Debates of June 6th, 2000

Supply

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

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I again seek the unanimous consent of the House to ask the Minister of Human Resources Development, who is responsible for this department, which has been in a state of crisis for several months now, to deign to give us five more minutes so that we can perform our duty as representatives of the public in this parliament.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

Is there agreement to extend the period provided for questions of the minister?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[Andy Scott, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join in this debate as it gives me an opportunity to add my support to those who recognize that there is absolutely nothing to be gained from an independent, politically motivated commission of inquiry as proposed by the official opposition.

We have been over this ground before. The opposition is a one trick pony on this file. We tell opposition members about the benefits that individual Canadians derive from HRDC programs, and they call for an inquiry. We tell them about how important HRDC programs are to strengthening the social fabric of the nation, something of which I am sure they know little, and they call for an inquiry. We read to them the letters and comments from Canadians from every part of Canada who support the government's approach to human resources development, and they call for an inquiry. Now we give them an opposition day to discuss the nation's business, and they call for an inquiry. That is the only line that party has.

The rest of us have moved on. Those of us on the government side have gone past inquiring. We are working on this issue. We have already agreed that problems were identified with the administration of HRDC grants and contributions. We have accepted that. We have already agreed that corrective action needed to be taken to address the problem. We are moving forward with the kinds of action that are needed to do just that. In fact, the government is taking this issue extremely seriously, as can be seen in the six point plan announced by the Minister of Human Resources Development in the House.

Let me quickly remind the House what the minister committed to do. The minister committed to ensure that the payments meet financial and program requirements; to check and correct the program files; to equip and support the staff, who are working tirelessly I might add; to ensure accountability; to get the best advice available; and to report on progress.

This is a comprehensive, responsible plan. It is a plan of action that has been endorsed by the auditor general, who is only quoted from the other side with criticism, but remember the quote “This action plan is a very thorough plan for corrective action”. “A very thorough plan for corrective action” is what the auditor general said. That should be good enough to move forward.

The real question should be: What is being done to carry out this plan? We do not need an inquiry to answer that. We need to look at what is being done to address the deficiencies that have been identified.

Canadians want to know that they can continue to depend on these programs and they want their accounts to be properly administered. That is why the appearance of the minister before the standing committee was so important.

The minister used the occasion to bring committee members up to date on the progress being made in the implementation of that well received plan. During her appearance she tabled a report. It provided a wealth of important information for those who are genuinely concerned about this issue.

For example, the report confirms that all documentation for HRDC active grants and contributions is now in order. The minister pointed out that close to 17,000 active files were reviewed in addition to those audited. The total contract value was just over $1.5 billion. Of that $1.5 billion, a total of $6,500 was owed to the Government of Canada. That is $6,500 out of $1.5 billion researched.

The work to clean up and review these files has been extraordinary. Many public servants have been working night and day, turning in a lot of extra effort for which they deserve our thanks. They have been going through file after file. I would point out that is because those dedicated public servants believe in programs around literacy and disability and young Canadians getting into the workforce.

Much of the information in the past was not adequate. The government learned from that. We know that proper paperwork is central to the accountability of public funds. We have moved decisively to deal with these deficiencies in manners that are earning the praise of the auditor general. That is not all. The department is also making progress on other elements of the plan. For example, it is better equipping and supporting the staff who administer the programs. The minister has already called for more training of the staff at HRDC, and since January more than 3,000 program and finance employees have received training. A training strategy has been developed to ensure that all appropriate staff receive mandatory training on the delivery of grants and contributions.

The department has also improved its organizational accountability by restructuring so that it can better accommodate the challenge of balancing national standards with regional program delivery.

The Human Resources Investment Branch has been split in two. One branch is responsible for nationally delivered programs, and the second branch is responsible for those that are delivered regionally.

Departmental officials continue to draw on expert advice from the auditor general, as well as others, as required.

On every one of these aspects of the plan significant progress is being made.

The department is also being open and transparent in reporting on its work. The minister has stood in the House and answered questions for months. She has appeared before the standing committee. She has tabled a full report on the progress to date. In addition, she has undertaken to respond to all legitimate requests for information from members of parliament, so much so that when the information commissioner appeared before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights he gave her an A+.

The privacy commissioner, to some extent on the other side, also told her that she was doing an extraordinarily good job on that side of the equation. It is not an easy balance to find.

