House of Commons Hansard #101 of the 36th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was code.
Herb Gray LiberalDeputy Prime Minister
Mr. Speaker, the government has not been trying to hide anything about this database.
I am advised that this database is described in the InfoSource website and in the department's own website. Information is out there about this, so my hon. friend should withdraw her unwarranted assertion. Most of her assertions are unwarranted, especially this one.
Deborah Grey ReformLeader of the Opposition
Mr. Speaker, let me quote again from the HRD website about this big brother database. It says: “It may be provided to private sector firms for planning, statistics, research and evaluation”.
Obviously it is out there in the domain. The Deputy Prime Minister just bragged about it.
Will the minister be giving private companies Canadians' confidential information? Or, might she sell it to the highest bidder?
Herb Gray LiberalDeputy Prime Minister
Mr. Speaker, the member is making an assertion that is totally wrong. I am advised that this information is never sold, and, secondly, that the information is encrypted and no specific information about individuals is given out.
The hon. member has just contradicted herself and swallowed herself whole. First she said that this longitudinal database was secret. When I pointed out that it is already public on websites made available to the public, she jumped up and said “Yes, that's right. It is on those websites”.
Why does she not admit that she does not know what she is talking about?
Diane Ablonczy Reform Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Mr. Speaker, I guess the Deputy Prime Minister thinks it is all right for private business to have every detail of our personal lives.
Canadians are outraged and alarmed to learn that the government has been keeping every detail of their lives on a computer disk, first because the government has been doing it by stealth, second, because the government has abused our trust too many times in the past, and third, because our personal lives are none of the government's business.
Why are the government and the minister so brazen to keep violating the privacy rights of Canadians?
Herb Gray LiberalDeputy Prime Minister
Mr. Speaker, the member has totally misstated what I said. I did not say it is all right for the government to give the private sector details about individual Canadians. I said just the opposite, and she should withdraw that inaccurate assertion.
They are the last ones who should make these assertions. Her party said that there should be a DNA database on every person stopped by the police. Is that respect for privacy? Is that respect for human rights? No.
Diane Ablonczy Reform Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Mr. Speaker, it is a tried and true tactic of the Liberals to attack people who are trying to hold them to account.
Not a single citizen gave permission to this minister and the government to record the details of their lives on a computer disk. Worse, it was not done in a transparent manner and it has been shared outside government with the private sector in a hush-hush manner. Nobody knew about this until the privacy commissioner came forward just this week.
What does the government have to say to Canadians when it has abused their privacy and their trust one more time, too many times?
Herb Gray LiberalDeputy Prime Minister
Mr. Speaker, we do not abuse the privacy or the trust of Canadians. We do not intend to do that, and we have not been doing what the reform alliance would do. To quote the Reform justice critic, “Even those who are found not guilty or have the charges dropped should have their DNA recorded on file because police only arrest people for good reasons”. There are big brother and big sister, and that is not what Canadians want.
Suzanne Tremblay Bloc Rimouski—Mitis, QC
Mr. Speaker, for months now, the Minister of Human Resources Development has been serving us up empty words, evasive answers, shaky proof, sham reports and mismanaged files. The minister has become a cover-up artist.
When will the minister admit that the revelations about her department are creating a serious crisis of confidence with respect to this government from sea to sea to sea?
Jane Stewart LiberalMinister of Human Resources Development
Mr. Speaker, on the contrary, the department is working to provide information in a very transparent fashion. Let us look at what we have done.
In the context of our six point plan, we began by looking at 37 files, reviewing them in detail. We found overpayments. We went after and collected most of the money.
We then looked at the rest of the internal audit files. We looked at them in detail. We found some overpayments. We went out and collected most of the money.
We then looked at 17,000 active files in detail. We found some areas where money was owing. We collected the majority. Today, $6,500 is owing to the government.
Suzanne Tremblay Bloc Rimouski—Mitis, QC
Mr. Speaker, the minister should know that we have long stopped believing in her figures.
First she told us it was $251.54; she told us she had published 10,000 pages and that everything was going swimmingly in her department. She has come out with a sham report that leaves out the more than $2 million that are being investigated. The minister should know that we no longer trust her.
Will the minister assure us that the RCMP will never get its hands on her famous files? She cannot even tell us that. Enough is enough.
Jane Stewart LiberalMinister of Human Resources Development
Mr. Speaker, I fear that the hon. member is trying to lump together some individual files that are being handled by the police. She is presuming the results. She is assuming that there is a direct connection with the department in all cases.
What I want to ensure is that if these officials do come back and indicate that there is wrongdoing, then we will take swift action because we will not accept abuse of public funds.
Paul Crête Bloc Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
Mr. Speaker, I would appreciate getting a clear answer on the same topic.
Can the minister guarantee that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service never had and never will have access to HRDC's megafile either?
Jane Stewart LiberalMinister of Human Resources Development
Mr. Speaker, CSIS and the RCMP do not have direct access to the longitudinal file. If they were to request information from that file they would have to have a court order.
Finally, I would say that an examination has been done with the privacy commissioner, which found that there has never been disclosure for administrative or law enforcement purposes.
