Debates of March 12th, 2002

Canadian Police Association

[Peter Goldring, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton Centre-East, AB]

Mr. Speaker, each year the Canadian Police Association brings its concerns to Parliament Hill to be heard by all members of parliament. This valuable opportunity allows elected officials to share ideas and information with those who are on the front lines protecting our families and homes.

This year it asked for our support to protect police officers and victims, to close club fed prisons, for greater protection for children and for increased police funding.

Seven hundred million dollars was wasted registering duck hunters and shotguns while police officers need funding. The official opposition stands with them on these issues.

On behalf of all Canadians I acknowledge those noble custodians of law, order and public peace, some who have paid the supreme price with their lives in serving the citizens of Canada. More than ever their motto “To serve and protect” accurately describes their daily duty.

Grants and Contributions

[John Reynolds, Canadian Alliance, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, when will the government's waste and mismanagement end? After losing a half million dollar report from Groupaction the government gave the same firm another $575,000 for a second report that consisted of a single trivial list of cultural events that the government wants to throw money at. Then we learned that Groupaction received $62 million in contracts during the last five years in violation of its own contracting rules.

In light of the waste perhaps the Prime Minister could explain how he could not find any wasteful spending in the last budget to cut. Could he not have started with Groupaction?

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, the information given by the hon. member is simply inaccurate. He is referring to a document which is to be tabled tomorrow as being a single sheet of paper. As a matter of fact it has hundreds of pages.

He is referring to $62 million that have been given to Groupaction. That is absolutely wrong. That is the value of the placements, not the value of the commission. I am sure the hon. member must know something about the difference between these two endeavours.

That is not accurate on the part of the hon. member. I will gladly co-operate with him and the entire House to provide all the documents.

[John Reynolds, Canadian Alliance, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, it is funny how one day it is missing and now they can find it. Tax dollars were frittered away on a report and other deals with the firm that gives thousands of dollars to the Liberal Party. Contracting and tendering rules are stretched or even broken.

At the same time the auditor general says there is $16 billion of waste that the government could cut. Could the Prime Minister explain to hardworking taxpayers that it is all right to send billions of dollars to its friends and produce reports the government does not even bother to keep or conveniently loses for a while?

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, again the information of the hon. member is inaccurate. He is mixing up two different reports. One of them will be tabled in the House tomorrow, the 1999 one. The other one, and I am sure if he asks his critic he will gladly inform the hon. Leader of the Opposition, refers to a different document altogether.

That is the one for which I have offered to table all the supporting documentation: the treasury board agreement thereto, the agreement under the Financial Administration Act of the senior government official who has seen the report and who has said that in fact the report was presented to him. I have offered to make all of that available this morning before a parliamentary committee.

[John Reynolds, Canadian Alliance, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, where is the report? He has all the surrounding documents but the report has gone missing. How can the government stand in front of the Canadian people and say it gave someone half a million dollars to produce a report and now it has lost it, conveniently lost it maybe?

Forget about all the documents around it. We want to see the real document and we want to see it in the House now.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, I have indicated to all hon. members yesterday that the report as far as I am concerned, a report that has been produced and paid for by the taxpayers of Canada, should be available. That is the first premise.

If anyone provides me with that report I will table it immediately in the House of Commons, but like the hon. member I cannot table a report that I do not have. I will not invent a fictitious one to please anyone. I will say the truth and nothing else before the House of Commons.

[Rahim Jaffer, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the report was ever commissioned in fact.

This government spent a great deal of money and energy with “group inaction” in order to buy itself visibility in Quebec. Instead of spending the funds of all Canadian taxpayers in ways that are both misleading and insulting to all Quebecers, this government should concentrate on renewing the federation.

Instead of wasting our money on Groupaction, is the Prime Minister going to put an end to his inaction and table the report?

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member over there can choose to play at being outraged, if that is what he wants to do.

Nevertheless, the Government of Canada's sponsorship program, its communications program, has the support of the very great majority. I have, moreover, received inquiries from all sides of this House about it.

As for the report, I will of course table it as soon as I have it. I assure the hon. member that this is what I will do.

[Rahim Jaffer, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, maybe the dog ate the report. Canadian taxpayers are tired of their hard earned money being spent to promote the Liberal government. It would not have to improve its image if it were not swimming in controversy and scandal.

Canadians spent over a half a million dollars on this report and now nobody can find it. Will the minister table the report today, or did it get shredded with the rest of Gagliano's files?

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, I can say to the hon. member, as I have told all other colleagues before the parliamentary committee this morning, that a contract was signed to produce the report.

Under the Financial Administration Act a senior government official has signed to the effect that progress payments were produced. I have the supporting documents for the final report right here in the House of Commons. All those documents exist.

In terms of the final report, I do not have it. When I do I will table it in the House and I will not invent one. I will produce the original document when I get it and nothing else.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, a half a million dollar report prepared by a large Liberal supporter in order to boost federal visibility disappears two months after it is written, and the Minister of Public Works is not launching any independent investigation.

