Debates of Feb. 17th, 2004

Supply

[Odina Desrochers, Bloc, Lotbinière—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in fact, in the agricultural sector we are getting crumbs once again. This government is the expert in announcing the first phase. The second phase is being studied and perhaps there will be a third phase. The reason they say there is a first phase, a second phase being studied, and perhaps a third phase, is that they claim they have no money.

There is a problem here, because they had the money, but they spent it badly. They spent it so badly that they let some situations get really rotten, such as the mad cow crisis, the softwood lumber crisis and their continued stealing from the unemployed.

The way the money is managed at the moment, or the way it was managed by the former finance minister, the current Prime Minister, and the current Minister of Finance does not change. Why not? Because it can only be described in one way. This Liberal government is dishonest; it penalizes the little guys and fattens the big.

[André Harvey, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure you have noticed that my colleagues from the Bloc have been very happy for the past few days. They have been on life support in Quebec for the past few months. What is interesting is that the current crisis is isolated. There was the sponsorship problem and the Bloc MPs spend their time telling us they are asking questions. Canadians and Quebeckers want people to do more than just ask questions, they want people to take action.

I would like to ask my colleague if he thinks the futility of their role is going to catch up with them soon. For 10 years, they have been elected on promises to Quebeckers that they would ask questions. Over the past few months, Quebeckers have realized they want people who take action, like the Prime Minister has done in this exceptional case, as we have just seen. The tools are in place. There is a standing committee, a public inquiry and an investigation into the RCMP.

I would like to reiterate my question to the hon. member. Does he not believe that the reality of the futility of the Bloc Quebecois, which is a party that only asks questions and does not have power, will catch up with it very soon? They were elected in 1993 and said they would exercise real power. I would like them to show us what real power is.

They are extremely happy here in this great Parliament, which is called the Parliament of Canada. They are very happy and certainly do not want to lose their jobs. They ask questions, two or three small questions a week, then go off and are content.

The Prime Minister honoured his commitment to bring order to this program. There are thousands of programs within the Canadian government. Clearly we must learn from this experience.

[Odina Desrochers, Bloc, Lotbinière—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I note that the Jean Lapierre strategy has already been adopted by the Liberals. The only comment Jean Lapierre was capable of making when given the nod as the Liberal candidate for Outremont, was that the Bloc Quebecois had no reason to exist, although he himself was a founding member of that party. I have trouble understanding the Liberals and their inconsistency.

When we are told we are doing nothing but ask questions, let me tell you that our questions are what has made it possible to cast some light on this scandal. There have been more than 450 questions concerning the mess with Groupaction and the boycotting of the public accounts committee. Action was needed. Some heavy guns were required to get to the truth. They did not take kindly to that. So much for transparency and democracy. They are beginning to learn their lesson but it is taking a while.

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Winnipeg North Centre.

The motion before the House today is very important. I have seen many scandals over the years in the House of Commons and across the country, but this scandal is one that involves more money than I have ever seen before. I think the Liberal Party is implicated in this thing lock, stock and barrel.

I noticed in the paper on the weekend that the Prime Minister of Canada referred to other scandals such as this taking place before. He referred to Grant Devine and the Conservative Party in Saskatchewan. This reminds me a lot of that particular scandal. I am from Saskatchewan. A number of years ago when Grant Devine was the premier, and do not forget that it is the Conservative Party that sits here in opposition, the same party, the same people, decided that they wanted to defraud money from the people of Saskatchewan.

In the end, after an RCMP investigation, 16 people were convicted of criminal offences. Many of them went to jail. Many of the Conservatives went to jail, including the deputy premier, Eric Berntson, and the chairman of the caucus, the minister of labour, Lorne McLaren. That was for stealing tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayers' money.

Across the way we are talking of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money. It may be hundreds of millions of dollars. I do not want to prejudge ahead of time how much money is involved, but certainly it is a lot more than the Conservatives stole in the province of Saskatchewan.

What we have here is a very serious scandal. We have to clean up government in this country.

We have had these scandals and this corporate corruption from Brian Mulroney's Conservatives right through to the Liberals of today. It is the same old thing, these corporate scandals and corporate sleaze, this lack of accountability. We saw it in spades with Brian Mulroney and the Conservative Party and we are seeing it right now with the Prime Minister. That is why we have to change the system in this country.

It is interesting that the man behind the new Conservative Party, the master puppeteer is Brian Mulroney. We are seeing it in spades in that party across the way.

