House of Commons Hansard #7 of the 37th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was bills.
Paul Martin LiberalPrime Minister
Mr. Speaker, the judge heading the commission was appointed today. We want to see the inquiry start as soon as possible. We do not want any delays. This commission will, once it starts its inquiry, carry it to completion, with no interruption.
Michel Gauthier Bloc Roberval, QC
Mr. Speaker, the leader of the Bloc Quebecois has just asked the Prime Minister to ensure that the members of the commission, aside from the chair, are approved by all the opposition parties in this House, since the government is involved in the scandal right up to its neck. This is not a huge request. We would like to have objective commissioners.
Yes or no, will the opposition be asked to approve the appointment of an objective commissioner who is not linked to this government that is so deeply involved in the sponsorship scandal?
Paul Martin LiberalPrime Minister
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member opposite is having a little trouble understanding how things work. This is a judicial commission. There is one judge, who has just been appointed: Justice John Gomery of the Quebec Superior Court. He is the commission.
Michel Gauthier Bloc Roberval, QC
Mr. Speaker, when the Prime Minister says we do not know how things work, it is clear from watching them that they do know how things work. For five years now, they have known how things work. Now, when the Prime Minister wants the public's sympathy, he tries to slough off his responsibilities with respect to Alfonso Gagliano.
I am asking the Prime Minister this. Can he assure me that the inquiry will target all his colleagues who contacted Alfonso Gagliano when he was responsible for the program in which the Prime Minister, when he was finance minister, invested $50 million per year for 5 years?
Paul Martin LiberalPrime Minister
Mr. Speaker, the goal of the commission is to get to the bottom of things, to ask all the questions that should be asked, and to find all the answers.
Nevertheless, at the same time, there is the public accounts committee. Is the Bloc Quebecois going to participate? Is it going to cooperate? Does the Bloc intend to shoulder its own responsibilities during meetings of the parliamentary committee?
Bill Blaikie NDP Winnipeg—Transcona, MB
Mr. Speaker, this might be a bad day to be a Liberal, but it is a sad day for Canadian politics all around. They wonder why people get cynical. The reason is that the Liberals spend more time figuring out how to funnel money to their friends than they do working on the environment, on poverty, on smog, name it. If they paid as much attention to the real problems of this country, we would have an entirely different country.
Does the Prime Minister really expect us to believe that he did not know this was going on?
Paul Martin LiberalPrime Minister
Mr. Speaker, the way the rules of government work is, the rules are established. Money is allocated. One assumes that the rules are being followed. As soon as we discovered that the rules were not being followed, the current Minister of Finance, the former minister of public works, immediately took action. Then on the 12th of December, we cancelled the program, and today, with the report being tabled, we have come out with the most far-reaching program to find out what has happened and to find out what we must do in the future to ensure that it never happens again.
Bill Blaikie NDP Winnipeg—Transcona, MB
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is singing on his former colleagues now, but he was part of the gang that did this, and the Canadian people are not going to let him get away with this.
The Prime Minister says that he knows a little about how government works. That is probably true, but he also knows how the Liberal Party works. In fact he was able to know the Liberal Party so much that he could take over the leadership without anybody else having a chance. This was a Liberal Party operation. This was not a government operation. Does he really expect us to believe that he did not know what his own--
Auditor General's ReportOral Question Period
The Speaker
The right hon. Prime Minister.
Paul Martin LiberalPrime Minister
Mr. Speaker, this is a matter of great disappointment for everyone on this side of the House and over there. This is a matter of great disappointment to those who served in the government. It is our intention now to get to the root of it. It is not our intention to cast aspersions on people without facts. We are going to deal with the facts. That is why we have asked for a royal commission.
On top of that, under the aegis of his fellow Winnipeger, we are going to ensure it never happens again. I hope the hon. member will cooperate with the government as we put in place the structures to ensure that this never happens again.
John Williams Canadian Alliance St. Albert, AB
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister says that he knew nothing about all this, but he was the minister of finance, he was the vice-chair of the Treasury Board and he was a senior minister from Quebec.
We are talking here about money laundering and corruption at the highest level. We cannot blame this on somebody else because the rules were not followed. It is the government's job to see that the rules are followed.
Therefore, will the Prime Minister accept the responsibility for this corruption and money laundering which has made every Canadian embarrassed?
Reg Alcock LiberalPresident of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board
Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by thanking the Auditor General for this report. The Auditor General and her staff have done an incredibly detailed and careful piece of work pointing at some serious problems that have been discussed in the House many times.
The hon. member who raises this question and I have had more than one conversation on how we fix these problems. What we are setting about to do, and what I am asking the hon. gentleman to join us in, is putting in place the solutions to this problem.