There were 10,000 pages of project information tabled before the standing committee.

The government believes that the best interests of all Canadians are served when we strike an appropriate balance between clear accountability to taxpayers and getting results for Canadians. Indeed, this will always be a fundamental challenge of good governance. Obviously there have been weaknesses in the department, but they have been identified. We have established a plan to correct them and we are working to implement that plan.

As far as I am concerned, the process is working. I fail to see how a politically motivated inquiry such as that proposed by the opposition could add anything useful to this process at this stage and I will not be supporting it.

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

Madam Speaker, from what my colleague says, a person would think Human Resources Development Canada was a model department.

Among the 10,000 sheets of paper we are supposed to have been sent, we asked for an invoice from Placeteco justifying the spending of $1.2 million. The minister herself came to the committee to tell us everything is fine in the active files. But she said nothing about the inactive ones where it is not. We have asked repeatedly for records on Conili Star and Placeteco.

I will tell you why the Liberal majority does not want to change the rules of the game. In the next election, they will be able to take advantage of the same system they did the last time. That is the only reason they are refusing to hold an independent public inquiry.

They know full well that some of the funds were used for partisan purposes, particularly in the time of the predecessor of the present minister, who is now Minister for International Trade. He systematically put the funding program at the service of the Liberal Party of Canada.

Does the main responsibility for the poor image of the job creation projects not lie with the present Minister of Human Resources Development, who is herself in the process of taking away all credibility from programs which could be credible undertakings? Her behaviour is stripping them of all credibility.

I wish to ask the hon. member, who sat on the standing HRD committee, what he thinks of the attitude of a minister who, two hours after the release of a report, calls a scrum just to announce “I haven't read the report. I am not familiar with the recommendation for dismantling”.

The minister is here, and the hon. member is here. Might we have his opinion on the dismantling of the department? He signed the report. What are his thoughts on the minister's response?

[Andy Scott, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Madam Speaker, I welcome the reference to my high regard for the minister because, ultimately, as a partisan, he may not recognize my being less than biased.

I am sure the comments of the information commissioner or the privacy commissioner, and the comments that have been made by those people who are in the business of keeping an eye on the government, and the fact that the minister scores so high on both fronts, is worthy of comment and I appreciate the opportunity to repeat it.

I have great regard for the member who asked the question. One of the reasons I have that regard is because I know he is effective in his riding in getting things for his constituency. Are the programs that are represented by this department not so important as to be tainted, perhaps not by this member but by others, by what is obviously a politically motivated assault on the kinds of programs that members across the way simply do not believe in? It is that simple.

I know that is not the case with the member across the way. I believe he supports these programs. We sat on the committee together for a long time. We have made great progress, particularly since this minister became the minister responsible for this department, and the member knows that. The report that was written by the committee was an important report. The member has been talking about the kinds of things which are in that report for many years.

It is important to recognize when progress is made, and progress has been made. I would ask the member if he does not fear that by being party to this politically motivated assault may have the effect of jeopardizing programs which I know have been very generous to him. I would want him to think about that.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is unfortunate that not all opposition parties could put a question to the minister, but I will put a question to the hon. member who just spoke.

One of the real issues that needs to be addressed is to ensure that there is a code of conduct within all departments for the disbursement of grants and contributions to provide an assurance to Canadians that there is not partisan decision making.

Would the hon. member support something like that, to ensure that there is fairness, transparency and consistency of practice in the decision making process for grants and contributions?

[Andy Scott, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Madam Speaker, absolutely I would support it because it exists now. The problem with members opposite is that when I call it is political interference, but when members opposite call they are making an inquiry.

It is not fair. We are elected by the people of Canada to represent the interests of our constituents, the same as members opposite, and we have every bit as much right to make those calls of inquiry that have been supported on the other side.

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Calgary West.

It is a pleasure to rise to address this issue, calling for an independent inquiry into human resources development. It would be an understatement to say that the minister's handling of HRD has been a disaster. That does not come close to describing it.

After having heard the member for Fredericton speak, I am not surprised it has been the disaster it has been. I just heard him compliment a member from the Bloc, saying—and this would be a high Liberal compliment I guess—that he is very effective at getting things for his riding. Government is Santa Claus to the Liberals. It is this endless pit of money.

