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.