I want to warn people who are watching today that some of this language is not very good language. I am quoting a gentleman here, not Alfonso Gagliano, but I am quoting a gentleman from July 15, 1984, Brian Mulroney, the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. This is why the rot is there when there is this kind of an attitude from a prime minister following right on through to today.

The Conservatives are very embarrassed about their master puppeteer. They are very embarrassed about this leader of their party, the guy that they are worshipping and following as they form a new party today. Brian Mulroney said:

Let's face it, there's no whore like an old whore. If I'd been in Bryce's position, I'd have been right in there with my nose in the public trough like the rest of them.

Brian Mulroney, when he was campaigning on July 15, 1984, was talking about Bryce Mackasey's acceptance of a diplomatic post. That is Brian Mulroney, the godfather of the Conservative Party of Canada.

That set the tone for that party's reign in power. We saw scandal after scandal and sleaze and corporate sleaze. Now we are seeing exactly the same thing across the way. Whether it is Brian Mulroney or the present Prime Minister or the former prime minister, their ties to corporate Canada and this corruption and sleaze are all there. It is so hypocritical to see Conservatives getting up here and acting as if they are offended and questioning the very thing that they did for year after year.

Of course in Saskatchewan former premier Grant Devine is running for a Conservative Party nomination. We know exactly what that new party is about. Sixteen members of that government, ministers, received criminal convictions for stealing the public's money. Many of them went to jail. Now there is a similar thing across the way involving not just tens of thousands of dollars, but millions and millions of dollars of taxpayers' money.

The time has come to change the system. When I look at who the Prime Minister of Canada has hired to run his office and to run his campaign, I see the tie between corporate Canada and the tie between the lobbyists and the Prime Minister. I could go on and on. I am going to mention a few names and talk about their current role and their campaign background.

I see from the Earnscliffe group, Andre Albinati. I see the principal of the Earnscliffe group who was the campaign manager of strategy for the Prime Minister, Elly Alboim. Also from Earnscliffe, there is Charles Bird, campaign manager logistics to the Prime Minister. I see Eric Bornman whose current role for the Prime Minister is vice-president of communications. He came out of Pilot House Public Affairs group. Dennis Dawson was a member of the House at one time. He came from Hill and Knowlton where he lobbied for many years. There is Jamie Deacey from Association House and John Duffy from the Strategy Group.

They are all people who were members of the campaign team of the Prime Minister when he ran for the leadership of the Liberal Party. David Herle is well known. He works for the Earnscliffe Strategy Group and is a key strategist for the Prime Minister of Canada. The list goes on and on of the many people who have worked as lobbyists or in the corporate world and are now working for the Prime Minister of Canada.

Francis Fox, for example, was a minister at one time and was the president of strategic affairs for Rogers AT&T and a lobbyist for the Rogers corporation. Brian Guest was with Association House. There are a number of other people who are working with different lobbyists and different parliamentary associations around the country.

We get this tie of greed and then there are the groups involved in the scandalous sponsorship program that gave all kinds of money to the Liberal Party of Canada. At the very least they should be immediately reimbursing the people of this country from the Liberal Party coffers the money that was given to them from groups that received contracts under the sponsorship program.

If the Prime Minister is serious about cleaning this up, that money should be reimbursed by the Liberal Party of Canada. I do not see him doing that.

I also wonder where the Minister of Finance stands. The Minister of Finance was made Minister of Public Works, I believe it was back in May 2002. He had a long time to get to the bottom of this scandal. What did the deputy minister of public works say to him? What did the ADMs, the senior management in public works, say to him? What information did the minister have? Why did it take so long before all this information became public?

This is a serious, serious scandal. No wonder people are cynical about politics. A former prime minister, who is the founder of the new Conservative Party, Brian Mulroney, talked about how he would put his nose in the trough like the rest of them, that there is no whore like an old whore. That is what he said. It continued on through the Jean Chrétien days and it continues on with the present Prime Minister. The Prime Minister was the minister of finance. The Prime Minister was the CFO and for about nine years a senior cabinet minister. This is not good enough.

I walked around and talked to people in my riding in Regina over the weekend. People are disgusted by this. Liberals are disgusted by this. Everybody is disgusted by this. In my province, and I speak personally, it reminds people of the rot of the Conservative Party with its scandals and its sleaze and its corruption, and Brian Mulroney and Grant Devine and Eric Berntson. This is the legacy of the Conservative Party of Canada and the legacy of the Liberal Party of Canada.

