House of Commons Hansard #159 of the 37th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was flag.
Jean Chrétien LiberalPrime Minister
Mr. Speaker, I think we have allegations here. If something has been proven then one acts, but we cannot act on a smear campaign when there is no proof. We do not know the facts. When we know them we will act.
It is completely unacceptable to hear these smear attacks all the time about a member of parliament who served parliament for years in a very honourable way.
Bill Blaikie NDP Winnipeg—Transcona, MB
Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister knows that it is quite common political practice, or it used to be, for ministers to resign or for appointments to be suspended pending an inquiry into matters that might reflect on the integrity of the appointee.
I say this to the Prime Minister. He can make history by being the first Prime Minister to recall an ambassador before he even gets there. Let us have the inquiry. For the sake of Canada's honour, let us make sure that nothing untoward happened in Mr. Gagliano's department before he became the ambassador.
Jean Chrétien LiberalPrime Minister
Mr. Speaker, there are no allegations at all against the minister. Something might have been wrong in the department. The auditor general will find out the facts. It is completely premature to claim that there is a link between some work in the bureaucracy and the minister. I want to know the facts. When I have the facts, as usual, I will act.
Joe Clark Progressive Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Mr. Speaker, it would be interesting to know what other departments have paid for reports they did not receive.
My question is for the public works minister and it is simple. Will the auditor general's investigation include an indepth review of other reports that public works has paid for that may be missing from the files? Specifically, will her officers investigate every contract that was signed or approved by the former executive director of the communications co-ordinating service branch, Mr. J.C. Guité?
Don Boudria LiberalMinister of Public Works and Government Services
Mr. Speaker, this is a gratuitous accusation against a senior civil servant who worked both for our government and for the government of the right hon. member across. I do not know why he chooses to accuse civil servants.
The direct answer to the question is that the auditor general is verifying both reports in order to reconcile and determine whether they are the same or whether they are different. Then her recommendations will be provided to me, and I have undertaken to table them in the House of Commons.
Joe Clark Progressive Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Mr. Speaker, the minister has admitted that public works paid $500,000 twice for the same report.
Now he wants the auditor general to look at the contracts awarded to Groupaction. But she has no authority to determine whether Groupaction acted illegally, or criminally. That would require the RCMP.
Why was this problem not referred immediately to the RCMP? Why not two investigations at the same time?
Don Boudria LiberalMinister of Public Works and Government Services
Mr. Speaker, the right hon. member opposite said that I had admitted that the two reports were the same. I made no such admission.
I ask the right hon. member opposite to establish the proof before making these accusations.
I have asked the auditor general to establish the proof. Proof, truth and the right hon. member are not necessarily synonymous.
Leon Benoit Canadian Alliance Lakeland, AB
Mr. Speaker, Canadian troops continue to do a great job in spite of this government not because of it. The Prime Minister has left the military with a wounded minister of defence. General Fitch says that the army is on starvation rations. General Jeffery says that the military is living on borrowed time. We have 30 year old helicopters and planes with no sign of replacements in the near future. We have to rely on the Americans to get our troops around and the Prime Minister says that he is happy with that.
Has the Prime Minister now closed the door on purchasing strategic airlift for our Canadian forces?
Jean Chrétien LiberalPrime Minister
Mr. Speaker, I said that only the United States and Great Britain have the type of plane to do that type of job. The French, the Germans and other countries do not need it. I think the best way is to rent when we need them.
In terms of the helicopter they refer to all the time, they do not mention to the Canadian people that the president of the United States uses exactly the same type of helicopter to go from the White House to Camp David.
Leon Benoit Canadian Alliance Lakeland, AB
Mr. Speaker, I think it was the wrong answer. The Prime Minister was incorrect when he said it was only the United Kingdom and the United States that have strategic airlift, so do Russia, Belarus, the Ukraine and others. No wonder the Americans are now saying that the Prime Minister does not quite get it. Canadians have been saying that for years.
The current U.S. ambassador to Canada has suggested that Canadians start finding its own ride to get its troops places. Unbelievably, it is the Americans who had to lift our troops from western Canada to eastern Canada during the ice storm. It was the Americans we had to depend on to respond to the Manitoba floods in 1997.
How can this Prime Minister possibly justify this--
National DefenceOral Question Period
The Speaker
The hon. member I am afraid has run out of time. The hon. Minister of National Defence.
Art Eggleton LiberalMinister of National Defence
Mr. Speaker, we are part of an alliance such as NATO. We are allied with the United States in terms of this continent, and we work together. Yes, the Americans help us in a number of areas but we also help them. For example, we have the Coyote vehicle which is in Afghanistan. They do not have that kind of vehicle. We both contribute to the teamwork going on there. At one point not too long ago, we were leading an American force as part of the operations in Afghanistan. We work together as team and will continue to do that.
