Debates of Feb. 17th, 2004

Supply

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the fact that the member has apologized for his outrageous statement. I hope this kind of behaviour does not happen in this House again. We are clearly not talking about individuals. We are debating the motion that the Conservatives have brought in about a culture of corruption. We believe that culture has existed, not only in this Liberal administration, but in the past Conservative administration.

I want to say to the member who has challenged us to talk about our support, which he should know is steadily increasing in the polls, that the Conservative candidate in my constituency who ran against me in the last election is so fed up with the Conservatives that he has decided to join the NDP and join my re-election efforts.

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise the House that I will be splitting my time today with my friend from Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam.

It is an unfortunate duty to rise today on this important topic, a topic that has seized the attention of the whole country. The Auditor General's report of last week confirmed something that many of us have long suspected. It proved that the government was engaged in a corrupt practice, possibly criminal in its scope.

I am not the first to be outraged by the most recent scandal and I surely will not be the last.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if you listened to the Rex Murphy show on the weekend, but most people across the nation did and, I have to say, with the Prime Minister there to listen as well.

All across this nation the people are very outraged with this government. As a taxpayer, I was shocked to learn that our money was being used to fund these kinds of corrupt activities. As a member of Parliament, I was livid to learn that the government was undertaking these types of activities.

For the past week we have heard a great deal about this scandal, but there are three areas in particular that I want to highlight for the consideration of the House.

First and foremost, I want to address the suggestions made by the Prime Minister that the officials working with Prime Minister Chrétien were aware of this problem and covered it up.

Second, I want to address the fact that the Prime Minister continues to deny that he knew anything about it.

Finally, I would like to discuss the principle of ministerial accountability in general.

In the past week, the Prime Minister has held a number of press conferences, but none as significant as the one held at the national press gallery last Thursday. At that time, the Prime Minister told reporters that one of the reasons why he was kept in the dark about the scandal was his poor relationship with the previous prime minister, Jean Chrétien, and his staff. The clear message was that if he had a better relationship he would have been told about the scandal and what was taking place. For that to be in any way relevant, we must believe that the Chrétien PMO knew about the scandal in advance.

Now, if the Chrétien government knew about it, then why not tell the people, perhaps even the current Prime Minister? They were clearly engaged in a cover-up, yet the Prime Minister insists that Mr. Chrétien now is a man of integrity.

All this raises very important questions about why the Prime Minister did not know about it himself. Why did he have to rely on the information of others? Was he not the minister of finance? Was he not the senior minister from Quebec? Was he not the second most powerful person in cabinet at the time? How can we believe, given the Prime Minister's resumé, that he was totally in the dark about something as important as this? The truth is that either the Prime Minister did know or he should have known.

The evidence is mounting that Liberals in Quebec were aware that this sponsorship program was becoming an issue. It has been reported that the issue was discussed in the meetings of the Liberals' Quebec caucus. It has been reported that the Prime Minister received a letter from a senior Liberal outlining his concern on this issue.

When we consider the number of different opportunities the Prime Minister had to learn about this scandal, one has to wonder how he avoided it. It is almost as though the official policy at the Department of Finance was “hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil”.

The fact is, if the Prime Minister was genuinely unaware of the problem he must have lost control of his department and lost touch with his government. How else can we explain the strange sequence of events that conspired to keep him totally free and clear of trouble?

By his own admission, he did learn of this through the machinery of government, or the civil service.

By his own admission, he did not hear about this in a Quebec caucus meeting, but all the others did.

By his own admission, he does not recall receiving a letter from a senior Liberal Party supporter on the issue, but that person has stated he wrote the letter.

By his own admission, he did not have the type of relationship with those in the Prime Minister's Office that would cause them to bring him into their confidence.

By his own admission, then, he was isolated from the department, his caucus, his party and his leader. That is the story of someone who was totally disconnected from the government of the day.

We can only believe his excuse if we accept that the Prime Minister was ignorant of everything going on around him. Frankly, given his stature in his party and his government, that is simply not credible.

