Debates of Oct. 3rd, 2002

Government Contracts

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, as I said before, what I will do is find out from the department exactly what was required, what he was hired to do, and report back to the member.

[Robert Lanctôt, Bloc, Châteauguay, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Immigration denies all involvement in the hiring of Everest to organize his tour when he was secretary of state.

Yet a fax dated March 17, 2000 from the director of the national sport policy task force to the contract officer at Heritage reads as follows:

The firm the secretary of state wants hired is Everest. They have a standing offer with Public Works Canada. I have no other details. I would like to meet with them to see what expertise they have to offer.

What is the Minister of Immigration's explanation for this?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, the contract in this particular case was awarded according to the rules by my department, on behalf of the Department of Canadian Heritage, to deal with certain matters having to do with amateur sport.

I take it from the hon. gentleman's question that he is asking for some details with respect to the firm's expertise in relation to the project that was undertaken. I will make the appropriate enquiries and report back to him.

[Robert Lanctôt, Bloc, Châteauguay, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Immigration is denying any involvement in the hiring of Everest. Yet the contract was awarded to this company, which was not on Canadian Heritage's list.

Of necessity, someone intervened here. If it was not the secretary of state, directly or indirectly, it must have been the heritage minister who intervened on his behalf.

How else can the minister justify the hiring of Everest, when no one in his department was familiar with this company?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, it is my information that the firm was indeed on a standing offer list and that the firm appeared on that list as a result of a fully competitive process according to the rules that are applied for contracting with the Government of Canada.

[Gerry Ritz, Canadian Alliance, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the Solicitor General is pleading ignorance that his friend and official agent received a $140,000 windfall. His pleading ignorance does not surprise us at all, but what we cannot understand is how he thinks he can bend and twist Treasury Board guidelines to this extent and get away with it. How can he explain that?

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated before in the House, what I will do is find out what he actually did for my department and I will report back to him and--

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Battlefords--Lloydminster.

[Gerry Ritz, Canadian Alliance, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, how could the Solicitor General have his department extend the contract, retroactively double the money and not know what his friend was doing? He was his official agent and his buddy.

He cannot stand there bald-faced and tell us he did not learn from his other colleague, the former minister of defence, that one cannot hire one's friends with taxpayer money like this and get away with it. How can he justify this?

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, all I can tell my hon. colleague is that I will find out the information from the department and make sure he is fully aware as to what this individual did.

Ethics Counsellor

[Pierre Brien, Bloc, Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is getting ready to introduce a new ethics bill. Will the Prime Minister tell the House that, regardless of the formula selected, the ethics counsellor will report to Parliament and nobody else?

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the member is asking us to comment on a document which has not been tabled. Naturally, if it has not been tabled, it cannot be commented on.

We all know that some excellent work was done a few years ago by a parliamentary committee chaired by the excellent member for Kingston and the Islands. Naturally, as we indicated in June, we intend to submit this document to parliamentarians.

[Pierre Brien, Bloc, Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the minister himself commented on this bill right here, outside the House. It might perhaps be interesting for him to tell us about it too.

Can we have a guarantee that all parliamentarians, the Prime Minister and ministers included, will come under one ethics counsellor, a truly independent counsellor, contrary to what we are hearing, which is that ministers and the Prime Minister will come under a different regime, where the counsellor will not be independent?

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I spoke to my colleagues in all political parties in May and June about the excellent report produced under the leadership of the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands. I am surprised that the hon. member is not familiar with the contents. Most of us learned it practically by heart, given the excellence of the work done at the time.

Guaranteed Income Supplement

[Larry Spencer, Canadian Alliance, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the government made a deliberate policy decision to deny our poorest and most vulnerable seniors access to the guaranteed income supplement they were eligible for. It has already accepted responsibility and settled one case with an elderly widow.

Could the minister tell Canadians how many billions of our tax dollars her department has put at risk as a result of this massive administrative and policy foul-up?

