Mr. Speaker, this late show question concerns questions I asked in the House on June 10 of last week. At that time the Minister of Public Works and Government Services replied that he was seriously dealing with the problem of untendered contracts and a number of other contracting scandals in which the government found itself.
During the minister's reply he said that he had been asked by the Prime Minister to solve the issues in his portfolio and that he intended to do so. He also said that he would not allow idle speculation to interfere with the process.
The main concern I have is with what the Minister of Public Works and Government Services is actually calling idle speculation.
I have tried to total up the contracting scandals. We get a new scandal every day so the total is growing as we speak. If we add all the scandals together, it amounts to $55 million. Never has a government in the history of Canada thrown away or given away to friends $55 million of the public purse.
If we were to add the $101 million Challenger contract, that would make $156 million of untendered contracts.
The Department of National Defence alone has had $30,600,000 in questionable contracts looked at by the auditor general without being called on the mat by the minister. VIA Rail has $1 million. Attractions Canada or Groupe Everest has a $22 million untendered contract. The Groupe Polygone sportsman show that never happened had a $333,000 contract. We just found another contract with Groupaction, a company that is already into the public purse for $1.6 million. Today in the Toronto Sun we read about another $330,000 contract for the gun registry that never happened.
This is not idle speculation by members of the opposition. These are serious complaints about serious issues that in any other time and in any other government people would, quite frankly, be in jail. It is a terrible waste of public office and a waste of public funds.
If we look at the sponsorship program since 1997, $232 million has been paid out and much of that money went to friends of the Liberal Party. That is just wrong.
I am not trying to deny the fact that those of us in the House are partisan politicians but we cannot give contracts out to our friends. If we look at the amount of money that has gone out and what the auditor general has said about it, it is time for immediate and direct action from the government.