas of high unemployment it is difficult to acquire private sector investments. If they insist on asking for all this private business to be aired publicly, we will have difficulty in the future getting other private investors to put their money into Quebec and to create jobs in areas of high unemployment.

They should question themselves about the long term effect of their political posturing.

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

Mr. Speaker, we are determined that grants to create jobs should in fact do just that.

The minister is telling us that she has invoices justifying payment of the grant. We have in our hands a secret agreement allowing $1 million to be paid without creating the jobs announced.

Would the government not agree that the only way of getting to the bottom of the Placeteco affair is to launch a police investigation as was done in the case of the Rosemont grant that found its way to Saint-Maurice?

[Bonnie Brown, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Human Resources Development]

Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to comment on secret agreements and to make any sense of the paranoia of that particular party on this file.

All I am telling those members is that they are destroying our ability to attract private sector investment to the province of Quebec. They are working against the best interests of their own constituents.

Health

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Prime Minister went to Alberta, looked the Premier of Alberta in the eye and blinked. The nation was treated to the spectacle of the Prime Minister playing Art Carney to Alberta's Ralph Kramden while the premier denounced the Prime Minister's Minister of Health.

Has the Minister of Health considered resigning given that the Prime Minister has pulled the rug out from underneath him?

[Herb Gray, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member should stop playing Barney Rubble in the House and get down to reality.

The fact of the matter is that the Prime Minister spoke out strongly in support of the five principles of the Canada Health Act. He said that the government would be maintaining them, and this is exactly the position of the Minister of Health. They are working together, along with all the cabinet, in support of a universal quality health care system for all Canadians.

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the fact is that the Canada Health Act was created in 1984 to deal with extra billing and user fees when they became a problem. What is happening in Alberta now is a new level of something that has already existed in the health care system.

I am asking the Minister of Health, not whether he wants to defend the five principles, because that may not be enough, but whether he is willing to change the Canada Health Act so that this new development in Alberta will not threaten medicare the way he knows it does threaten medicare.

[Allan Rock, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, as the Prime Minister himself said last night and as we have been saying in the House for some days, it is only a proposed bill before the Alberta legislature. The premier himself is talking about potential amendments. We have not yet seen the regulations. We will wait for the final product. We will assess it in relation to the Canada Health Act. As the Prime Minister stressed last night, we will be there to protect those principles because that is what Canadians want.

[Greg Thompson, Progressive Conservative, Charlotte, NB]

Mr. Speaker, after having taken a wrecking ball to our health care system, will the minister now at least admit that he has forced the provinces to take extraordinary measures? In fact we might call it radical surgery to deal with the shortfall of federal funding.

Will the minister at least admit that the crisis has been caused by him and his government?

[Allan Rock, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, at the outset we should note that the absent leader of the member's party came out this week in favour of Premier Klein's approach to private for profit hospitals.

What is needed at this time to fix medicare is a combination of innovation and long term financial commitment. That is exactly what we have offered. In fact at my suggestion, ministers of health are meeting next week. We will go to that table with a determination to deal with the number one priority of all Canadians which is to fix medicare.

[Greg Thompson, Progressive Conservative, Charlotte, NB]

Mr. Speaker, this is the old bait and switch technique the minister has used for years in the House. In reality he does not recognize the difference between his aspirin and his elbow. It is time that he stood on his hind legs in the House and took his responsibility seriously in terms of the lead minister constitutionally. We are looking for guidance and leadership on this issue. Throwing it back at some other party in the House just does not cut it.

When will the minister stand up and defend health care in this country?

[The Deputy Speaker]

I assume that the Minister of Health is aware of the effects of the medicine mentioned by the hon. member; the Speaker is not.

[Herb Gray, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. minister is defending health care in a vigorous and effective way. I suggest that if the hon. Conservative member wants to take his responsibilities seriously, the first thing he should do is stand up to his leader and tell his leader to defend health care.

Export Development Corporation

[Charlie Penson, Reform, Peace River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I asked the Minister for International Trade what portion of EDC's $118 million net profit came from the Government of Canada writing off its bad loans. He avoided that question although he talked a lot about concessional versus commercial financing.

Let us talk about commercial financing then. In the private sector the Bank of Montreal has non-performing exposure of 1% on its loan portfolio. I ask the minister to tell the House today what percentage of EDC's corporate account loans are non-performing.

[Pierre Pettigrew, Liberal, Minister for International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, today we have to ask ourselves the question is taxpayers' money well served by funding such a shoddy Reform research office? Reform's only source of information on this file has recognized in its edition this morning that the article contained many errors. It acknowledged that the $2.8 billion reserve in 1999 does not represent actual loan losses as alleged by Reform all week long nor—

[The Deputy Speaker]

The hon. member for Peace River.

[Charlie Penson, Reform, Peace River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians have a tough time understanding why it is so difficult for the minister to answer the question. The question I asked was what percentage of the commercial loans at EDC are non-performing loans. Why can the minister not answer this question? How can Canadian taxpayers know whether they are getting good value for EDC's commercial operations when EDC continues to shield this information from public scrutiny?

[Pierre Pettigrew, Liberal, Minister for International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, will the Reform Party table in the House its own retraction as well as what was in this morning's edition? The EDC did not write off $1.3 billion last year. Its actual loan write-off last year was zero.

Human Resources Development

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we know that $1 million of the funds received by Placeteco went directly to the National Bank, without the projected jobs being created.

The Minister of Human Resources Development tells us, however, that she has $1 million in invoices to justify this payment. So that means that, in total, there are $2 million floating around, although there is only $1 million involved.

My question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. Why is the minister refusing to make public these invoices, which would shed a bit more light on this business which is becoming more and more murky with each passing day?

[Bonnie Brown, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Human Resources Development]

Mr. Speaker, we have been very forthcoming on this file and regarding all our programs. I remind the member that we have put out 10,000 pages of information on grants and contributions.

Information has also been provided on this particular file. I am sure that if the member is serious about obtaining more detailed information, he will access the channels that have been made available to him for that purpose.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary is trying to cloud the issue. We are not referring to the documents that have been released, but to the invoices she has been telling us about for the past two weeks.

The auditor general admits that only through a police investigation will we be able to get to the bottom of certain things that are currently going on at Human Resources Development Canada.

When will the government ask the RCMP to investigate in order to respond to the taxpayers' concerns about how the government is managing public funds?

[Herb Gray, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I believe the hon. member is not accurately quoting the exact words of the auditor general.

The auditor general supports our six point action plan and is also carrying out his own audit, the results of which we expect to have by the fall. I am therefore asking the hon. member to be accurate in quoting the auditor general, who, I say again, supports our six point plan.