There is a general principle of public law that I want to address at this time. We are all aware of the principle of ministerial accountability. It is a basic pillar of our parliamentary democracy. We have a departmental structure that places the ministers at the top. Ministers are then accountable for their actions in the House of Commons. They are in turn responsible for the actions taken by their departments. It is not necessary that the minister in question was personally involved in the actions of the department. It is not even necessary that ministers are aware of the actions taken by their departments. They are deemed to know.

What is important is the principle that they are responsible for their departments in all aspects of their conduct. As the senior ranking government minister, the Prime Minister is ultimately responsible for the actions of every department in the government.

To his credit, the Prime Minister has acknowledged his responsibility, but as minister of finance at the time when government money was being used for improper and possibly criminal purposes, the Prime Minister had a responsibility for the actions of his department then. He had a duty to know what was being done in his name and on his authority. He had a duty to ensure that the government was not engaging in fiscal mismanagement. He had a duty to know when taxpayers' money was being used for questionable purposes. If he did not, then he failed in his duties.

We know that for the past 14 years the Prime Minister has been fighting to get where he is today. We know that he let nothing and nobody stand between him and the PM's office. He was engaged in a leadership campaign that stretches back to 1990. That kind of campaign takes a lot of time, maybe even too much time. It can be a distraction. We are left to wonder whether the Prime Minister was working so hard to become a prime minister that he did not have time to be the minister of finance.

He cannot have it both ways. The Prime Minister cannot go around the country telling Canadians that he is responsible for bringing down the deficit and keeping the economy strong if in the next breath he tells them that he did not know what was going on in his department.

He cannot have it both ways. He cannot say that it was a small group of people and then launch a full scale public inquiry to find out who did it. Either he knew or he should have known.

Why was the former minister, who is now former Ambassador Gagliano, fired? Does the Prime Minister know he was responsible for all of this? If so, why do we need the inquiry? As I stated, the Prime Minister cannot have it both ways. Either he knew or he should have known.

I have to say that I think now that he is travelling across the country speaking to people and wanting to listen to people, he is finding out how people feel. The people are truly upset.

When I go home to my riding I see the people who are not working anymore and the people who earn $25,000 a year who try to feed, clothe and educate four or five children. Then I think about the $250 million stolen from the taxpayers of this country. There is something wrong. There is something wrong in this House and we have to correct it. We have to take the stance to correct it and we must never let it happen again.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, first of all I am pleased with the tone of this debate, as was occurring with the hon. member, but it is unfortunate that we are losing sight of what we are trying to accomplish here. I am greatly saddened because 90% of the hon. member's comments were focused around a personal attack on one individual.

Let us be very frank. That one individual, and I quote her, said that “this is the truth”. Members can say anything they want in the House but that to me is not the truth and it is unfair to quote.

The member says there is a poor relationship and asks if he will tell the people. The Prime Minister has said, with no ambiguity, “I am going to testify. I want to testify. I want to go to the nation. I want to find out and get to the bottom of this”.

I do not have any time left, but let us calm this down and do what the people want. They want all of us to get to the bottom of what happened.

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member had listened to the people who called Rex Murphy's show, he would know exactly what the people want us to do. I can tell him right now.

I am not pointing fingers at anyone. I am saying that the people in this government either knew what was going on or not, and if they knew what was going on, it should have been corrected. That was a number of years ago. Now they are pointing the finger at one person. They sent him away to be an ambassador and now they are bringing him back and saying it is his fault.

My understanding is that Groupaction in Quebec was given a contract. They were supposed to do a profile of some sort on some action. They submitted it and they got paid substantial funds. Then they copied the identical report three times and got paid thousands and thousands of dollars. Is that what they want? The Prime Minister was the minister of finance and he knew that money was going to Groupaction.

[R. John Efford, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, I have been in the House now for several days listening to comments from the opposition, most recently the member for Saint John. On both sides of the House, regardless of what party members are from, we have the right to make a comment, we have the right to give a speech, and we have the right to ask a question. That is how democracy works.

But in making those statements or asking those questions, regardless of what one's position is, the information should be accurate. That is what the people across Canada expect.

