Debates of June 12th, 2002

Official Residences

[Jason Kenney, Canadian Alliance, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, his buddy Warren Kinsella said the party paid rent, but we have learned from documents obtained through access to information that “the chief property manager for official residences has no knowledge or information of any use of the residence as a rental property at any time since the National Capital Commission took over the management in 1987”.

It is wrong for the Prime Minister to abuse taxpayer funded resources for partisan purposes. Will the Prime Minister immediately table proof that the Liberal Party reimbursed taxpayers for this partisan use of the official residence?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I guess I have the right to invite people to visit with me. They were nice people. They took some good pictures and it was a good place. It is the residence that the Prime Minister occupies in his function.

I have seen other jurisdictions using their residences, such as in the United States, regularly for everything. If in the United States they had to pay every time we saw the White House in publicity, it would cost a lot of people a lot of money.

Government Contracts

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-De- Beaupré—Île-D'Orléans, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there was the sponsorship scandal. Millions of dollars were spent on nothing at all. A system for diverting funds was set up by this government, and nobody has yet admitted any responsibility for the whole affair.

The Prime Minister thinks that he will wiggle out of this mess just like that by tabling draft ethics guidelines, but he is mistaken.

Does the Prime Minister not understand that there are individuals in his government who are responsible for squandering hundreds of millions of dollars in unearned commissions to cronies and that only a public inquiry will clear up this business to our satisfaction?

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

Mr. Speaker, we are working on several fronts to identify the exact nature of the problem and the responsible authorities.

My department is conducting a review of that period under question which is between 1997 and 2000. Whenever there is anything questionable that comes to the attention of my officials, they refer it to the appropriate police authorities.

The auditor general will be commencing a government-wide examination of all advertising and sponsorship issues.

The treasury board is looking again at the issues of the governance framework and the management framework.

This is being addressed on all fronts.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-De- Beaupré—Île-D'Orléans, QC]

Mr. Speaker, how many millions of dollars were thrown away in commissions in the sponsorship affair? Who benefited unduly? Which minister hatched and implemented this program? Which ministers tipped the odds in favour of Liberal-friendly companies?

These are just some of the questions we would like answered.

Does the Prime Minister not see that only a public inquiry will provide the answers and that the very least he can do is order one?

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

Mr. Speaker, again I would remind the hon. gentleman that we have launched a whole series of examinations into the nature of the difficulty here. We intend to get to the bottom of it so there can be transparency, accountability and verification of value for money.

As I have said now for two and a half weeks, we intend to develop a management system for the future that does not engage the services of outside commission agents.

Ethics

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

Mr. Speaker, it is wrong to use an official residence as a backdrop for Liberal election ads. It is worse to claim, as a Liberal operative does in the book, that the party paid to rent the residence when it did not. Talk about getting kicked.

The Prime Minister is already in trouble for misusing 24 Sussex Drive. Now we see he has misused Harrington Lake, too. When will he stop?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, the statements of the hon. member are simply not true.

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

Mr. Speaker, that is very interesting. Every time these people get caught doing something wrong they make up excuses, create diversions or make an announcement of some sort. They claim to have paid for residences. Officials say that they did not. Canadians deserve better.

I simply want the proof that the Liberal Party did as it claimed. Will the Prime Minister give us a document that supports the claim of his party?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, this from the party that promised to turn Stornoway into a bingo hall.

Chrysotile Asbestos

[Gérard Binet, Liberal, Frontenac—Mégantic, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Public Works and Government Services.

Considering the negative image of chrysotile asbestos fibre worldwide, what is the Government of Canada doing to stimulate the asbestos industry?

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

Mr. Speaker, we want to be supportive of producers of Canadian natural resources. The government's policy is based upon the safe use principle which recognizes that, when properly handled, minerals and metals, including non-pliable chrysotile asbestos, can be used, reused, produced and recycled in a manner that is consistent with sustainable development and public safety.

My department's position is to accept material containing non-friable chrysotile asbestos. We select products on the basis of functionality, effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and environmental friendliness over the life of the product.