Because of that, I would like to ask for unanimous consent to move an amendment adding, instead of the word liberal, the following: 20 years of Conservative Mulroney and Liberal corporate sleaze and corruption.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Does the hon. member for Regina--Qu'Appelle have the unanimous consent of the House to propose the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[Roy H. Bailey, Canadian Alliance, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I received calls from three different people in my constituency who were condemning those of us in the opposition for spending too much time asking questions about the corruption going on over there. They told me they already knew about it.

These people are asking for some immediate support from the government because they cannot get social services. Under normal terms, their assets would be worth $200,000 or $300,000. Their cattle are worth nothing. They have no money. They cannot foresee getting groceries. They are condemning the opposition for what is going on over there. My response to them is that we have no choice.

The $2 billion that the government took away from these people could have been given back to the Prairies. It could have been put into the industry, and everything would have been alive and well. Instead, we have reached our lowest since the mid-1930s, yet the government sits idly by and lets that huge part of western Canada go down the drain. All three individuals have said that without help within 45 days or thereabouts, they do not know what will happen.

It is fine to argue this issue, but instead of coming up with piecemeal things, the government should give back the $2 billion it stole from the hunters who registered their guns. The government should give that money back to the people from whom they took it. If it did that, gun owners, ranchers, and people in western Canada would be happy today.

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague from Souris--Moose Mountain, my neighbour in Saskatchewan. People are really angry and fed up. The $200 million could have been used for agriculture, or for health or for education. It could have been used for a number of things in Canada.

Many people do not realize that in the last year farm income in the province of Saskatchewan was a negative $13 million. I cannot remember the exact statistic, but I believe the national level is a negative of over $100 million. That is the lowest farm income since statistics started to be kept back in the 1920s. No wonder people are in trouble. No wonder people are angry.

We have to change the system. We need democratic reform, but not just in this place. It means getting rid of the unelected Senate. It means changing the voting system and bringing in some system of proportional representation. It means giving parliamentary committees more power so we can hold the government properly accountable.

There will be a surplus of $6 billion or $7 billion at the end of the fiscal year. This year, why do we not take half of that surplus and transfer it to the provinces for education, for health and for the farm crisis? That would do something real for the people of Canada.

[Rex Barnes, Progressive Conservative, Gander—Grand Falls, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I have a great deal of respect for the hon. member, but for some reason or another it seems as if he likes to play the games of the past rather than the future. As a result, he sounds more like a Liberal. This is like the devil made me do it sort of thing, and blame it on the past.

It is important for the House to realize that the Conservative Party of Canada is a new breed of politicians who are here to help the people. We are here to ensure that the corruption which has taken place today and which happened in the past is not acceptable to taxpayers of Canada and to the new breed of politicians. We need to move forward with a new vision for Canada. That vision is not putting blame on our predecessors for what has happened.

What has the hon. member's party done to ensure that Canadians are fully aware that this corruption is front and centre? What has the hon. member's party done to ensure that money which was spent could be used for other programs, such as health care and social programs for which Canadians are so proud?

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, my good friend from Newfoundland is one of the few progressives left because when the Progressive Conservative Party joined the Alliance, they left the progressives aside. They are no longer progressives. The opposite of progressive happens to be regressive, and what we see is the shadow of Brian Mulroney behind the whole thing. He is the master puppeteer.

My mother said to me many years ago that if we did not learn from the past, we were bound to repeat the same things in the future. It is important to remember what happened in the past.

I happen to come from Saskatchewan where 16 Conservatives convicted criminally of fraud, and that is fact. Many are in jail. I do not think there is no other place in the world where a deputy premier, Eric Berntson, chairman of the caucus, a Conservative, went to jail.

We have to learn from the past so we do not repeat the same things in the future, and the government now is repeating.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, first, let me say that Canadians are sick to death of scandals in their government. Canadians are sick to death of the energy of this place being diverted and redirected to deal with a very egregious, a very heinous situation no doubt, but a situation that clearly diverts attention away from the issues and concerns that Canadians have to deal with on a day to day basis.

They cannot figure out what happened to their elected representatives who chose to come to this place to speak about health care and the crisis in medicare and to speak about the stress that families are facing in trying to juggle work, community and child care responsibilities. They cannot figure out where their elected representatives are on pollution, on environmental degradation or on weaponization of space.

Canadians are sick to death of this situation, this scandal ridden place, and so are we on this end of the House.