Instead of being picky like this, the hon. member should be focusing--
Francine Lalonde Bloc Mercier, QC
Mr. Speaker, in what we have to call the Gagliano affair, the Prime Minister's response is that these are only allegations, the same attitude government representatives took in the CINAR affair.
Is this fine assurance not, in fact, a way to play down the importance of these allegations? Would it not be more prudent, given that the ambassador is the chief person concerned, to postpone his assignment and keep him here until an investigation has laid to rest any doubts regarding him?
Jean Chrétien LiberalPrime Minister
Mr. Speaker, I do not believe that these sorts of insinuations deserve the attention the member is seeking.
The individual in question served this House very well. There will be no ties between a contract awarded by his department and the former member.
These allegations are completely unfounded, and I think that the ambassador to Denmark is an honourable man who will represent Canada very well.
Francine Lalonde Bloc Mercier, QC
Mr. Speaker, given Mr. Gagliano's track record, how can the Prime Minister refuse to put off his assignment until the end of the investigation, given the serious credibility issue now hanging over his ambassador?
Is this an indication that the Prime Minister is trying to tell us that regardless of the results of the investigation, his mind is made up, and that ambassador Gagliano will stay in Denmark, to the detriment of the interests of Canadians and Quebecers?
Jean Chrétien LiberalPrime Minister
Mr. Speaker, these are pure allegations at this point, and that is not how we operate.
It is a law in this country that the benefit of the doubt shall prevail. Accusations are made without proof, and then, someone has to carry this with them for years.
Mr. Gagliano served his constituents very honourably for many years, and he served this House exceptionally well.
Dave Chatters Canadian Alliance Athabasca, AB
Mr. Speaker, the report tabled in the House yesterday by the Minister of the Environment lacks scientific credibility. The report acknowledges the economic costs of implementing Kyoto but then goes on to propose deducting the cost of the drought in the prairies and the ice storm in Ontario and Quebec.
By their own admission, the computer models show that implementing the Kyoto commitment will have no discernable impact on climate change. If implementing Kyoto will not mitigate the effects of climate change, how does the minister justify deducting the costs of prairie drought and the eastern ice storm from the economic cost of Kyoto when these events will continue in their opinion?
David Anderson LiberalMinister of the Environment
Mr. Speaker, that is exactly the type of question that has come up in the House during their opposition day debate on Kyoto, which we are having today. Unfortunately the member is mixed up as to what part of the day he is in.
On climate change and on the report I tabled in the House yesterday, there is a variety of analyses done by a number of international agencies ranging from New Zealand to Australia to Holland. The hon. member dismisses them all as being irrelevant. I suggest he look at them a little more carefully. Not everyone everywhere happens to be as consistently wrong as he is.
Dave Chatters Canadian Alliance Athabasca, AB
Mr. Speaker, it is pretty clear that the environment minister cannot provide us with any credible analysis at this time. The finance department has been conducting economic research and analysis to assess the potential cost of policy options to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
To start the public consultations, will the Minister of Finance immediately table the reports of his department that it has already produced on the cost of implementing the Kyoto accord?
David Anderson LiberalMinister of the Environment
Mr. Speaker, the critical words of the hon. member's question are “at this time”. He knows, because it has been said in the House time after time, that there is a federal-provincial-territorial working group of officials involving 14 governments looking at the impact of implementing Kyoto on the Canadian economy and other matters.
If he is willing to wait until this group of federal-provincial-territorial officials do their work, he will find out what they come up with. That is expected at the end of next month or early in May.
Yvan Loubier Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Mr. Speaker, last week the Minister of Finance said that he was prepared to include fiscal imbalance on the agenda for the next meeting of finance ministers, provided he was asked to do so.
Pauline Marois has specifically made that request in a letter dated March 8, 2002.
Is the Minister of Finance going to include this topic in the agenda of the next meeting of finance ministers?
Paul Martin LiberalMinister of Finance
Mr. Speaker, I have answered this twice already. If my provincial counterparts ask me to put a certain item on the agenda, I am certainly very open to doing so.
Yvan Loubier Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Mr. Speaker, since 1997, the provincial first ministers, and their finance ministers moreover, have spoken out against fiscal imbalance.
Since Mrs. Marois is basing her request for discussion of this matter at the meeting of finance ministers on the very recent and very credible Séguin commission study on fiscal imbalance, should the minister not be faithful to his own word and announce clearly and formally today that he agrees to have this matter discussed at the meeting to be held this coming April 25 and 26?
Paul Martin LiberalMinister of Finance
Mr. Speaker, again, I have made it very clear to the House that I am prepared to discuss the conference board projections, projections which demonstrate unequivocally that there is no fiscal imbalance.