Debates of March 18th, 2002

Grants and Contributions

[Ghislain Lebel, Bloc, Chambly, QC]

Mr. Speaker, is this inaccuracy, which is at the very least surprising and significant, not an indication that we have paid for two reports to the tune of $500,000-plus each—half a million each—and that in fact only one has been produced and used to make two?

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

Mr. Speaker, neither the hon. member nor I have seen the original of the report. It was not there, so obviously I could not table it. What I said is that I provided the report on Friday—or had it provided—to colleagues. It was not tabled in the House. It has not yet been translated. I made it public, and as soon as it is available, I will also make public the affidavit from the company in question indicating that this is indeed the missing report.

Softwood Lumber

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister for International Trade.

On trade matters the Americans play by the rules only when it suits them, and this is certainly the case in softwood lumber. The Canadian softwood lumber industry is willing to fight the U.S. lumber lobby head on to get a fair deal.

Will the government show support by immediately providing loan guarantees to Canadian softwood companies in order to keep our workers on the job while at the same time seeking a solution to the problem?

[Pierre Pettigrew, Liberal, Minister for International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the hon. member's question on softwood lumber. We are extremely engaged in discussions at this very moment.

I am in contact with our chief negotiator. Negotiations went on throughout the weekend, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday until late at night. I expect to talk with our negotiator in the next few hours.

We are sparing no effort whatsoever to come to a satisfactory agreement on the softwood lumber file.

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, up until now the government has been blindly following the Conservative-Alliance trade policy and has run into a brick wall, or softwood wall in this case.

Now we are seeing the Americans flaunt the NAFTA rules.

Will the government admit its Mulroney mistake and begin negotiating fair trade deals beginning with softwood lumber and then going on to steel and other important commodities for the country? Will it admit its mistake and start negotiating fair trade deals?

[Pierre Pettigrew, Liberal, Minister for International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, our government is committed to free trade and to free trade in softwood lumber with the United States. We were very pleased with the steel exemption we got from the United States two weeks ago.

We are engaging in talks with the United States administration at this very moment. The Prime Minister raised it with President Bush when they met last week. President Bush expressed his own support for a satisfactory agreement between both parties. He even expressed that he hoped this would be done by March 2.

The government continues to be committed to working with the United States and to finding an agreement.

Grants and Contributions

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

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister of public works.

The minister admitted that the government produced two reports by Groupaction. It paid more than $500,000 for each report. The reports have different mandates but the contents are virtually the same, word for word, event by event and list by list. One report is almost an exact copy of the other.

How can the government justify paying $550,000 dollars for a photocopy and passing it off as a new and separate report?

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

Mr. Speaker, as I told the hon. member the other day, the original document should still be available, and that of course I fully recognized all along.

On Friday, the company Groupaction produced a document in which it informed us that it was the document in question that was missing, or at least the elements thereto. It further stated today that it would produce a legal attestation that in fact it is about the document in question. I am prepared to table that.

Finally, under section 34 of the financial--

[The Speaker]

The right hon. member for Calgary Centre.

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

Mr. Speaker, that report became public knowledge three days ago. The minister had an obligation to look at it.

The only difference between the two reports are the eight pages of the new report I have here. The minister paid $550,000 for these eight pages. That is about $72,000 a page for a report by Liberal friends of his. How can the minister justify this?

If this is not fraud, what does he call it? Is it simply coincidence?

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

Mr. Speaker, first, the right hon. member refers to so-called friends of mine. I have never met the people in question. Perhaps in his exuberance he should watch his language.

Under section 34 of the Financial Administration Act, a senior civil servant signed as having received the copies of this report three years ago. The company produced a copy of that report on Friday.

Finally, it has promised by the end of the day today to provide for all of us a legal attestation that this is the document about which the report was produced then.

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

Mr. Speaker, on Thursday in Washington the minister gave me a box of 200 pages of information which he said was the missing $550,000 report from his department. The information I received was not a half a million dollar report. It was a collection of disconnected photocopies, mostly from the other report.

It is shameful that the minister would accept this as the $550,000 report. No one believes that the copies the minister gave me was the report at all.

