Debates of May 16th, 2000

Committees Of The House

[Gar Knutson, Liberal, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There is a rule to prevent members from being disrespectful to the other place.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The hon. parliamentary secretary has a very good point. We refer to the other place as the other place, and as an organ of governance we respect each other. They respect us; we respect them.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Edmonton North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I was not paying disrespect. I was listing their names and their political connections to the Liberal party. You have said that we should refer to it as the other place. You know perfectly well that the Speaker of the House has allowed us to call it the Senate for some years now. If it would make the hon. member happy, I will call it the other place.

Let me talk about some members of the other place and their Liberal connections. I mentioned Sharon Carstairs and Landon Pearson, both of whom are very pleasant people, but they ought to have been elected to the position and then they would have a mandate and authority.

Lise Bacon, a former Liberal deputy premier of Quebec, was appointed on September 15, 1994.

[Marlene Catterall, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am trying my best to stretch my imagination to imagine what the relevance might be of the hon. member's comments to the topic she is presumably discussing, which I believe is the report of a committee of the House. That has absolutely nothing to do with the other place, the people who sit in it, or how they got there.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The point of order, of course, is relevant to the relevance. I, for one, was also most interested to see how the Leader of the Opposition was going to weave this back into relevance.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Edmonton North, AB]

I will do it immediately, Mr. Speaker. I am going to weave this together to show that these senators, who basically have no authority and no mandate, approve every single dime that goes through this place and through the Senate, including all HRD spending. I did that in less than 35 seconds.

Let me tell hon. members who those people are in the other place. Jean Robert-Gauthier was appointed on November 23, 1994. He was a long time Liberal member of parliament. John Bryden, a candidate for Liberal leader in New Brunswick, who managed the Prime Minister's 1990 New Brunswick Liberal leadership campaign, was appointed on November 23, 1994.

It is still relevant. Then we have Rose-Marie Losier-Cool, Céline Hervieux-Payette, Marie Paule Poulin, Doris Anderson, William Rompkey and Lorna Milne.

Let me back up to Bill Rompkey for a minute. He and I served together in the House. I saw him this morning. He is a fine fellow, again, but I bet he would have a whole lot more relevancy if he were elected to the place.

Shirley Maheu is another former member of parliament who used to sit in the chair. She has now gone over to the other place.

Nick Taylor was the Alberta Liberal leader in days gone by. Nick is a great guy. We had lots of fun together. His provincial riding took a portion of my federal riding in Beaver River. He and his wife Peg and I had some wonderful visits back and forth. He could have run in that election in Alberta and I bet he would have won.

I would like to ask the hon. member for Edmonton Southeast if he agrees with me that Nick Taylor could have won a Senate election had he run. He looks doubtful, but there we are.

Jean Forest is, again, another pleasant woman with whom I have ridden back and forth on the plane any number of times.

Eugene Whalen was a former Liberal cabinet minister under Trudeau.

Then we have Léonce Mercier, Wilfred Moore and Lucie Pépin. Catherine Callbeck is another member I sat with in the House in days gone by. Then we have Sister Peggy Butts. Fernand Robichaud is another former MP. Then we have Marisa Ferretti Barth and Serge Joyal.

Thelma Chalifoux is another great woman from Alberta with whom I travel back and forth on the plane all the time. She said to me one time “I probably could not get elected because I am a woman”. I think she said she was Metis. Surely she could have been elected. Thelma has some real abilities. She is serving in the other place. I do not disrespect her, but she would have a lot more of a powerful punch if she were elected.

The list goes on: Joan Cook, Archibald Johnston, Ross Fitzpatrick, and Tommy Banks, whom I have not yet seen on the plane. He was just appointed on April 7, 2000. He is the one who was put in Ron Ghitter's place, when we have two fine senators-elect from Alberta, Bert Brown and Ted Morton. They are the senators in waiting. They are the legitimate senators. Although Tommy Banks plays a fine tune, he has no legitimacy here because he was appointed.

The list continues: James Bernard Boudreau; Ione Christensen; Sheila Finestone, another Liberal member with whom I sat in the House; Joan Fraser, who is a great woman; George Furey; Aurélien Gill; Richard Kroft; Frank Mahovlich, the big M .

Members are concerned about this. We can see how touchy this is. It has sparked some fireworks. The problem is that these people who are appointed to political work, to get their reward and their favour in the other place, put through every single dollar of spending by this government, and that is illegitimate.

