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.