My colleagues in the New Democratic Party have tried very hard to call on the government to deal with this scandal quickly, effectively, with teeth and with clear resolution so we can get back to the main issues of the day. We make that call again. Deal with this horrible chapter in the history of Canadian politics promptly, efficiently, with truth and with resolution so we can get back to the issues that matter.

The real scandals of the day are how the Prime Minister could be underestimating our surplus, lowballing it by $80 billion over 10 years, or how the government could be breaking every promise it ever made in the red book time and time again.

Yesterday a group of women gathered on the Hill from across Canada. These women came to participate in the NDP women's economic summit. They came to talk about serious issues affecting their day to day lives, such as the stress that women face in trying to cope when the government has done nothing but cut the rug out from under them, when the government has hacked and slashed every program that has meant anything to women and working families.

They wanted us to stand up in the House and say that the only thing the finance minister was consulting on was the debt to GDP ratio. Why is he not consulting on the 50,000 day care spaces the government promised 10 years ago? Why is the government not consulting on the 20,000 units of affordable housing that are needed right now to deal with the critical housing situation, and the very serious situation of homelessness at a time of severe winter climate conditions? Why is the government not talking about creating quality jobs for women so they can provide for their families and still keep their mental health intact? Why have issues of importance dropped off the page by the government? Why are we now dealing with another scandal?

It is imperative that we deal with this scandal here and now so we can get back to the issues at hand.

It is interesting that the Conservatives are getting a little defensive in the House today about the fact that we have been trying to suggest that we are not dealing with simply a little individual problem here and there, but a systemic problem, a problem that goes back throughout the last decade of Liberal rule and beyond that to the previous decade of Brian Mulroney Conservative rule.

How can we not deal here and now with the kind of corruption that existed back then, clearly identified, documented and discussed in Parliament over the last two decades?

The irony of the Conservative motion today is that the Conservatives, in their previous manifestation, established the standards on the benefit of patronage appointments and the pouring of public funds into the pockets of their friends.

Did Canadians not throw them out of office on this as their verdict on the issue years ago? Canadians see worse health care, more expensive tuition, and a more polluted environment today than 10 or 20 years ago. Why? Because for 20 years Brian Mulroney and the present Prime Minister said they cared and were concerned, but they did not act on those concerns. Instead, they listened to their corporate friends and geared their decisions in their favour.

It is interesting that the Liberals got elected because of Tory corruption. Now the Tories want to get elected because of Liberal corruption. We are here today to end this cycle. We must get to the systemic root of the problem. What do we do? We call on the government to deal with this horrific scandal, identified by the Auditor General, in an expeditious fashion.

We want to remind Canadians what the Liberals did over their holiday break. What did they do when they heard from the Auditor General about the depth of this scandal, about a sea of money for nothing contracts? We heard about the Liberal scandal. We are talking about public funds going to back Liberal candidates for a Liberal electoral action plan. What did the Liberals do when they heard about this? They tried to rewrite history.

As I said in the House on a couple of occasions, it is interesting how the Liberals are very clear when they are very caught. How can they stand opposite us in the House with straight faces, face to face with Canadians, and expect Canadians to swallow the idea that this was a surprise? How can they look us straight in the face and blame it on the public servants? How can they look us straight in the face and blame it on someone in the past administration and never take full responsibility for what is at hand?

Is it not interesting that the Liberals want to treat Gagliano like an embarrassing relative, but where was the present Prime Minister, that outspoken moralist, when Liberals were out buying elections in Quebec? Who was signing the federal cheques for Mr. Gagliano? It was not Jean Chrétien, was it?

[An hon. member]

Paul Martin.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North Centre, MB]

Yes, it was the current Prime Minister who at the time was the finance minister and who in fact should have known where the money was going and should have been following the money.

A newsletter put out by the President of the Treasury Board who, not too long ago, said to his constituents that every line of every government department is scrutinized stated:

As Treasury Board members, we are responsible to know not only where the money is being spent, but also why it is being spent.

Can the Liberals still look us straight in the face and say that the present Prime Minister, the then finance minister, did not know anything? They are trying to tell us that everything is okay now. They are act tough with all this feigned indignation and say they will get to the bottom of this.

However, the same firms that conspired with the Prime Minister to keep polling information out of public view and were previously in his transition team are still playing a key role in the Prime Minister's Office and even got to vet new ministerial staff appointments.

We are dealing with that systemic problem of these corporate ties and people revolving in and out of the Prime Minister's Office. That is the issue we must get our heads around. That is what we must do.