Is it any wonder that they have made this great contribution to driving our debt to its present height of $577 billion. It is not surprising at all.

I want to talk about what actually happened. The whole modus operandi of the member who just spoke, the minister and the Liberal government has been to cover up this issue, and then when they get exposed they downplay it.

Let me run through what has happened. We heard the minister in the House today trying to justify how it was that months after her own officials knew about the disaster at HRD she was merrily writing cheques to the tune of half a billion dollars on a program that was so fundamentally broken that the internal audit had shown that about a billion dollars had been issued without proper accounting, in some cases without records indicating what the money was to be used for and without grant applications. It was a nightmare.

Between the time when this was first exposed by the interim audit and officials in the government knew about it, and three months later when the minister acknowledged that she knew about it, and even after she knew about it, she continued to write cheques, even though there were no controls in place. The money poured out.

As we mentioned today in question period, the most money poured out in the month of November, the month that she allegedly knew about this for the first time. There was $165 million which poured out in that month and there were no proper controls. It is unbelievable.

When we raised these things, of course the government said that it had been transparent. I want to hit that on the head right now. The truth is that the government had no intention of releasing anything until such time as the official opposition, the Canadian Alliance, at that time the Reform Party, submitted an access to information request on January 17. Lo and behold, on January 19 the government called a hasty news conference to say there were problems in human resources development. It said that there had been an audit and there were problems.

That is exactly what we asked for in our access request, a copy of any internal audits. Amazingly, this turned up two days later. The government was trying to do damage control.

The minister said she had been transparent all along. Why was it that she got the full briefing on November 17 but nothing was released until January 19 if she wanted to be completely transparent? Why did it take those two intervening months? I do not understand that if she was completely transparent. We have documents that show that the spin doctors in the minister's department were saying that nothing should be released until such time as someone thought to ask for the information through an access to information request.

When she says that she is fully transparent, that is only true in one sense. The sense is that we can see right through her when she says that.

The truth is the minister was not transparent. She is still not transparent. The member for Calgary—Nose Hill, the official opposition critic for human resources development, did an outstanding job of providing case after case after case to show that the minister is anything but transparent.

We are seeking all kinds of information that is completely relevant to this $1 billion mismanagement, this boondoggle, that the Liberals will not release. It was a misrepresentation both by the member for Fredericton and the minister when they said that all the access to information requests were being processed. Then they got up and read something from the privacy commissioner saying that everything has been done on time. That was before the audit was released.

Ever since then all of our access to information requests get submitted and it takes longer and longer to get information back. I am sure that the strategy is to put it off at least until the summer, to try to get to the summer so the Liberals can get this issue off the front burner and on to the back burner.

It is disingenuous, insincere talk that we get from the government about how transparent it is. The opposite is the case.

There are 20 police investigations. I heard the minister say that this was about $6,500. If that is not the most ridiculous laughable statement that I have heard in this place today, I do not know what is. The truth is that there are now 20 police investigations probing what has gone on in HRD. That tells us a little bit about how serious this situation is.

There are four investigations in the Prime Minister's riding alone. There are all kinds of accusations about money being used improperly and there are many questions about the Prime Minister's office skipping normal procedures to ensure that money went to people he favoured. It is unbelievable. The Liberals have somehow brushed this off: it is only $1 billion with which all this mismanagement is occurring so why be concerned?

Then the Liberals move into downplay mode. Now that the cover-up has been exposed, they want to downplay it. They say it is ancient history, that was before and they are looking to the future. In truth, if the government is to be the least bit responsible, people have to be held accountable for this type of incompetence on one hand and blatant political pork-barrelling on the other hand. If there is to be any sense of justice in this place, then people who have made major mistakes have an obligation to own up to them and to be punished for them.

In the private sector people do not escape these things. I would argue that in situations like this people would go to jail. And here we have that kind of unbelievable negligence with the public's tax dollars to the tune of $1 billion. It is unbelievable.

The time has long passed for the government to accept that there were major, major problems in this department, but it continues to stonewall. The Liberals want to look forward. The most interesting example of that was when the Prime Minister was in Germany the other day. He said that he wanted the upcoming election to be about ideologies. It was obvious by what was not said, that he did not want to talk about the record.

If the Liberals talk about the record, they will have to talk about probably one of the worst scandals in terms of government misspending that we have ever seen under their watch. There are 20 police investigations and $1 billion has been poured out the door plus another $500 million in the months since August and in some cases there is absolutely no accounting for it. This is unbelievable.