Will the minister admit today that the second report was never written and will he ask for a refund?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for acknowledging that I gave him a copy of the document as soon as it was given to me in Washington last Friday morning, which of course I gladly gave. It was not I, as he knows, who certified the authenticity of the original document.

Under section 34 of the Financial Administration Act, the report was received by a then senior civil servant of the government, who, as he knows, is no longer there. On the strength of that, the document was received by the government and payments were made. Now we have received that additional documentation. Finally, by the end of the day the company has promised to us that it will provide legal attestations--

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Edmonton Centre-East.

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

Mr. Speaker, I invite any taxpayer to come and see the pile of photocopies the minister is trying to pass off as the $550,000 report. It contains no charts, no graphs, no maps, no beginning and no conclusions. Reams of paper, a tired photocopier, paper chaff to blur a non-existent report.

Does the minister think that his $550,000 report has value or was it only the $70,000 kickback to the Liberals that had any value?

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

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member will acknowledge when pressed that I told him on Friday morning that the documentation I provided to him was without the graphs. I told him before I gave it to him that it would be without the charts because it was reconstructed from a computer disk. I told him that and I told him it would be without the cover. He did not find that out over the weekend. I briefed him on it on Friday morning.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the two reports tabled by the minister are essentially the same. The items dealing with events have the exact same number in both reports. The only difference is that, oddly enough, the 1998 report is more comprehensive than the 1999 report.

Will the minister confirm that, if the 1998 report is more comprehensive than the 1999 report, it is because it was written after it?

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is suggesting that those who prepared the report, that the senior officials who received it at the time, and that those who certified it under the Financial Administration Act acted illegally. Essentially, these are the accusations the hon. member is making.

I would ask him to wait until a little later today when we receive the promised certifications. When I get these certifications, I will table them or release them to all hon. members.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are not on Mars, we are in the Parliament of Canada.

The minister is responsible, on behalf of his government, for having paid $500,000 for each of two reports that were not produced. This is the facat of the matter.

Will the minister stop taking cover behind what the company will say to justify having received two payments of $500,000, and will he take his responsibilities as minister and tell us whether or not the document he tabled was the missing report, as he told us on Friday?

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

Mr. Speaker, I will repeat what I said: This is not a report that I initially released, or that comes from my department. The original report is still not available. I recognized that myself.

These are documents that were reproduced from computer diskettes that the company sent to Ottawa on Friday and that I made available to all hon. members, as a result of the promise and the commitment that I had made to the House.

Now, we know that certifications were made pursuant to the Financial Administration Act. Another one has yet to be provided by those who provided us with the document on Friday, and I will release it when I get it.

Employment Insurance

[Carol Skelton, Canadian Alliance, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, last May the standing committee on human resources made the following recommendation: “that the Government return to the pre-1996” process “by repealing section 19(3) of the Employment Insurance Act”.

The Liberals did not repeal the section. Instead they changed a regulation, making the section inoperative. Why did the government not repeal section 19(3) and retroactively pay back the employees it ripped off?

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

Mr. Speaker, again I can hardly believe the hon. member is asking this question when the critic of her own party stood firmly against the idea of changing the provisions for undeclared earnings completely.

[Carol Skelton, Canadian Alliance, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, they are two different issues.

The minister knew she ripped off innocent workers. The opposition warned her. The standing committee warned her. Her EI umpires warned her. She refused to change the law that ripped off these workers.

When will the minister do the right thing and pay back these innocent workers that the government ripped off?

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

Mr. Speaker, first let us be clear that it is this government that improved the administration of undeclared earnings provisions in the Employment Insurance Act, despite what that party wanted us not to do.

The hon. member makes reference to retroactivity. Perhaps she would want to speak to her colleague to the left, her own leader, who in 1999 said in the House “I don’t believe in retroactive legislation...We can't stop what happened in the past”.

Public Works and Government Services Canada

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in the infamous report tabled by the minister in 1998, under the heading Export “A” Skins Game, it says that it was the seventh edition.

Curiously enough, in the 1999 report, the following year, for the Export “A” Skins Game, it also states that it is the seventh edition.

Is this not proof that the second report was copied from the first?