I would ask the member this question. Is she not aware that the Prime Minister repeated the Auditor General's report when he said that there were 14 people in the bureaucracy involved? This was not the Prime Minister's statement. It was written in the Auditor General's report, and also--

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

The hon. member for Saint John.

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I want my hon. colleague to know that if the Auditor General found out just by doing a review that in her opinion there were 14 employees who were involved in this, how come the former minister of finance, the member's present Prime Minister, did not know? He should have known if there were 14 people in his department doing the wrong thing.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I find it deplorable that the hon. member of the Conservative Party of Canada continues to tell Canadians that the former finance minister was responsible for the Department of Public Works and Government Services, when even the Auditor General has explained clearly that the program in question was the responsibility of the Minister of Public Works and Government Services.

Why does the member continue to say it was his department and his program?

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I want the hon. member to know that the former minister of finance, who is now our Prime Minister, was in charge of all money.

[An hon. member]

The eye of the needle.

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Yes, indeed. He was the eye of the needle. That is absolutely correct.

On this one here, I have to say that for him and the Prime Minister to state that he did not know anything about this, oh, oh--

[An hon. member]

I'm losing respect for you.

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Darling, I am losing respect for you.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

Please do not make arguments personal.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Port Moody--Coquitlam--Port Coquitlam.

[James Moore, Canadian Alliance, Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I see the member for the Winnipeg area who first ran for office, I believe, in 1988. I ran for office in 2000. I see a respected member of Parliament from Newfoundland and Labrador who was elected in a byelection last year. We all ran at different times and we were all elected at different times to this place but none of us expected to have to deal with this kind of scandal.

I think we all, at different times in our lives, joined political parties for different idealistic reasons and different purposes. Perhaps it was to serve an ideology or to serve our constituents and communities but here we are. After a little more than 10 years of a Liberal majority government here we are.

Our motion today describes specifically a culture of corruption within the Liberal Party of Canada because, frankly, that is the way to describe it.

This problem did not start and it certainly does not end with regard to the Auditor General's report that was tabled on Tuesday of last week. This is a systemic problem and has been a systemic problem within the Liberal Party of Canada.

The unfortunate reality is, and political scientists write about this constantly, the nature of the House of Commons which so dysfunctional with regard to party discipline that we do not have free votes in the House of Commons. When I look across the way I see some of my colleagues, for example the member for Yukon, and the member from Scarborough who was deservedly elected vice-chair of the transport committee today and who is an hon. member that I have gotten along with very well.

One of the unfortunate realities of party discipline in our current structure of Parliament is that party discipline leads citizens to look at members of Parliament as being a Conservative member of Parliament, a New Democrat or a Liberal and, by virtue of being Liberal, when this scandal comes out there are these allegations of corruption and hon. members are hit with those kinds of accusations, which is not fair.

One of the consequences of that that should come out of Liberal members of Parliament should be more outrage. There should be more anxiousness in order to get to the bottom and get to the truth and to force the current Prime Minister to do as much as he absolutely can.

The Prime Minister is now campaigning across the country protesting his innocence and the innocence of the Liberal Party to this clear money laundering scheme that happened under his watch when he was finance minister.

What should be happening, and we will be persistently asking these questions in question period day in and day out, is that there is an important dichotomy here. Depending on where Canadians live in Canada, if it is one in three or one in four Canadians, they believe that the current Prime Minister knew. He was, perhaps next to the prime minister, the highest profile member of Parliament in the province of Quebec, in the Montreal area of LaSalle—Émard. He was the finance minister responsible for managing the till. He was of course the presumptive next leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.

Of course he knew about this scandal. It was a high profile program that was championed in press conferences, ribbon cutting ceremonies, baby kissing ceremonies, after gun shows and community events. This was a high profile event and everyone in the province of Quebec knew about this. They cannot claim innocence on this.

A seminal question that the current Prime Minister has to answer is precisely as was outlined by the member for Saint John: either on the one hand he knew about it and chose to do nothing, in which case he is complicit in money laundering; or, he did not know about it, in which case how can Canadians trust him to manage their money. We are talking about a quarter of a billion dollars, which is not chump change.