The Liberals do not want to talk about their record and who could blame them. We would be happy to take them on on the issue of ideology, but the trouble is they would have to find one. Their party does not seem to stand for anything except trying to get elected.

What we have seen in HRDC is a perfect example of the situation when we talk about the administration process. The transitional jobs fund is a clear attempt by the Liberals to lever themselves back into power by pouring money into certain key ridings hoping that the public will be bought off by political pork-barrelling. It is to the point where the HRD committee itself has recommended that the department be broken up without fully saying that it is the result of this boondoggle.

We must have an independent inquiry. What we have seen so far is stonewalling from the government. The Canadian public deserves some answers.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for Mississauga South, International Trade.

[Rob Anders, Reform, Calgary West, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague has done a lot today to open people's eyes with regard to the type of swindle that is going on particularly in places like Shawinigan. I would like to ask him about some businesses that I know get funding out of HRDC and whether or not he thinks that is appropriate.

I happen to shop at Wal-Mart. It gets a lot of my money and I know it gets a lot of other people's money too. That company makes enough money from Canadians by what they voluntarily choose to buy. I do not think it is fair that Wal-Mart gets subsidies from HRDC but that is exactly what is going on. It is not just Wal-Mart because the list goes on.

In my riding alone the list includes Shoppers Drug Mart, another profitable company that is getting HRDC funds, taxpayer money. There are private accounting firms in my riding that have access to these government funds. Canada Safeway is another profitable company that has access to HRDC funds. These big companies are getting access to HRDC funds.

Canadians who may not be making much money are paying taxes so that the government can subsidize these private corporations. What does the hon. member think of Canadian taxpayer dollars subsidizing private companies with HRDC funds as the Liberals are doing?

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

Madam Speaker, I share my colleague's concern about what is happening with these funds.

I remind the House that in Canada today the Liberal government takes $7 billion a year in income tax from people making less than $20,000 a year. Then it turns around and funnels that money through HRDC and puts it back into funding friends of the Liberal Party and members of the Liberal government. In some cases the money goes to huge corporations. That is fundamentally wrong. I cannot believe members on that side of the House would stand for it.

In Canada today under the Liberal government, taxpayers pay income tax after they have earned $7,031. That money goes to the finance minister and then over to the human resources development minister who in turn sends it to companies.

I applaud my friend for pointing out that there are people in his riding who are getting this money. I applaud him for exposing this. It is quite unlike the member for Fredericton who thinks that government is Santa Claus and the purpose of government is to distribute goodies. That is not the purpose of government.

Government should be there in a limited way, not to interfere in the economy. We all agree that government should be there to keep the peace to ensure that we have criminal courts and decent defence for our country. Those are the things the government should do. It should not try to micromanage the economy. I cannot believe that at the beginning of the 21st century the government still thinks the role of government is to try to pick winners in the economy, when all of history shows it simply cannot be done.

[Mac Harb, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, my colleague can ramble on for the whole day, but the agenda of that political party is to get rid of government support for people in high unemployment areas. I want him to stand and tell 30,000 Canadians who are in high unemployment areas that he wants to cancel programs and assistance that are provided to the private sector to create jobs. I want him to tell the 15,000 Canadians with disabilities who have benefited from these programs that he wants to cancel them. I want him to tell the over 300,000—

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

I am afraid I must interrupt the hon. member so the hon. member for Medicine Hat can respond.

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

Madam Speaker, there is the difference in the vision. The Liberals want to hand out grants. We want to get people jobs, opportunity and a future. That is the big difference between the Canadian Alliance and the Liberal Party. The Liberals seem to think the only way they can help people is to cut a cheque. Shame on them.

[Rob Anders, Reform, Calgary West, AB]

Madam Speaker, for the folks back home I want to make sure they clearly understand what we are talking about. We are talking about human resources development and the massive boondoggle that the whole department is.

All the opposition parties have requested an independent inquiry into the ongoings at HRDC. I would like to add that the first committee I sat on when I was elected to the House of Commons barely three years ago was human resources development. Oftentimes I sat there with my jaw to the floor when I recognized exactly where taxpayers' funds were going in that $57 billion monster. I came to this job thinking there were problems in government, but when I sat on the HRDC committee I got a bigger shock than I was expecting.

