Mr. Speaker, I rise under Standing Order 48 to bring to the attention of the House a situation that is impeding my work as a member of parliament and the work of other members of parliament as well.
On the evening of June 4, as you will recall, Mr. Speaker, we were convened as a committee of the whole to examine the estimates and priorities and planning for the Department of Public Works and Government Services.
With all due respect to the minister who never hesitated that evening to remind us that he was only nine days into his new portfolio, he nevertheless made a number of promises to provide members with information relating to questions on the estimates that had been raised that evening and that have been raised in question period since. I would like to reiterate the questions which have gone unanswered over the past week.
The Communications Canada organization states that it is headed by an executive director reporting to a cabinet committee. On June 4 I asked who chairs the committee, is the minister on the committee and who else in cabinet sits on that particular committee. In response the minister admitted that he chaired the cabinet communications committee but he also said he could provide to the committee of the whole later on that same evening the membership of the committee.
After a week we have received nothing. I do not think the minister made those promises lightly. After all, he is open and accountable.
In order for us to understand the process that was involved in signing and tendering contracts, we have to know all the players who oversaw the process. Therefore we need to know who are the members of that committee.
We assume that Mr. Gagliano chaired the cabinet committee in 2002 and prior when many suspect contracts were approved, but is he exclusively to blame or were there other cabinet ministers on that committee as well and who are they?
Again on the evening of June 4 I asked the minister to break down the dollar value of contracts that had passed through the process before he arrived to conduct the review. Two hundred of them had snuck through. They are in the pipeline and are supposedly beyond the reach of further scrutiny.
I asked him of the $18 million value he said those 200 contracts were worth that had gone through, how much had gone to Groupaction, Groupe Everest, Lafleur and other companies that were on their preferential list. The minister said:
Perhaps it would be acceptable to the hon. member if I filed it with the committee in writing rather than taking the time to read through all the statistics.
He later added:
Later on this evening, I will advise exactly when, Mr. Chairman, in just a few moments.
Those are his words. We have not seen this to this day. We have yet to receive that information.
The member for St. Albert asked if we could get a regional breakdown on a province by province basis of the $200 million spent on government advertising on those contracts. The minister told us that he would “provide the best breakdown I can as soon as possible”.
That evening the minister said he was interested in creating a more equitable distribution of this questionable program across the country but apparently he does not know what the distribution is now. He has had a week to look into it. He knows these questions were on the list that night.
The member for Edmonton Centre-East asked for details concerning the acquisition of Challenger aircraft. He asked when did the preliminary project review go to cabinet to be reviewed before it was taken out to industry for quotations let alone before it was being ordered. The minister said “I will see if I can find him further information”. Another week has gone by, the order is in process, but we have heard nothing.
Many other questions remain from all opposition parties. I would be glad to provide the minister with a list but I am sure his own minions are capable of going through the manuscript.
In Erskine May, 22nd edition, at page 63, under “Ministerial Accountability to Parliament”, the reference includes the following:
--ministers have a duty to Parliament to account, and be held to account, for the policies, decisions and actions of their departments...; ministers should be as open as possible with Parliament--
Under committee of the whole, Mr. Speaker, that is parliament:
--refusing to provide information only when disclosure would not be in the public interest,--
None of those issues would be outside of that public interest.
Accounting for the expenditure of taxpayers' money is of course the public interest. That is what we are trying to do here and what we were trying to do in committee of the whole for five hours.
Preventing embarrassment to the governing party as many recent disclosures are doing by withholding information--that is not being transparent-- or delaying disclosure--that is not being accountable--or hoping the opposition will go away does not serve the public interest.
Mr. Speaker, if you find this to be a prima facie question of privilege, I am prepared to move the appropriate motion.