John Williams Canadian Alliance St. Albert, AB
Mr. Speaker, part of answer is finding out who is to blame, and one question in the Auditor General's report that remains unanswered is who authorized the cheques, because million dollar cheques were written illegally based on a phone conversation or just on the back of an envelope; we do not know what.
Will the Prime Minister admit that the trail likely leads right into the Prime Minister's office, because this was at the highest level?
Reg Alcock LiberalPresident of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board
Mr. Speaker, the reason for putting in place an independent judicial inquiry is to answer exactly those questions in a manner completely independent from the government. To turn this inquiry into a star chamber is the wrong way to get to those answers.
Monte Solberg Canadian Alliance Medicine Hat, AB
Mr. Speaker, when the Prime Minister was finance minister, he provided the funding for the sponsorship program. Then as vice-chair of the Treasury Board, he rubber stamped all that spending. The fact is that after that he drew the shades on one of the worst spending scandals the public has ever seen in this country.
If we could not trust him to speak up then, how can we trust him now?
Reg Alcock LiberalPresident of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board
Mr. Speaker, the fact is that upon being sworn in, the Prime Minister cancelled the program. The fact is that the Prime Minister instructed this President of the Treasury Board to put in place the mechanisms to maximize transparency, accountability, fiscal responsibility, things that the House should be involved in solving.
Monte Solberg Canadian Alliance Medicine Hat, AB
Mr. Speaker, after the Liberals got caught, they cancelled the program. I acknowledge that, but it is too little too late.
My question is about leadership. Why is the Prime Minister not showing leadership? Why does he run away from his responsibilities? If he knew about this, why did he not speak up? Where is the leadership?
Paul Martin LiberalPrime Minister
Mr. Speaker, casting aspersions on someone's integrity in the House as a result of an inability to deal with the issue is no answer at all.
The problem the member of Parliament ought to recognize is that, first of all, the former minister of public works dealt with this as soon as the government understood the nature of the issue. Second, as soon as we formed the government, we cancelled the program. And today, as soon as the report was tabled, we came up with a comprehensive plan to deal with it. We have dealt with it, and we dealt with it as soon as we were able to.
Odina Desrochers Bloc Lotbinière—L'Érable, QC
Mr. Speaker, given that Jean Chrétien always ended up hiding behind Howard Wilson, the ethics counsellor, to whitewash the ministers involved in the sponsorship scandal, will the Prime Minister admit that a public inquiry worth its salt should necessarily cover the decisions made by Howard Wilson?
Stephen Owen LiberalMinister of Public Works and Government Services
Mr. Speaker, we have a judicial independent commission of inquiry set up to look into this whole issue to find out who did what, where the money went and what can be done to ensure that it never happens again. The public accounts committee, representing members of all parties in the House, is being asked to look into this immediately and to come back with urgent results.
Odina Desrochers Bloc Lotbinière—L'Érable, QC
Mr. Speaker, the last defence used by Jean Chrétien to save the skin of the ministers involved in the sponsorship scandal was the opinion of Howard Wilson, his ethics counsellor.
Will the Prime Minister agree that the mandate of the commission of inquiry will cover the decisions of the ethics counsellor, who provided a shield for the ministers involved, the same shield the current Prime Minister is using to protect himself?
Stephen Owen LiberalMinister of Public Works and Government Services
Mr. Speaker, the fact is the House will be reconsidering legislation to create the office of an independent ethics commissioner reporting to Parliament, who will deal with all these issues.
Yvan Loubier Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Mr. Speaker, every time we asked the current Minister of Industry, who at the time of the sponsorship program was the President of the Treasury Board, about compliance with the rules, she rose in her place and swore that all the Treasury Board rules had been followed. Yet today, the Auditor General is quite clear. All the rules of the Treasury Board and of Parliament had been flouted.
Will the Prime Minister admit that his current industry minister tried to cover up the misappropriation of funds from the sponsorship program by directly misleading the House?
Reg Alcock LiberalPresident of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board
Mr. Speaker, Treasury Board rules were respected when the program was put in place. There are guidelines and polices in place that simply were not followed. The reality is that no matter how good the rules are, if people choose to break them, they can do so. This is the very problem the Auditor General has identified in this report, and one of the problems on which she has asked us to work.
I invite other members to work with us on trying to seek solutions to this.
Yvan Loubier Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Mr. Speaker, every time we asked the former President of the Treasury Board, she told us all the rules had been followed, but this is simply not true.
In playing the role of someone who enforces the rules, and claiming that all the transactions were done properly, the President of the Treasury Board was an accessory to the system the Auditor General has uncovered.
Will the Prime Minister admit that his industry minister should not only be the subject of a public inquiry, but should step down from her position immediately since the evidence against her is so overwhelming?