Paul Crête Bloc Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
Mr. Speaker, will the minister undertake, in this House and in front of everyone, to destroy that megafile that nobody in Canada wants?
Jane Stewart LiberalMinister of Human Resources Development
Mr. Speaker, not even the privacy commissioner suggested that we do that.
Lorne Nystrom NDP Qu'Appelle, SK
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister.
On Wednesday the Bank of Canada increased the bank rate by some 50 bases points. It said that this was a pre-emptive strike against inflation. Virtually all of the experts have agreed that this is overkill by the Bank of Canada. In fact the inflation rate actually fell last month. It did not go up, it fell.
In light of that, will the finance minister put pressure on the Bank of Canada to reverse the hike in interest rates and refrain from penalizing the Canadian people for an inflation crime they did not commit?
Herb Gray LiberalDeputy Prime Minister
Mr. Speaker, it is not the custom of the Minister of Finance or the government to comment on interest rates or exchange rates.
My hon. friend by now should know something about the autonomous role created by a statute of the House for the Bank of Canada. I think that one could say that we continue to believe that there will be good solid growth in the Canadian economy, based on what has happened so far and with the support of the most recent federal budget.
I hope that as my hon. friend asks his supplementary question he will give the government praise for what has been accomplished so far and what will be accomplished.
Lorne Nystrom NDP Qu'Appelle, SK
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance commented on the bank rate yesterday. The Minister of Finance has the authority under the Bank Act to put pressure on the governor to change the rates if he wants to do so.
On top of this, the Toronto-Dominion Bank and the Royal Bank of Canada yesterday announced record increases in profits in this country. An increased bank rate will mean more money for big banks and less money for ordinary citizens.
I ask once again, in light of the fact that a bank rate increase could also increase the service charge on the national debt by billions of dollars, will the Deputy Prime Minister change his mind, talk to the governor of the Bank of Canada and ask him to roll back the bank rate because inflation is dropping? All he is doing is slowing down the Canadian economy.
Roy Cullen LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance
Mr. Speaker, the member has things slightly mixed up, as usual. The Deputy Prime Minister has said that the finance minister does not intervene in the day to day operations of the Bank of Canada.
What we need to do is look over the medium term in terms of fiscal or monetary policy.
With respect to the prime rate and mortgage rates, despite the recent increases mortgage rates remain between 165 and 200 basis points below their January 1995 peak levels. The prime rate remains 225 basis points below its lowest point of April 1995.
Public Works And Government ServicesOral Question Period
Progressive Conservative
Gilles Bernier Progressive Conservative Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
Mr. Speaker, an internal audit recently prepared by Public Works and Government Services Canada sampled 23 major contracts worth almost $10 billion. Thirteen of those contracts failed the audit.
Can the minister explain how public works mishandled $4.3 billion worth of government contracts by his department's own admission?
Public Works And Government ServicesOral Question Period
Mississauga Centre Ontario
Liberal
Carolyn Parrish LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Minister of Public Works and Government Services
Mr. Speaker, I would not admit that at all.
The government contracting process provides equal access to government contracts for all companies. The procurement process is open, fair and transparent. It is audited by the auditor general every year, and we do co-operate. Sole source contracts are awarded for a very specific reason, whether there is extreme urgency, low dollar values, or only one person that can do the job. They are down 18% since 1993 and represented only 6% two years ago.
They are published on MERX and open to challenge by anyone who wants to question why they were awarded.
Gilles Bernier Progressive Conservative Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
Mr. Speaker, that is nice rhetoric from a government's briefing note.
The audit states that Hercules Avionics is beyond the delivery date. The electronic support and training system is late and needs to be reviewed. The income security program redesign was terminated, and the department has no idea if it got value for its money on the $180 million contract to fix the Y2K bug.
The public works minister has been there for three years and four projects worth over $1 billion were botched under his watch. Why has he not done anything to clean up this mess?
Public Works And Government ServicesOral Question Period
Mississauga Centre Ontario
Liberal
Carolyn Parrish LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Minister of Public Works and Government Services
Mr. Speaker, the Y2K issue is over and done with. We had good results from all the work and all the preparation.
The reason this country and all of its computers did not shut down was because of due diligence on the part of the minister and the government.
Chuck Strahl Reform Fraser Valley, BC
Mr. Speaker, the big brother database is a huge intrusion into people's lives. It knows their income, when they have been employed, when they have been unemployed, whether they have been eligible for EI benefits, whether they have ever been in a national training program, whether they ever had social assistance. It even knows their family situations. It knows about their T-4 slips, their T-1 slips and whether they have ever been on social assistance at any time in their lives.
It knows everything about us from cradle to grave. Why do they want this information from innocent, law-abiding citizens?
Jane Stewart LiberalMinister of Human Resources Development
Mr. Speaker, for three days now the party of the extreme right has been saying that we should not have the research database that we have.
It is interesting that the Harris government, particularly the ministry of transportation, is selling confidential driver data including home addresses to private companies without the consent of Ontarians. It sells this personal information to collection agencies and insurance companies, the companies that the hon. member said should not have them.
Do members know what hurts? They are making money from it and are refusing to tell us in this province how much it is worth.