Government Contracts

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

Mr. Speaker, the government has done its best to cover up the sponsorship program scandal by trying to hide it in plain sight. The minister claims everything was transparent because an audit was posted on the website, a full two months after it was delivered to the department. They were a pretty hectic two months spent planning the damage control with the full participation of the top five ad companies.

Why is the Minister of Public Works and Government Services waving around a copy of a sanitized audit that does not name names? Who is he really hiding?

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that under the provisions of the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act we are not permitted to disclose those names on the Internet.

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

Mr. Speaker, the minister calls these audits courageous and says what a great job these folks did. We do not argue with that.

Regardless of what the minister says, these audits are really standard procedure. They are done all the time. The public works department maintains a complete audit branch that also does work for other government departments, so they know what they are doing.

Our concern is not with the audits. Our concern is what the government does with the results of these audits. It brings out more rules but more rules do not help when everyone breaks them anyway and no one is forced to adhere to them.

Why will the minister not be truly accountable and table the complete audit with the names attached? Who is he still hiding?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the hon. member has referred to comments that were made by the Auditor General of Canada, Madam Fraser. She is the one who called the internal audit section of my department “excellent, courageous and having done a critical piece of work”. It is that same internal audit section that went back into this program in the spring of this year to verify that the corrective action had in fact been taken.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today we learned that the former key public servant in the sponsorship program, Charles Chuck Guité, refuses to appear before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts and that his successor, Pierre Tremblay, who is still a government employee, is considering doing the same.

Is this not additional proof for the Prime Minister that an independent public inquiry has become absolutely necessary, because then, these people would not be able to avoid testifying?

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has been here a long time and he is well aware of the rules of this House.

He knows full well that if a person is asked to appear before a parliamentary committee and refuses to do so, the committee is free to report to the House. In turn, the House is free to adopt the report. Following the adoption of the report, action is by the House. This is the rule, and this is the way things work.

International Trade

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Canada has always promoted greater transparency in trade negotiations.

The fact that we released the FTAA negotiating texts last year is evidence of our key role in promoting greater transparency.

My question is for the Minister for International Trade.

In the context of the negotiations on WTO services, will the Government of Canada inform the public of what it will negotiate?

[Pierre Pettigrew, Liberal, Minister for International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I had the pleasure of announcing that Canada would make public its initial conditional offer, when it will submit it to its partners.

As a government, we are also committed to providing a detailed description of all the initial demands that the other members of the World Trade Organization will make, to try to have access to the Canadian market for services.

Allow me to repeat in this House that Canada will not make any offer relating to health, education, public services and culture, since we feel that these are not negotiable.

National Defence

[Leon Benoit, Canadian Alliance, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in the defence minister's last seven minutes, here is another case of the government using phoney companies to rip off taxpayers.

An audit of the defence department shows that millions of tax dollars have been squandered through irregularities and inappropriate sole sourcing of contracts. The audit is also critical of professional help brokers saying that they cost a lot but add little value. In one year alone this government gave these firms $220 million, an increase of 500% since this government took office.

Is this not just another way of using taxpayer dollars to pay off Liberal friends?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, on the one hand, as a result of an internal audit initiated by the department, $2 million of improper activity was discovered and an action plan has been put in place.

On the other hand, I would add that no amount of non-compliance with policies or regulations is acceptable to me or to the taxpayers. Our goal is always to have 100% compliance.

Government Contracts

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the government has announced that it intends to recover the $333,000 in sponsorships paid for the Salon du grand air de Québec, which never took place.

That is too easy. That is too convenient. They recover the money and, at the same time, put a lid on the whole business.

Does the government realize that what we want to know, and what only a public inquiry will uncover, is why and by whom permission was given not to require repayment of the sponsorship when officials knew very well that the event had been cancelled?

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

Mr. Speaker, not only have I instructed my officials to make every effort to recover these funds, this file has also been referred to police authorities as I said a number of days ago.

National Defence

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence. The Government of Canada misleads the House when members say that no jobs will be lost on the supply chain transfers. The reality is all 1,674 of those public service jobs are eventually at risk, plus the fact that over 3,000 Canadian businesses will eventually lose access to business with various defence companies and bases across this country.

Would the defence minister now allow the defence committee and/or the auditor general to peruse that contract before he signs off on that disastrous deal?