Madam Speaker, on February 18, I asked a question to the Minister of Human Resources Development regarding the scandal at Human Resources Development Canada.
The question—this is rather paradoxical today—was about the fact that the minister kept hiding behind her six point action plan. On February 18, we did not know that a professional opinion provided by a well known firm of chartered accountants, Deloitte & Touche, said that the six point plan is a good approach to settle short term issues, but it does not in any way respond to the in depth problems at Human Resources Development Canada.
Since then, we learned that the Deloitte & Touche report strongly criticized the government. We did not find, in the six point plan, adjustments that reflect these observations.
The department's website tells us that advice was received from the Treasury Board on the six point plan and that the recommendations were followed.
The government received the recommendations of the auditor general on the immediate changes required to the plan and followed them, but in the case of Deloitte & Touche, whose recommendations were that the plan would not resolve the substantial problems, the government does not indicate that it has followed them.
We are therefore looking at a situation where the question I asked on April 18 is even more relevant today. Faced with this situation, we can only wonder why HRDC continues to defend this six point plan, why it refuses that an independent public inquiry be held and why it does not make the connection between the deplorable situation, the lax approach and the scandal at HRDC and the use of public funds for partisan purposes.
Not only is there a major administrative problem but, if we look at the three years of the transitional job fund, during the 1997 electoral period, 54% of the money available during this period was spent in Quebec, and in ridings represented by Bloc Quebecois members the figure even rose to 63%.
These important clues are telling us that the program was used for the Liberal Party of Canada's own benefit instead of helping citizens in Quebec and Canada who should be able to avail themselves of these programs.
It is quite sad because job creation programs per se are a good thing. The Bloc has always maintained that the government should use this money to level out discrepancies between areas with a low unemployment rate and the others. But the current behaviour of the government has harmed the operation of these programs to such a degree that they are now discredited and that their opponents are gathering support. In my view, this is unacceptable.
The current government is to be blamed entirely for this sad state of affairs. It is the Prime Minister who masterminded this system whereby public money is used for partisan purposes.
I would like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources Development why, three months after the HRDC scandal came to light, corrective measures are yet to be taken to remedy the situation and cure the cancer that is destroying HRDC.