Let me conclude by reading from a constituent's e-mail to me that reflects the concerns of Canadians about what is going on in this place, what is wrong with both Liberal and Conservative governments, their whole connection with the corporate world, and the kind of games they play to get money back into the pockets of their friends and supporters. The constituent writes:

When a party in power stays too long, the occupants appropriate themselves to be gods--obnoxious gods. They turn arrogant, insensitive and appallingly abusive. Arrogance is a powerful argument why the sitting government must not be granted repeat endorsement by the electorate in the coming election.

The same goes for the Conservatives who were taught a lesson when they went down this path.

Let us now take the time to learn from the errors of the past, whether we are talking about the present Liberals or the past Conservatives, to put an end to a government that is riddled with scandal and get on to true, ethical government for this country.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I watched my hon. colleague across the way wave her arms and I thought she was going to take flight.

Bringing things into perspective, this party is addressing the issue head on. The Prime Minister, in clear words, has called a public inquiry. He said that we will not stop until everything is open.

I am not sure if my colleague across the way opened her ears and listened when the Prime Minister said that. Usually, NDP members, with wax in their ears, do not want to listen.

I am wondering if the hon. member would like to go down the path of Jack Layton and Olivia Chow living in co-op housing? Did we forget that? No. Did we forget Bob Rae? No, but members of that party are going to keep flapping until they take flight. They should not think they will take flight too fast.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will not stoop so low as to respond to that kind of insulting comment from the member. I would rather be waving my arms reflecting the disgust and disdain of Canadians than hiding under a bushel as the Liberal member is doing, along with so many of his other colleagues.

The real test of Liberal sincerity is whether or not the government is prepared to direct the Liberal Party to pay back the money it stole from public coffers.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Jack Layton and co-op housing. Come on, admit it.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North Centre, MB]

We are talking about--

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

Order, please. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre has the floor.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, for a government and Liberal members who feel so confident about the direction they are taking on this horrific scandal, we would wonder why they would get that excited and defensive in this chamber.

As I was trying to say, the real test of the government's sincerity is whether or not it will make a commitment to call on the Liberal Party to pay back the money that was identified in the Auditor General's report as money taken from public coffers and put into the Liberal Party.

We are talking about two instances identified by the Auditor General. One is for about $300,000 from firms like Groupaction. After it received lucrative contracts from the Liberal government, money went back as donations to the Liberal Party. That is one instance.

The other is close to $300,000 in public money used for Liberal polling. That is also an abuse of public funds and that money should be paid back.

None of us should be casting widespread aspersions on the public service as the government and the President of the Treasury Board has tended to do by suggesting that there is a group of 14 off in the public service somewhere that have done all this.

We should be reminding the President of the Treasury Board that the first thing this government did when it came into office was to freeze all public service promotions, freeze all public service lateral transfers and freeze all public service reclassifications.

The second thing it did was review all public service jobs from the point of view of privatization. The third thing it did was come into the House on this scandal and suggest that public servants out there somewhere are responsible for the mess.

I suggest that the government take responsibility for its actions and come clean with the fact that we are truly talking about a Liberal scandal.

[Chuck Strahl, Canadian Alliance, Fraser Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am surprised that the member from the NDP spent so much time attacking the Conservatives. I wonder if it is because the poll that came out this morning showed the NDP going down in the polls and the Conservative Party going up in the polls. Perhaps that is why she is so vexed.

However, before she or that party gives us lectures on propriety, perhaps she would consider that she is sitting over there with one guy who did time in jail for contempt of court and another was convicted of shoplifting. She should be a little careful.

There is only thing worse than stealing from the taxpayers and that is what happened in bingogate out in British Columbia where the NDP was convicted of stealing from charities.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

The Chair finds that the words that have just been used are a bit strong. I do not ask for the member to withdraw the statement, but I caution him to be judicious with his choice of words. The hon. member was walking a very find line.

On a point of order, the hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas

[Svend Robinson, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I know that the hon. member would want to ensure that the statements he makes in this House are truthful.

The member stated that the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle was convicted of an offence. That is absolutely false, scurrilous and dishonest.

I would call on the member to do the honourable thing, apologize and tell the truth.

[Chuck Strahl, Canadian Alliance, Fraser Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as has been pointed out, in the heat of the moment, I did suggest that someone who was acquitted of shoplifting was convicted. That was not true. That the member for Burnaby—Douglas spent time in jail was true.

However, I stand corrected and I do apologize for that.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

That settles the matter.

I am told that there is one minute left in questions or comments. Was the hon. member going to reply? The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre.