Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the comments by my hon. colleague across the way, who no doubt managed to convince herself of what she just said. This had to be a speech that was contracted out by the CIO to someone who wrote it and was probably paid handsomely to do so.
The hon. member said that the CIO was the Canada Information Office, and that Canadians wanted to be informed. I do not deny a government must keep its citizens informed about its policies. But why is that, after the CIO was set up, the first decision that was made was a ministerial order exempting the office from the application of a number of provisions in the Public Service Employment Act and its regulations, especially with regard to hiring?
The office did not want to go through the normal public service channels to do its hiring. It wanted to hire people who espoused its doctrine, who were able to do its dirty work, and shamelessly compromise themselves, people like the infamous Serge Paquette and Richard Bélisle, who were both former Liberal candidates, one in the 1988 general election, the other in a provincial election. One of them was a political attaché to a Liberal MP.
I want to ask the hon. member, who is so concerned about keeping Canadians informed, if she informs them when she is invited to a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the minister in charge of the CIO? Does she inform the taxpayers present at the event that, when Mr. Paquette and Mr. Bélisle attend such events, they are paid $2,500 each, plus 38 cents a kilometre for travelling expenses? Does the Canada Information Office inform taxpayers about these things?
Could she tell us why the CIO does not abide by the public service hiring regulations?