[Dennis Mills, Liberal, Broadview—Greenwood, ON]

What is wrong with it?

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Edmonton North, AB]

The member for Broadview—Greenwood asks what is wrong with it. That is exactly what is wrong with the Liberals and the political system.

Frank Mahovlich: “He shot; he scored”. Then we have Marion Maloney, Melvin Perry, and Vivian Poy, another wonderful woman. She is Adrienne Clarkson's sister-in-law. She is a great woman who has no legitimacy in the other place. Then we have Douglas James Roche, another fellow from Alberta who has made a real name for himself; Calvin Woodrow Ruck; Nick Sibbeston, who was the former N.W.T. premier; John Wiebe from Saskatchewan; Lois Wilson; and Jean Louis Roux.

The point is, we have these HRD scandals. We have a government which has proven that it is truly illegitimate because of the heavy hand of the Prime Minister, all of the grants that I have documented today, the HRD mess that this government has put us into, and the idea of political interference. The member for Broadview—Greenwood knows perfectly well that there is political interference. He and I have had discussions over the years when he has been so frustrated that he has marched up and down the hall. He knows it. He is still frustrated. I probably cannot help that. It is part of life. Sure it is part of life, but we do what we can to get over the frustration. We do not just carry on with the system the way it is and say “That is the way it is”.

Let me get back to government spending and government mismanagement in terms of grants and contributions. We have just finished the end of the fiscal year. I would like to point out what happens to grants and contributions when March madness takes—

[Dennis Mills, Liberal, Broadview—Greenwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member is aware of my deep respect for her. However, I think there is something she said earlier that might be misunderstood by the millions of people who are watching this debate.

Yes, this is a place where nearly every day of the week one can experience frustration. However, I would not want my community in Toronto or other communities across Canada to think that I am opposed to Human Resources Development Canada. Do we have mistakes and do we—

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

I am sorry. That is getting perilously close to debate. I gave the hon. member as much latitude as I could. I would ask the hon. member for Broadview—Greenwood to come to the point please.

[Dennis Mills, Liberal, Broadview—Greenwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was just about to make my point. It is very important.

The point I want to make is that, in spite of frustration, in no way, shape or form should the member leave the image with the people of Canada that we do not support Human Resources Development Canada.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Edmonton North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, standing to set the record straight is a good try. I understand that the member gets frustrated, but I think his constituents know that he is a tireless worker on their behalf. They probably also know that he believes in HRD funding. I know he has supported the minister time and time again. I disagree with him on that, but I certainly respect his right to do so. I want to set the record straight on that.

I was talking about the Senate, but I think I should go on to something else because I am upsetting the people on the other side.

I want to move on, Mr. Speaker, because my time is short. I want to talk for a few minutes about March madness, fiscal year end spending, which I mentioned before I was interrupted.

The Canadian Alliance Party has analyzed an access to information request received from Public Works and Government Services Canada, listing all grant and contribution spending over four fiscal years by all departments and agencies of the federal government. Spending by 30 departments and agencies is listed over the period April 1 to March 31 for the years 1996-97 to 1999-00. The month of March 2000 was not available at the time of request.

Year end spending was an issue addressed by the disastrous program integrity internal audit of human resources development. It noted that HRD money was spent to avoid losing it at the end of each fiscal year. In other words, there was x amount of money in the budget and if March 1 arrived before a department spent it all, the department would look for ways to spend the money to avoid it being taken away at the end of March.

[Dennis Mills, Liberal, Broadview—Greenwood, ON]

Put it back into the economy.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Edmonton North, AB]

Here we go with the Liberal viewpoint of hurry up, spend it, get it back into the economy. I can see why the people in charge think that March madness is the way to go now that we have a $600 billion debt.

The review found that across all 1998-99 contribution programs examined, some $261 million, or 26.3% of all project expenses, was paid out after March 1. One-quarter of the year's spending was spent in one month, the month of March. These expenditures are typically advances for the coming fiscal year to avoid lapsing funds at the end of the year.

The total amounts of grants and contributions spent by fiscal year across all departments and agencies of the federal government were as follows: 1996-97, $14.12 billion; 1997-98, $14.26 billion; 1998-99, $15.22 billion; and 1999-00—and of course the month of March is not available—$11.60 billion. This brings the total to $55.2 billion. That is unbelievable.

Given the fact that I have drawn attention to these things I can understand why some Liberal members are frustrated when they look at these facts. It is probably a little embarrassing.

I will get ready to wind down because we do have to get to question period. I am sure that Liberal members are grateful because I know they want to be drilled and grilled again about some of their general mismanagement.

Members have been pressing me to tie this issue together. It is easy to tie together. This government is out of control. It says that it is managing our money and looking after Canadians. Yet we see massive amounts of money being spent that is based on, I believe, political manipulation. We see a government whose members say that they are in control and claim that everything is okay. Yet the same government has invoked closure more times than the Mulroney Tories. I never thought it would happen. I believed these guys. I guess that shows how naive I was. I believed members when they told us that things would be a whole lot different when the Liberals formed the government. I do not see a lot of difference and I do not think my friend from Broadview—Danforth does either.

I would like to cite a few things from question period. I am sorry that I will barely be able to touch the surface of this binder.

Some of the questions we have asked and some of the answers that have been given to us have frustrated us because the Canadian public is not getting the answers,

Let me refer to question period on February 7, the day after the HRD boondoggle had blown loose. The former leader of the opposition, the member for Calgary Southwest, said:

Mr. Speaker, Canadian taxpayers pay the highest personal income taxes in the western world. No wonder they are angry therefore when they find out that more than a billion of those hard earned taxpayer dollars have been grossly mismanaged by the Minister of Human Resources Development.

If the human resources minister had any respect for Canadian taxpayers and respect for the principle of ministerial accountability, she would rise in her place today and resign from cabinet.

Remember the note I talked about earlier from the Prime Minister when he said his ministers would take responsibility. She did not. Would the minister resign? Of course the Prime Minister said he would not accept the resignation if it were offered. That goes a little counter to what he had said earlier. Then the former leader asked:

The Prime Minister intervenes not to protect Canadian taxpayers, but to protect the discredited minister.

These are the folks who are footing the bill on all this stuff. He went on to say:

In 1991 the Prime Minister said “When we form government, every minister in the cabinet will have to take full responsibility for what is going on in their department. If there is any bungling in the department, the minister will have to take responsibility”.

When did the Prime Minister abandon the principle of holding cabinet ministers accountable?

The Prime Minister responded by saying that she was just doing okay and that everything was fine. The member for Calgary Southwest went on to say:

—a fish rots from the top down.

We pointed out last year that moneys from the transitional jobs fund were being misused in the Prime Minister's riding. The Prime Minister excused it. He accepted no responsibility. He set the wrong example. Now that little scandal from Shawinigan has become the billion dollar boondoggle in human resources.

Why does the Prime Minister not start accepting responsibility for this gross misuse of taxpayers' money and fire the Minister of Human Resources Development?

That did not happen and it has dogged them. It has gone on and on and on. It has now come down to the coffee shop level. In fact, my husband and I were at the Alberta land titles place a while ago. A fellow came up to me. I forget what he was asking about, but he said he ought to get an HRD grant for it. When people are talking at the ground level about it, we know that it has resonated from the holy hill all the way down to people at the ground level. When they start talking like that, it makes us wonder how much general respect there is for a government and a Prime Minister who is not terribly concerned about it.

When we came back on February 7, I asked the following question:

It is one thing for the minister to say that everything is going just great in her department. She has borrowed a pair of flip-flops from the industry minister.

He had just gone through a wonderful deal for the NHL hockey teams that lasted about 24 hours. She was following his lead. I went on to say:

First she said everything was really well managed and that she was just proud as punch of it. On November 4 she said, “Nothing inappropriate was done in terms of the administration of the approval process”. But now she admits that maybe some things were overlooked, little things, like application forms and things like that.

Why will the minister not just accept the responsibility she has for this billion dollar bungle and resign?

She said no, that everything was okay. She said “Let me repeat again that there have been no $1 billion lost”. I did not say that there had been a billion lost. I said there was a billion dollars bungled and pretty hard to track down. Of course the RCMP are trying to track some of it down right now. She said “We know where the money is”. On and on its goes. One of my colleagues from Edmonton—Strathcona said:

The human resources minister should take advice from the Prime Minister. Back in his righteous days he said “When you are a minister and your bureaucrats do well, you take the credit. I always took the credit. On the other side...when I made a mistake, I took the blame.

The Prime Minister said that earlier. Who has the HRD minister, in fact probably all of them, blamed? The bureaucrats. It is not their fault. They are getting the political direction from the top and they are doing what they have been told to do. To me that is the pity of it because their political masters are getting involved in some of the things they should be making wise decisions on.

Let us look at the questions we asked in February. There were no answers. In March it was the same thing. We asked any number of questions. If we were to get an answer there would not be so many pages of questions that we have to ask.

In April, not long ago, we were asking all kinds of questions. The unfortunate part is they are not being answered correctly by the government. Sure, answers are tossed off to have something in Hansard , but at the same time the minister knows that she is not out of the woods yet. We continue to find more and more information.

Let me just make a couple of remarks in closing about what has gone on in the HRDC committee. I could go on for a long time about it. We have seen some of the results. When a minister gets brought to committee, it is unbelievable some of the things he or she will say which simply do not make a lot of sense.

When the minister was called to committee on Thursday, February 10, the chair, the member for Peterborough, said:

The gavel has now gone down. I would ask the media to leave.

There is an open and happy little affair. Upon asking the witness to take her seat, the minister did so. On and on and on we go. She talked about all kinds of things. None of them gave answers, though. Basically I could condense probably 150 pages to quote the minister as saying it is okay; we have the six point plan; everything is all right; everything will be okay. It goes on and on and on.

Then Claire Morris was called in. She was asked a lot of questions. Then Mel Cappe was brought in and he was asked a lot of questions. I went to that particular meeting that day. It was fascinating because Mel Cappe basically said that he was not really free to answer that question. If we are talking about government money and taxpayer dollars, there had better be a lot of people who are willing to answer.

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I hate to interrupt the member's remarks, but she did mention me, the member for Peterborough, as chair of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development. She implied that the media were not present at the meeting. This is not true, as she knows. All the meetings were fully televised. At meetings which are televised by the House of Commons it is normal practice not to have commercial television there. That was the reason for the statement which the member quoted from me at the meeting.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Edmonton North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that correction. I think I probably said that the media was asked to leave the room. I forget the comment I made after that. I will have to check the blues. I know those meetings were publicized and I appreciate that rebuke. I thank the member very much.

[An hon. member]

As well they should have been.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Edmonton North, AB]

As well they should have been. As time is drawing to a close because we have to move forward to question period to ask some more questions—

[Some hon. members]

More, more.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Edmonton North, AB]

I would be happy to say more. I would like to ask if we could have unanimous consent in the House to cancel question period and I will carry on.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The hon. Leader of the Opposition has asked for unanimous consent to cancel question period. I do not know if we can do that even with unanimous consent because it is a standing order. Is there unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Edmonton North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, many people over there came here in the 1997 election. It is easy to throw the shots across. I like to take it as well as I can give it. I appreciate the comments from the other side today, but they were not here in the 1988 election. The minister of state was not here in the 1988 election. She was not sitting in the back with many of us. The member from Broadview—Danforth was not here listening to all the promises.

The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development from Kenora—Rainy River was here. We sat side by side. Things were going to be a whole lot different. Things were going to be better. He could say maybe they are, but in terms of shutting down democracy in this place, or what we would hope would be democracy in this place, it seems to me something dreadful has gone wrong in their dreams or their plans.

I have quoted members of the House today about how horrible it was under the Mulroney Conservatives. It was an affront to democracy that they did not get a chance to speak. Democratic debate was shut down in the House. They were exercised about it. They were sick about it. Things were going to be different. Things were going to be better.

I heard from two members today earlier in the debate that it is much harder to do this when one is the government. Bunk. They have not had to shut down debate. In terms of major pieces of legislation since this bunch formed the government back in 1993 there is precious little of longstanding repute.

It seems to me, when we look at some of the major pieces of legislation, that we could have had any amount of time to have every member of the House bring forward a regional flavour on how a particular piece of legislation would affect them. Yet the government says it is too busy doing the great things of the nation and moving forward. The House leader rants in a scrum and talks about horrible opposition members.

When Mulroney was on the other side bringing in time allocation, the House leader was one of the worst people over here for making a fuss about it. Members who were here know that. Yet here he is today, the proud champion of the head of the Ottawa 67s. Some 67 times the government has brought in closure or time allocation on debate in six years.

[An hon. member]

You are still here.