There have been 20 different investigations with regard to what has been going on with HRDC. The worst part of it is that it is thickest among the benches of the cabinet ministers. There are four investigations in the Prime Minister's riding alone.

There is a system right now whereby things are being rubber stamped for the Prime Minister and other cabinet ministers' ridings or in ridings where the Liberals think they have the possibility of losing a seat. Right before elections and during elections they are pumping untold sums of money into those ridings so they can salvage them. They are doing it with taxpayer dollars. They are trying to buy votes. It is the most blatant abuse we could possibly imagine.

All of the opposition parties have been calling for an investigation into this blatant vote buying by the Liberals with taxpayer dollars. They should be ashamed of themselves.

The Canadian Alliance put out a dissenting opinion with regard to HRDC and the grants and contributions on Thursday, June 1. It was pointed out that there has been a lack of transparency with regard to the HRDC fiasco and the Liberal boondoggle and waste. There has been insistence that there be an audit and that it be made public.

The minister and her officials wanted to wait. They said that the audit would be made public. That is what they told us. That is what the minister said. She said that it would be a public audit and that everyone would have a look at it. However, when the audit was done did they make it public? Did the minister make it public even though that is what she promised to do? No. She broke her promise.

Instead, the minister waited until an access for information request had to pry it from her fingers. That is exactly what the minister did. She was trying to cover up the audit, even though she said that it would be a public audit.

It gets worse. An opposition MP finally received a copy of the audit dated October 5, 1999. When he got a copy of the audit he was asked to destroy it. Can we believe it? He was asked to destroy a copy of the audit and to accept a copy that was dated later in January 2000.

Let me trace the chain of events one more time. The minister said the audit would be made public, but when the audit was finally done she and her officials sat on it. Only because of access to information was that audit finally released. When the audit was finally released, the opposition members who got copies of it through access to information were told that they should destroy them and not use them. They were asked if they would be willing to accept one that was done later. If that is not a blatant cover-up, I do not know what is. That is what the Liberals are up to.

It goes on. I wish the story ended there but it does not. When members of parliament asked for details of HRDC grants by riding we were told they did not exist. The minister stood in her place in the House and said day after day that we as members of parliament could not get riding by riding breakdowns with regard to HRDC.

We were asking simple questions in the House with regard to what was happening in our individual ridings. We were told that we would have to go through access to information. That was it, that was the way we had to go.

The minister well knows that many times with access to information it means that money out of our budgets has to be spent, just because we were asking for a riding by riding analysis which the minister refused to provide even though she could. Or, we were told to put something on the 45 day order paper process rather than receive information directly from the minister. That is type of stuff we have been putting up with.

There has been a very clear cover-up of evidence of mismanagement with regard to HRDC, but there is more yet. It goes on. An employee of HRDC in New Brunswick received a phone call from Ottawa and was told that if there was anything missing in the HRDC files she was to review them, fill them out and backdate them.

The minister knew that there were problems with the files. She was denying it, standing day after day in the House of Commons and saying that there were no problems. However, she had the gumption, the public relations savvy, to phone the offices across the country, namely one in New Brunswick. She knew there were things missing from the files. We were asking questions about it. They knew there were things missing from the files. What did they do? They looked to cover it up. Once again it was another case of cover-up.

These employees were ordered to review them, fill them out and backdate the files. In a sense they were told to misrepresent and go ahead and alter the documents so that the real public record would not be known. That is what the Liberals were up to.

It goes on beyond that because there was a very blatant contradiction. The minister stood in the House of Commons on December 16 and said “No moneys flowed until the appropriate approvals were in place”.

It sounds so noble for the minister to say that no moneys flowed until the appropriate approvals were in place. How does that statement fit with the statement “there was anything missing in these files, review them, fill them out and backdate them?” That clearly indicates a contradiction.

The minister and her officials knew that there were things missing. They knew that those forms were not filled out. They knew that indeed those things would be backdated and that they were ordering their employees to do so. However the minister had the gall to stand in the House and say that no moneys flowed until the appropriate approvals were in place. How could the appropriate approvals be in place when she was ordering her officials to backdate the files, fill them out and review them? That is a pretty obvious abuse. I would say that is a pretty clear contradiction.