[Jane Stewart, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development]

Mr. Speaker, on the contrary, it has never been the intention of the government to deny seniors access to very important benefits like the guaranteed income supplement.

The hon. member will know that as of late there have been over 100,000 documents sent to seniors who may well be eligible for this supplement. They have returned their forms and I can say that over 70,000 will now be in receipt of that vital supplement.

[Larry Spencer, Canadian Alliance, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, we know that there are at least two class action suits that have already been filed against HRDC and the Solicitor General. We know that an analyst's study said that the minister knew the names and addresses of thousands of potential GIS recipients all along and failed to adequately inform them.

My question: If she knew all along who the potential GIS recipients were, why did the minister refuse to adequately inform these seniors of their right to apply for the guaranteed income supplement?

[Jane Stewart, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development]

Again, Mr. Speaker, let me clarify for the hon. member that as a result of a new relationship between my department and the information that is held by the Minister of National Revenue, we have been able to better identify seniors who may be eligible for the guaranteed income supplement but in the past have not applied.

It is because of this new relationship and a sharing of information that is appropriate and responsive to personal information and its protection that we have identified these seniors and have corresponded with them directly so that they can have access to the benefit.

Ethics

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the government House leader. I have to come back to the so-called ethics package. It is evident that members from both sides of the House have concerns with respect to a code of conduct for parliamentarians.

Would the government House leader please update the House on when the government will introduce legislation that will reflect the concerns that have been raised by members of the House?

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the excellent question that he has raised this afternoon about this issue that is important for all of us.

As I indicated a while ago, the government of course said in May and June and repeated again in the throne speech that it intends to proceed with such a document, reflecting, of course, the views of all members of Parliament in the House and with the new-found interest, at least last week, of the Leader of the Opposition.

Health Care

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, there has been an incredible proliferation of private, for-profit health clinics in Canada in recent times. In fact private MRI clinics have increased over 800% in the last five years.

The health minister has the authority and indeed the responsibility to investigate these clinics for potential violations of the Canada Health Act, particularly given the likelihood of queue jumping and other threats to our public health system.

Has the health minister done so and will she table the results of her investigations in the House?

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, we do in fact make inquiries. Whenever a concern is brought to our attention we monitor the situation very closely for possible violations of the Canada Health Act. We in fact work closely with provincial officials. We require information in many cases. I must say that the information is generally forthcoming. If there continue to be concerns that I may have in relation to the operation of a clinic, be it in relation to queue jumping or other things, we pursue that further and if necessary I take it up with my provincial counterpart to ensure that we are able to resolve the concern.

Foreign Affairs

[Svend Robinson, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the Minister of Foreign Affairs. On June 13 this year the Senate passed a motion calling upon the Government of Canada to recognize the 1915 genocide of the Armenians and to designate April 24 of every year hereafter throughout Canada as a day of remembrance for the 1.5 million Armenians who fell victim to the first genocide of the 20th century.

I ask the minister: Will the government now finally join with the French government and many other elected bodies around the world and support this long overdue recognition of the Armenian genocide?

[Bill Graham, Liberal, Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member will recall that when this was last debated in the House the parliamentary secretary made a statement to the House which clearly indicated that the government shares with the people of Armenia the sorrow as a result of the terrible tragedy and loss of life in those awful circumstances during the course of the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.

I met recently with the Speaker of the Armenian legislature, who was here, and with various Armenian members of their legislature. We continue to examine this question. The Armenian people know that the government sympathizes with their cause and sympathizes with the suffering they had, and we will continue in that line.

Government Expenditures

[Rex Barnes, Progressive Conservative, Gander—Grand Falls, NL]

Mr. Speaker, as my hon. colleague pointed out yesterday, the government is cutting benefits for Canada's disabled while wasting millions on new Challenger jets.

The government's own officials, including the assistant deputy minister of public works and the deputy minister herself, have stated that the Prime Minister's personal demand for the purchase of new Challenger jets was unnecessary.

Could the Prime Minister point to one department official at his level or any level who recommended to him that the purchase was in fact a necessity?