The least that can be said is that the minister who promised to sort out the mess left by Alfonso Gagliano is not hampered by transparency.

Will the minister admit that he cannot simply bemoan the report's disappearance and that, in the interests of good management, an independent investigation is called for to shed light on this whole business?

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, this question is getting repetitive. Perhaps the member needs a shot of oxygen to help him come up with new questions to ask in the House.

The fact remains that, as soon as I have a copy of the report, I will table it in the House of Commons.

In the meantime, I have promised all members that I will provide them with all the documents I have in my possession regarding the 1998 contract. The 1999 contract will be tabled in the House tomorrow, pursuant to the standing orders. If the House gives its unanimous consent, I am prepared to table it today.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, speaking of air, I get the feeling that the minister is breathing the same air as Alfonso Gagliano. Since he has always followed in his footsteps, he will probably end up in Denmark.

If he does not want to clean this mess up, is it not because he wants to keep the same system that suits the friends of the regime and because what he is ultimately doing is maintaining what Alfonso Gagliano put in place, which was a patronage system to fill the Liberal Party's coffers?

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

First of all, Mr. Speaker, I think that the comments about my predecessor, who served this House and his country with honour, are completely disgraceful.

Second, I wish to point out to the House the measures taken under the Communication Canada program in the last few years in connection with transparency, because that is what the hon. leader of the Bloc Quebecois is asking about.

Information regarding our sponsorship contracts is available on the Internet. It is transparent. Information regarding all services—

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Roberval.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the entire contract award process at Public Works and Government Services Canada is problematic, and this missing report is but the tip of the iceberg.

Will the Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada admit that only an independent investigation into how contracts are awarded, the billions of dollars worth of contracts awarded by Public Works Government Services Canada, will get to the bottom of this issue? If he refuses, then he is helping cover up the system and he will be an accomplice.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, these questions are hardly more generous than the prior ones. Allow me to continue to talk about the transparency that we have developed.

Earlier, I spoke about the sponsorship contracts that are available on the Internet. Our sponsorship action plan is on the Internet. All our reports, investigative reports that have already been carried out, at the request of Canadians, are available online, on the Internet. So, the information is public.

An investigation has already been done by the auditing board of Canada. Measures have been taken to improve the system. The system is a good one, and of course, Communication Canada is doing good work.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the minister should admit that since he has been with the department, since January, one out of every two contracts awarded by Public Works and Government Services Canada—one out of every two, this is no small number—has been awarded without any call for tenders.

My question for the minister is this: since he has been there and he claims to be beyond reproach, what has he changed in the system to help the cronies? He has changed absolutely nothing. If he refuses to call an independent investigation, he is an accomplice and is helping to maintain the system that was in place before his arrival, under Alfonso Gagliano.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Quebecois' House leader is no better informed than the Bloc Quebecois critic on this, because in fact, his numbers are just as wrong.

Since becoming Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada, I have signed five contracts, not 2,000 or anything near that. When it comes to awarding contracts, 92% of them, the highest rate of all of the G-8 countries, are awarded through a competitive bid process.

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the right hon. Prime Minister. I am sure the Prime Minister will want to comment on this before he goes off to Washington.

Is the Prime Minister himself not concerned about the unavailability of this report, a report that the Canadian taxpayers paid for and which is now unavailable? Could he tell us whether or not he is concerned about this? If he is, what does he intend to do about it, short of ordering a search of the miscellaneous files of the Canadian embassy in Copenhagen?

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, I have already indicated to a colleague of the hon. House leader for the New Democratic Party in committee this morning that the report, although unavailable--and I have denounced that and have said that in the House both yesterday and this morning in committee--in fact was commissioned, that interim payments were made pursuant to the Financial Administration Act, that a senior civil servant signed for both the interim payments, and that the same senior civil servant said both in media reports and to my own officials that he had received the document in question.

I do have in hand and am ready to table the supporting documentation even though the report itself has not yet been made available to me.

Terrorism

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister on a different subject.

Could the Prime Minister tell us when he goes to Washington what position he will be taking in his discussions with President Bush with respect to the obvious plans of President Bush for an expansion of the war on terrorism with respect to Iraq and possibly other countries? What position will he be taking with respect to the “Nuclear Posture Review” document which proposes to transform the status of nuclear weapons from weapons of deterrence to part of an integrated nuclear war fighting stance on the part of the Americans?

These are important questions. Canadians need to know what he is going to say.

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, that was a lengthy supplementary question and not very related to the first one.

I just want to say that of course I will be there. On the question of a nuclear discussion, we have asked for clarification because it is a document that has leaked from somewhere in the public administration. I am sure it is not a document that is subscribed to by the administration, but I will raise it with the president.

As far as Iraq is concerned, everyone knows that we and the Americans are fighting against terrorism. We have 3,000 troops in Afghanistan at this time. We are making a contribution.

Grants and Contributions

[Joe Clark, Progressive Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Public Works and Government Services about the invisible disappearing Groupaction report.

Why has the report not been made available to him? Did his predecessor take it with him to Denmark?