If we have a contradiction between what the minister is saying and what her employees are being ordered to do, it means that one person is telling the truth and the other person is telling something else. That is exactly what that means. It is something other than the truth.

I would side with the employee rather than with the minister in this case. We have $22 billion spent as grants and contributions in HRDC, a disingenuous communication strategy on the part of the government, and an absolute absence of controls and documentation. This reminds me of what happened with regard to APEC. We heard a member over there ballyhoo much about that, but he knows all too well there was a cover-up in that regard. He paid a price. He lost his job for that. He is no longer a cabinet minister.

It was not only APEC. It was also Somalia. The government did a cover-up with that when it got a little too close. That is exactly what it is doing with this. It knows it has problems and it does not want to admit that it is misusing taxpayer funds to buy votes with HRDC money.

[Mac Harb, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, my colleague stood to attack government programs in areas of high unemployment. He stood to attack the government for assisting people with disabilities. He stood to attack the government for assisting first nations people. He stood to attack the government for trying to assist over 300,000 young Canadians across the country who benefit from government services and programs.

All the rumbling that has taken place from my colleagues on the other side has nothing to do with the issue at hand. It has to do with the mere fact that they wanted to shut down government operations when it comes to the government trying to assist those who are in need. They wanted to shut down the programs, and they are on the record as saying that over and over. The bottom line is there is a philosophical difference between what we stand for and what they stand for.

The House of Commons is the best public inquiry in the country. It is right here where for over eight months they had the floor of the House of Commons to make their case day after day after day.

There is no case. They have nothing to show. Of all these allegations that $1 billion were missing, there were in fact six overpayments totalling $3,229 in the 16,971 projects that were reviewed and of this amount $803 have been recovered to date. We are talking about approximately $2,500 being missing. Frankly my colleagues should be ashamed of themselves for standing on the floor of the House of Commons to request a public inquiry into something that has already been in the public domain for eight months and more. Now they want to spend $20 million as we have spent on other inquiries.

At the end of the day the conclusion is fairly clear that no one has benefited from these programs except the people who need it the most, the disabled, young Canadians and people who are unemployed in different parts of the country. The bottom line is that these guys do not want to see the government functioning. They do not want to see the government assisting people who are in need.

[Rob Anders, Reform, Calgary West, AB]

Madam Speaker, the hon. Liberal member across the way has asked who is needy. That is basically the nature of the question. I would like to make a list of some of the people who have received HRDC funding. I would like the taxpayers to determine whether or not this is list of needy individuals. That is the question the Liberals have posed. Are these people needy?

Is Wal-Mart needy of taxpayer subsidy? Is Canada Safeway needy of taxpayer subsidy? Is Shoppers Drug Mart needy of taxpayer subsidy? How about private accounting firms? Do they deserve hard earned tax dollars? What about the 20 police investigations that have gone on? Surely 20 police investigations with HRDC would indicate the police have questions about whether or not HRDC fund recipients were needy as the Liberal member likes to ask.

Were fountains in Shawinigan needy? Taxpayer funding of golf courses, is that what the Liberals call needy? How about hotels in the Prime Minister's riding of Shawinigan, ones where the funds went to foreigners and lined the pockets of businessmen in Belgium, people who had track records and histories of doing improper things with funds? Is that needy? Is it needy when a businessman who has a bad track record with funds was getting taxpayer subsidy? Is that the Liberal definition of needy?

Is it needy to go ahead and set up a database that can raid the bank accounts of the elderly? Is that what the government calls needy, taking somebody who is retired, going into the person's bank account and stripping it dry by taking out thousands of dollars? Is that needy? Does the government need the thousands of dollars in an elderly person's bank account? Does it really need them?

Shame on the government for raising the question of need. The Liberals know nothing about need. They only know about a lack of priorities and buying votes.

[Eleni Bakopanos, Liberal, Ahuntsic, QC]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for this opportunity to speak to the motion by the hon. member for Calgary—Nose Hill regarding the administration of grants and contributions programs.

The hon. member would like to see a commission of inquiry into the grants and contributions in Human Resources Development Canada. I do not really understand her reasons, because we know today, after what we have heard, that she does not really have any. This is just a political game which began in the House in October.

The auditor general is looking into the administration of grants and contributions programs. The Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities is also looking into the grants and contributions programs. The department itself has called upon the best expertise available from outside, independent resources to look into these programs.

All that this investigation is finding, and will find, is the truth—the truth that has already been laid out in detail by the department and by the Minister of Human Resources Development, i.e. the truth that was told by the minister when she first disclosed the results of the internal audit which was commissioned by her own department and which she herself chose to make public, as she has already stated in the House on more than one occasion.

The minister has appeared three times before the standing committee and, each time, she has answered all questions. During Oral Question Period in the House, she has answered the same questions. This has been going on since October.

The truth that this motion chooses to ignore is that the file-by-file review of 17,000 grants and contributions projects across Canada and the review of all the audited files, having a total dollar value of $1,581,000, revealed an outstanding debt to the government of $6,500.

I want to make a point of repeating this, because I think it is important. The opposition's criticism over HRDC's grants and contributions programs has an air of absurdity that is expressed by that figure—$6,500. When all is said and done, once again, the amount outstanding is $6,500, and not $1 billion, as members of the Canadian Alliance have always maintained.

As the original audit found, and as the minister openly stated, documentation was clearly inadequate. And this was pointed out by everyone in the House. The department moved to devise and implement a corrective action plan. The department is working with the auditor general on these corrective measures. The department has consulted and continues to seek expert input.

This week, we received the committee's report and recommendations. The minister has said that she will examine the recommendations and give her response to the committee's report.

Does the hon. member for Calgary—Nose Hill really believe she can justify to her constituents the burden of an independent inquiry in addition to the already considerable resources of the auditor general, the treasury board, independent expertise and the Department of Human Resources Development itself? How much more expertise is required to shed light on truth that is already known to the House and to all members?

Today I want to talk about my riding because I think it is important. Innuendos and all sorts of things have been said in the House about my riding and I would like to tell the Canadian public what my riding is all about and what a member of parliament does in his or her riding.

A member of parliament visits non-governmental agencies, small and medium size businesses and speaks with the people who run those businesses. The member looks at the needs of the people.

For those who do not know, my riding of Ahuntsic has the largest textile manufacturing sector in Montreal. That used to be where most of the textile and most of the clothing manufacturing businesses were situated.

Because of the free trade agreement a lot of these companies had to look for funding to do research and buy high tech equipment. These same businesses went out to financial institutions in the private sector and looked for funding so they could become competitive and able to participate in exports and in other developments within their sector. These companies spoke to me about their needs.

When the Canada jobs fund was created it responded to the needs of 15 manufacturers in my riding. They received over $1 million under the jobs fund. What did these companies do with that money which the opposition says has been lost because they did not create jobs? In my riding of Ahuntsic 488 jobs were created through this fund, jobs that would not have existed if the fund did not exist. The private sector was able to give those manufacturers and businesses part of their financing, but not all of it. The rest came from government grants.

Those companies created jobs, but they did more than that. One company developed a fabric for bathing suits that is considered to be the best in the world.

From a small basement in one section of my riding, a manufacturer now distributes his product all over the world. With the money he received he bought high tech equipment worth $500,000 in order for him to be competitive and sell his Canadian products overseas. This is what these business people did with the money that was given to them with the grants.

I repeat for the Canadian public that 50% of the financing came from financial institutions in the private sector for each one of these files. I am convinced that those 488 jobs which were created in Ahuntsic would not have existed if it were not for the fact that they received grants from HRD. Those people would have been unemployed at the present time, and those manufacturers would not have been able to compete or to export Canadian products overseas.

Let us not forget something that the opposition members continue to neglect. Whenever a member of parliament is elected, he or she is elected to represent the needs of constituents. Those were some of the needs in my riding, but there were other needs as well.

Under HRD there are non-governmental agencies in my riding that work with the handicapped. Recently the minister and I had an opportunity to visit one of the projects that does recycling. That project, by the way, recycles all of the paper in all of the schools in Montreal. What did this project accomplish? Eight young people, many of whom were illiterate and had no skills, were trained in recycling paper so that later on they would be able to find jobs.

Of those young people, about 90% are now employed. Because of contributions made through HRD young people find jobs, handicapped people manage to work, and during the summer students are able to work because of a job creation program for students.

I am very proud to be able to support those projects in my riding, to continue to work with the business community, to work with the non-governmental organizations and to be able to provide them with the assistance they need to help ordinary Canadians.

Another thing I want to put on the record is something that the member for Medicine Hat continues to say. Of course, he is only one of a number of members on the Reform side who keep alluding to votes being bought.

I take great offence to that. I do not think the Canadian public can be bought. No one on this side of the House believes the Canadian public can be bought. I believe the Canadian public is intelligent enough to make a decision and elect the best member to represent them in this House of Commons.

I am very proud to say that the constituents of Ahuntsic and the constituents of Saint-Denis elected me to represent their interests. I take great objection to the fact that members on the other side seem to feel that when one is a good member of parliament, one is buying votes. The fact is that those constituents and those businesses decide in the end who they will support as their member of parliament.

I also want to put on the record that I find it very abusive of the right of privilege that we enjoy in the House for members opposite to make innuendoes and accusations about members of parliament. The member for Medicine Hat was asked outside the House about certain allegations and innuendoes he made about me inside the House. I quote an article that appeared in the Montreal Gazette :

But Solberg admitted his party had no evidence that Bakopanos or any of her supporters had demanded the donation in exchange for her support for the grant.

Members opposite use their cloak of immunity in the House all the time. When they are put on record outside the House they withdraw those allegations.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Canadian public for actually knowing that in this place there are members of parliament who work very, very hard to ensure that their constituents do get grants that lead to creating jobs in their ridings and lead to allowing the unemployed, the handicapped and other constituents to be productive members of Canadian society.

[Ghislain Lebel, Bloc, Chambly, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member for Ahuntsic. I think that, had she had a few more minutes, she might have convinced me of what she was saying.

Unfortunately, she fools no one here. Even the Liberals on the other side of the House do not agree on the figures. Earlier, the member for Ottawa Centre said on this subject that there had been a minor fraud or that there was an imbalance of $2,500. The hon. member just said it was $6,500.

I would ask the hon. member, who values the work of the member, and I am well aware of that, if she is comfortable with the 20 criminal investigations currently being conducted by the RCMP. How is it that these investigations are not in the ridings of the members of the opposition, but are nearly all concentrated in the ridings of the members of the government?

I understand that they must represent their electors and must give them satisfaction, but, when they do so out of the employment fund solely for the benefit of their constituents and to the detriment of the population as a whole, which has contributed to the fund and which never benefits from it because it did not vote for this gang, where do their morals lie in this case? This is my question for the hon. member.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Just before the member answers the question, let us try to keep the questions impersonal in their nature.

[Eleni Bakopanos, Liberal, Ahuntsic, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there are several subquestions to the hon. member's question.

First, I want to tell him that the role of a member of parliament is to represent everyone. We simply cannot represent only a specific group among our fellow citizens, as the member said at the end of his speech. I represent everyone in my riding, those who voted for me and those who did not. This is the first thing I wanted to say.

Second, I believe that everyone on this side of the House thinks like me. What is happening now—and I think the minister already said it—is that the RCMP is conducting investigations. We welcomed these investigations. After all, we are the ones who asked for them. The minister asked for these investigations. We welcome them, precisely because we want to make sure that the truth will come out. Again, out of all the files reviewed, less than 1% are problematic.

[Derrek Konrad, Reform, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, we understand that the hon. member who just spoke got quite likely up to 10% of her war chest from a company centred in her riding. What we are wondering is how that helps the hon. member's riding.

Is she so terribly necessary to the solution of problems in her riding that it is better to take money from the poor and give it to the wealthy to ensure that the wealthy have jobs in this country? Or, is there some other motive that she can ascribe to it?

Surely one would not believe that her motives were so pure that accepting money from a company that had received a big donation from the federal government by way of the fund, meant to shovel money into ridings for the purpose of buying votes, would benefit her riding.

[Eleni Bakopanos, Liberal, Ahuntsic, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I believe I have already answered that question, but I will repeat exactly what I said earlier.

The member for Medicine Hat, who first raised that question in the House, was asked outside the House about it. I will read exactly what was written in the article:

But Solberg admitted his party had no evidence that Bakopanos or any of her supporters had demanded the donation in exchange for her support for the grant.

That is not what a member of parliament does. Members of parliament do their jobs and when election time comes, if any constituent or company, under Elections Canada, wants to give a donation, those donations are audited by Elections Canada, not by the member of parliament.

Elections Canada declared that I was duly elected as a member of parliament to represent Ahuntsic. Again it was non-partisan.