This is a serious scandal. This is not jaywalking. These are hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars taken away from citizens into the general revenue fund of the government, cut away to ad firms and the ad firms donated money to the Liberal Party. This is a money laundering scheme of the highest order. It is utterly corrupt and we should all be outraged about this.

As I said, this is not a traffic ticket or jaywalking. This is corruption at the highest level. The Liberals should be scandalized and outraged.

The Prime Minister says that he is doing everything he can do about it. The question that we have in the House that he has persistently failed to answer is whether he has asked every one of his cabinet ministers whether they knew. He has not asked his own cabinet ministers and I suspect it is because he is afraid of the answer.

The Prime Minister can say that he is getting to the bottom of it by having an independent inquiry. He says that he will get to the bottom of it by saying “Just watch me” and wagging his finger as Pierre Trudeau did outside the West Block 20 years ago. The fact is the Prime Minister has not done the most basic thing, which is to sit down with every one of his cabinet ministers and ask them whether they knew. And if they did know, then to ask them when they knew and why he was not told.

For all those members of Parliament from the province of Quebec where this program was so high profile, why did they not ask questions about where this money came from and what was going on?

We always talk about these grandiose numbers of $1.2 billion here or $250 million there. I added it up so everyday Canadians can understand and appreciate the level of scandal that we are talking about here.

We must not forget why Richard Nixon was run out of office. People in Richard Nixon's campaign broke into the Brookings Institution, which had campaign files, because they wanted to get secret campaign information about his opponent in the 1972 presidential election campaign. They wanted to find out where he was campaigning. It was a break and enter and Richard Nixon covered it up.

What we are talking about here are hundreds of millions of dollars. The scale of this is enormous and it cannot be whitewashed by saying that it is just another scandal, that it is just like some other governments did. This is profoundly important. If we do nothing, if we let this roll over and allow the Prime Minister to walk away from this, we will lose credibility as a country.

What we will be saying is that it does not matter. What we will be saying is go ahead and rip off taxpayers and steal stuff. What we will be saying to young Canadians is that it does not matter; we cannot have fixed election dates; we will call an election whenever we want and we will call it when it is to our advantage; we will push off an inquiry until the fall or until sometime next year. He will be a one term Prime Minister, because of the virtue of his age, and get away with it, and if he does get away with it, it does not matter.

This is profoundly important for the House and for the country. We have to get to the bottom of this. The numbers are huge. The consequences for the country are bigger than some ambassador coming back. Is that not embarrassing? We lost a bit of money but hopefully we will recoup it with a bit of economic kick up in the long term.

How does Canada have credibility when we stand up to the United Nations on the rebuilding of Afghanistan and tell them how to set up an accountable system of governance? How do we have credibility when we want to do that? How do we have credibility when we go into Iraq and tell them how to set up a government with proper lines of fiscal accountability and responsibility?

When the government proposes its first nations governance act, what moral authority does the government have to stand up in the face of aboriginal communities in this country and tell them to be more fiscally responsible? The government has no grounds at all.

The consequence of this is that it cripples the ability of the government to govern, not just because it looks bad in some PR fumble, but because there are profound governing consequences of this scandal. This cannot be whitewashed in a speaking tour by the Prime Minister.

I want to give a snapshot of some of the money so that citizens get a full appreciation of all the scandals we are talking about. This is not just about the one that was announced last Tuesday, but all the scandals and the broader culture of corruption: $2 billion lost on the gun registry; $1 billion lost on the HRDC boondoggle; $1.5 billion fumbled in the home heating rebate scandal where money went to dead people, to prisoners, to just about anyone except those who really needed it; $250 million in the corporate welfare, in the scandal that I just described; $161 million in corporate welfare to the Prime Minister and Canada Steamship Lines; $700 million wasted in the helicopter cancellation; $100 million in unneeded Challenger jets; $265 million toward the Pearson Airport privatization. The total amount is $5.976 billion.

What does that mean? It means that for the 301 ridings that are represented in the House of Commons $27.9 million were spent with no accountability and no proper accounting by the government.

What does $28 million get us? In my riding, for example, we could pay the cost of policing for four and a half years. In every riding in the country we could purchase 13 MRI machines, hire 602 nurses, hire 634 firefighters, purchase 931 new police cars and hire 698 new members of the RCMP. We could pay the costs for 4,700 students every year. We could pay the tuition for 9,500 students in every riding.

This is profoundly important. The whitewash we are getting from the Liberal government is not nearly good enough. Canadians want answers but we are not getting them, which is why we put the motion forward. We want and we demand accountability for taxpayers.

[John Harvard, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam said a lot of things but the one thing that struck me was that he agreed with us when he said that his party and the country wanted to get to the bottom of this issue. That is exactly true. We want to get to the bottom of this. The Prime Minister has said this from the outset of this story.

Let me remind the member from British Columbia that on the day the Prime Minister became Prime Minister he cancelled the program. That was the signal that he was as distressed as anybody about this.

What else has he done? He has ordered a judicial inquiry to get to the bottom of it. He has named a solicitor to retrieve as much of the money as possible. He also got the House to refer the matter to the public accounts committee as soon as possible.

What does that indicate? I think it indicates to most rational Canadians that he, above everybody else, wants to get to the bottom of it.

The hon. member also said that this cannot be whitewashed with a cross country tour. The Prime Minister is visiting parts of the country. He wants to make himself available. He wants to answer questions and he wants to hear people's concerns. Is that not the ultimate responsibility of a prime minister?

[James Moore, Canadian Alliance, Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is not helping the Prime Minister's case. He is hurting it. He is further muddying the waters. We want to get to the bottom of this. He brags that the Prime Minister cancelled this contract as soon as he became Prime Minister.

I think he became Prime Minister 63 days ago. The AG report came out on Tuesday of last week. He cancelled it before the Auditor General's report came out which means that he knew the program was bogus, corrupt and money laundering. He knew about it before the Auditor General's report. How is that accountability?

He waited until the avalanche of bad publicity from the Auditor General's report to say that they will hold an inquiry. The very fact that he cancelled the program when he came into office before the Auditor General's report came down says that he knew. Of course he knew and he damned well better have known because he was the chief financial officer of the country. He should have known where $250 million was being spent in his own province of Quebec. It was his job. Of course he knew about the program.

For the member to say that he is doing everything he can because he got rid of the program, he should have never financed the program. He should have never become involved in a money laundering scheme. He should have known better.

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

Mr. Speaker, as a fellow member of Parliament for British Columbia, the member will appreciate the seriousness of this in the context of British Columbia as well. Not only do we have this cloud of stench and corruption hanging over the Liberal Party nationally, but in our home province of British Columbia we have the Liberal Party of British Columbia which has that same cloud. In fact, its membership has skyrocketed from 4,000 to 40,000 and nobody knows where the money came from. The former Liberal riding president from Vancouver Quadra said that no one knows where the money came from and there has been no accounting for it.

The Prime Minister's director of communications and director of fundraising have had their homes searched; drug warrants have been issued; organized crime is involved.

Does the member not agree that this is just another nail in the coffin of the federal Liberal Party and that it is no surprise that the Liberal member for Vancouver South—Burnaby said that given what is happening now, the Liberals will be lucky to hold onto what they have in the province of British Columbia?

[James Moore, Canadian Alliance, Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree completely with my colleague from Burnaby—Douglas. His understanding of the dynamics in British Columbia with regard to these scandals is bang on. His rifle shot at this one.

When a government is in power for 10 years with 100% of the control in the House because it has a majority; a split opposition; 100% control in cabinet, in the Senate, the executive, in the judiciary and with regard to all the crown corporations; when it has that kind of power for 10 years, power tends to corrupt but absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is precisely what we have seen with regard to this Liberal government. It has had too much power for too long.

It has led to the corruption of riding associations, to nomination fights, to this House, to Quebec ad scandals and to all sorts of things. The problem in the country is not that we need an independent inquiry, it is that before taxpayers become completely fed up, we need a new government because the Liberals are ripping off Canadians.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I must inform the Chair that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Scarborough Centre

This is a terrible situation. As I already indicated, I, like the vast majority of Canadians, am enraged, frustrated, disappointed and saddened. There is no way to adequately explain how I feel or how the Prime Minister and Canadians across Canada feel in the wake of these revelations.

It is important for me to take a bit of my time to summarize the facts. Despite all the media coverage, it is impossible for all the facts to be summarized in one minute and thirty seconds on television in a way that tells Canadians exactly what happened and what the undisputed facts are.

Then, I will use my remaining five minutes, the other half of my time, to explore what I think Parliament can do to shed light on this situation and those parties responsible.

I would like to provide some very brief background information on the sponsorship program and some key dates.

The sponsorship program was originally created in 1997, and it was determined that it would be part of public works operations. In 2000 that sponsorship program was subjected to an internal audit, directed by the then deputy minister, Mr. Ranald Quail.

As everyone knows, since then the sponsorship program has been a focus of extensive concern and criticism, both from within the government and outside the government, especially for the period concerning 1997 to 2000. Even today the overwhelming majority of comments and criticisms relate to the program as it was run during that three year period.

The 2000 internal audit found serious deficiencies in documentation, in contracting, in internal controls and finally, in management practices. An action plan at that time was implemented and corrective measures began to be put into place. That internal audit was posted on the government's website and was public. The action plan as well was posted on the Internet and was made public.

In March 2002 the minister of public works at the time asked the Auditor General to audit three contracts which were awarded between 1996 and 1999 to Groupaction, which is a company located in the province of Quebec. The Auditor General released her report of the audit on the three contracts. In her report she referred the government's handling of these contracts to the RCMP for further investigation.

In May 2002 the former minister of public works was appointed and his first act was to impose an immediate moratorium on future sponsorship initiatives until he was satisfied that the program criteria were sound. In July 2002 that minister lifted the moratorium on the sponsorship program for the balance of the fiscal year, that was until March 31, 2003. It was also confirmed that the interim program would proceed without the use of external communication agencies to deliver it.

At the same time, while that program was being reassessed, a detailed review of past sponsorship files was undertaken. That was undertaken under the authority of the chief financial officer of public works, who assembled a quick-response team, comprising of financial and procurement specialists from within public works and auditors from Consulting and Audit Canada.

That quick-response team, between May and July 2002, did a case by case review of 721 sponsorship files to determine their completeness and to report on any areas of concern. These files were from several agencies with which public works had sponsorship contracts.

That quick-response team conducted a detailed review of 126 files which were deemed to be of primary interest because either they were of a high dollar value, that is, over $500,000, or had received media coverage and/or had known deficiencies, such as the absence of post-mortem reports. That file review yielded a great deal of useful information and recommendations, which were presented in the final project report tabled in the House of Commons on October 10, 2002.

This file review was in addition to the government-wide audit of advertising sponsorship and public opinion research which was launched by the Auditor General and was part of the report that she tabled just a week ago to Parliament. As the Auditor General herself stated, publicly and clearly, government and ministerial officials cooperated fully with the work of her office.

We all know the conclusions of the Auditor General's report. I will not repeat them here. I would encourage all Canadians who are interested in really understanding everything that happened to go to the Auditor General's website.

I invite Canadians to visit the Auditor General's web site to read her report on the sponsorship program for themselves.

Now I would like to address the issue of what Parliament can do to ensure that what has happened does not happen again.

Canadians are asking a series of questions. They are asking how was it possible for this to happened? Are ministers not responsible for their own departments and for the programs and services which are dispensed by their own departments? When cabinet approves the creation of a new program, who decides in which ministry it will be placed? What happens after that decision is made?

When the Auditor General appeared before the public accounts committee, she clearly stated that under normal circumstances a minister would not be familiar with all details of the day to day operations of his or her department. However, at the same time, the Auditor General clearly pointed out that someone made the decision that this program would operate outside the normal procedures functions and structures of that department, which was public works.

The public accounts committee has a responsibility to look at that issue. In fact the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel to the House of Commons, Mr. Rob Walsh, came before public accounts today. He strongly recommended that our committee look at the issue of ministerial responsibility in the same way the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates did when it found the privacy commissioner had lost the confidence of Parliament. The public accounts committee should look at the ministers who are responsible, the high-level, high-ranking officials, and determine what are their responsibilities and whether they still enjoy the confidence of Parliament, of the House.

That is what the House can do in the interim, while it waits for the judicial inquiry to do its fact finding. The judicial inquiry cannot determine whether Parliament has lost confidence in the ministers and high-ranking officials nor can the criminal investigations. However, through its public accounts, the House can look at the issue indepth and determine whether those individuals still have the confidence of the House.

[Deepak Obhrai, Canadian Alliance, Calgary East, AB]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are angry, and all I see are Liberals crying crocodile tears about how hurt they are.

I have been in Parliament for seven years. If I had ever questioned the Liberals about the sponsorship program three or four years ago, before the scandal broke out, that member would have called me an anti-Quebecer. I am not against Quebec. I have sat in Parliament and listened to those comments. Today, because the people in Quebec are angry, and she is from Quebec, they are now crying crocodile tears.

The bottom line is this. What happened to taxpayer dollars? What happened to prudent management? Those questions are being asked by Canadians.

I recently campaigned in my riding. I noted seniors were struggling, single mothers were struggling, families were struggling, veterans were struggling and students were struggling. Yet we have a program which spent $250 million.

How did this program get approved in the first place? What was the value of the program? The responsibility lies with the finance minister to have a program that benefits all Canadians.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, let me first begin by saying that had that member of Parliament or any member of Parliament come to me at any time, from the time this program was committed, and stated that they believed there was possible fraud or possible criminal action taking place, I certainly would not have closed my eyes. I do not appreciate that being imputed to me or to any other member in the House.

How did this program start, who decided it was to be created and who decided it would operate outside of the regular structures of control and supervision that exist within any government department, is what Canadians want to know, what I want to know and what the Auditor General was unable to determine because it was outside of the scope of her jurisdiction.

However, that is within the scope of the public accounts committee. That is precisely the point I attempted to make when I talked about what the public accounts committee could do in order to answer some of the questions being asked by Canadians and members on both sides of the House, including the Prime Minister.

[Grant McNally, Canadian Alliance, Dewdney—Alouette, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief and ask my colleague about some facts about fraud that have been well known to all of us.

In 1997 a Liberal fundraiser from Quebec, named Pierre Corbeil, was charged with fraud and convicted. He had a list of groups that were receiving government grants. He was shaking them down for cash. He would show up and say that if they did not pony up $10,000 to the Liberal Party of Canada, they would see their grants cancelled. That is evidence of fraud. He was convicted of fraud.

This has been going on for a long time within the Liberal Party of Canada. There is evidence for the member. What does she have to say about that? What does she have to say about the dual track approval process of grants that came out during the 2000 election? What does she have to say about that? What does she have to say about these phony invoices and the $100 million that is missing today?

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the example that has just been given is ideal because it shows that as soon as there were rumours and allegation of alleged criminal activity, the matter was immediately put into the hands of the police. There was a criminal investigation, a criminal prosecution and the due process of law took place. That was under this government.

The Auditor General herself stated that she had no reason to believe, with the authority and powers her office have, that there was systemic possible criminal activity. Systemic possible fraud was taking place. It was only her comprehensive audit that allowed her to bring out that kind of thing.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I participate in this debate I want to thank my colleague from Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine for sharing the time with me.

On this most important issue, what I think is incumbent on us as elected representatives is to speak to the people, and we have the opportunity through this honourable House to do so. Unfortunately, what happens most of the time is that questions are asked and we are asked to stand up and respond to such an important issue in 30 or 35 seconds. What happens is that there is a little vibe and a jab, the media picks up on that, it gets exploited, and the next thing we know, we are not doing what Canadians have asked us to do.

Most recently, in the last year there have been municipal elections and provincial elections and, who knows, a federal election down the road. What Canadians have been saying consistently over and over again to all of us is to get our act together, to stop the squabbling, solve the problem and get to the bottom of it.

I want to get to the issue of the day and pick up where my colleague started off with a bit of history of what happened here. When responsible individuals, officers of Parliament and so on comment, I think their choice of words is very important. I go back to an article of May 9, 2002, when Auditor General Sheila Fraser said, “Senior public servants broke just about every rule in the book”. That is her quote. She did not say the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance or the President of the Treasury Board. That had to with this quote, “RCMP to probe federal ad deals”, the ones that my colleague previously referred to. To quote the Auditor General again, she said, “This is a completely unacceptable way for government to do business”.

I say to my colleagues and ladies and gentlemen out there, the moment the Auditor General uses those words “unacceptable way for government to do business”, who are people going to blame? They are going to blame their member of Parliament, their minister and the Prime Minister.

On the other hand, the report said that there were firm guidelines that were set in handling these contracts. Who broke the guidelines? Did the finance minister break them? Did the Prime Minister break them? Did the leader of the opposition break them? No. It was the people who were administering the program.

I am not here to pick on anybody. I just want to get to the bottom of it, like everybody else was saying. I know colleagues over there who sit on the public accounts committee and it was their cooperative effort with the Liberals--and I commend them for that--that brought the Radwanski case to light. They got to the bottom of it. It was cooperative.

That is what the minister, the Prime Minister and the President of the Treasury Board are saying. They are saying, “Join us and let us get to the bottom of it because there has been a lot of wrong done here”. There has been a lot of Canadian taxpayers' money lost, and I agree with my colleague, who said earlier that it should go to better programs.

It does not stop there. Coincidentally, just the other day I was reading an article in The Toronto Star that said “$100,000 in bribes alleged”. The Dufferin-Peel Catholic school board asked for an inquiry. Apparently there was an HRDC program, part of the boondoggle that was discussed a couple of years ago, a legitimate program that was funded to counsel young students, young Canadians on vocational training. The article stated, “While funds went into legitimate HRDC programs, police allege false invoices were submitted to take money from the programs”.

This was a legitimate program that met every prerequisite with an identified, recognized school board. Yet some members within that group connived at how they were going to manipulate the system. What did they do? They submitted false invoices. Did the Prime Minister know about it? Did the Leader of the Opposition know about it? Did the President of the Treasury Board know about it? I do not think so.

What a coincidence. This was said here just the other day: “Groupaction faked invoices, insider says”. A senior vice-president of the advertising firm was not even aware that his name was being used and billed for services rendered. He did not even have a clue. Who was incompetent then? The Prime Minister? Their leader? The Treasury Board president? Obviously, the thief who wants to rob someone's house is not going to call and say, “I want to come over and rob you on Tuesday night. Please leave the house”.

We have identified that there have been wrongs done to Canadian taxpayers. A commission of inquiry has commenced its activities. A Quebec justice has been appointed, who wants to get to the bottom of it, just like there was a probe in 2002. As my colleague referred to earlier, there were charges laid.

As my colleague from the new Conservative Party asked earlier, are they going to be charged? We cannot charge and convict a thief unless we actually catch him or her. We are in the process of getting to the bottom of it, as was done in the Radwanski case.

What I am saying to the House in this entire debate is this: let us not prejudge. Let us not say that the Prime Minister knew, the minister knew, or the former prime minister knew. Nobody knows who knew. We are in the process of getting to the bottom of it.

I would like, as I close, to ask all colleagues to refer to page 6 of today's Quorum . There is an article from The Globe and Mail entitled “Guidelines not followed for sponsorship initiative”.

For every article, I will again quote the Auditor General, who said that “senior public servants broke just about every rule in the book”. She was not referring to the Prime Minister or members of Parliament. It was a program that was laid out. There were guidelines that were set. If the people who connived chose to abuse and violate those guidelines, let them be caught, let them be punished, and let us hopefully get the money back for Canadians.