House of Commons Hansard #12 of the 37th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was liberal.
Sponsorship ProgramOral Question Period
The Speaker
I am sure the President of the Treasury Board appreciates all the assistance, but he has the floor and we want to hear his answer, not all the help.
Reg Alcock Liberal Winnipeg South, MB
Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that the member for Winnipeg--Transcona and I were not separated at birth, as is commonly believed in the House.
In response to his question, if he has a scintilla of evidence to put on the table to support his claim, then he should do it. If he can demonstrate that anything was done improperly or illegally, he should bring it forward and the process will deal with it.
Peter MacKay Progressive Conservative Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS
Mr. Speaker, I will not ask which one was the evil twin.
It is ludicrous for the government to suggest that it knew nothing of what was going on. In the weekend confessional before Father Rex Murphy, the Prime Minister said he was going to resign if it was proven that he knew about this before the Auditor General.
However, to get to the bottom of this, we are going to have to see what happened inside the Chrétien government. My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister. Given that these documents are sealed, how will the committee get access to these documents? Has the former Prime Minister been approached to authorize the unsealing of the documents so Canadians can find out who knew, when they knew and why they chose to do nothing about it?
Anne McLellan LiberalDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Mr. Speaker, as I have said before, everyone on this side is committed to finding out what happened here: why it happened, how it happened and who was involved.
I do believe the Prime Minister has made it plain that wherever that inquiry goes, so be it. We want to get to the bottom of this. That is why we have a public inquiry. That is why we have a public accounts committee.
Peter MacKay Progressive Conservative Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS
Mr. Speaker, if the Deputy Prime Minister and the government really want to get to the bottom of it, they should start at the top. The Deputy Prime Minister has the audacity to stand in this House and defend her boss's action when she herself is implicated in an even bigger fraud on the taxpayers and I am talking about the gun registry.
When will the Deputy Prime Minister and minister of public security start demonstrating some respect for public security of taxpayers' money?
Anne McLellan LiberalDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Mr. Speaker, because we are both respectful of Canadians' values, they are committed to gun control and we are committed to ensuring the wise expenditure of their tax dollars, we are reviewing the present gun control program. We know Canadians are committed to gun control but we also know they are committed to having an effective and efficient program. That is what we are committed to on this side of the House. That is what we will deliver.
Monte Solberg Canadian Alliance Medicine Hat, AB
Mr. Speaker, too bad they were not committed to using that money to put cops on the beat.
The Prime Minister worked for years to take over the Liberal Party. His operatives took control of almost every riding in the country. They crushed all of their opposition. He controlled 90% of the ridings in Quebec. Does he really expect us to believe that he did not know anything about the criminal activity in the Liberal Party?
Anne McLellan LiberalDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Mr. Speaker, as we have said before and let me say it again, we have nothing to hide over here. Our Prime Minister has made that plain. I have made it plain. Every one of my colleagues have made it plain. We have nothing to hide. We will cooperate fully with the public inquiry. We will cooperate fully with the public accounts committee.
Monte Solberg Canadian Alliance Medicine Hat, AB
Mr. Speaker, if we could find him we would ask him if he had anything to hide. The Prime Minister wants us to believe that whenever he heard Liberal hacks talking about Everest and Lafleur and Groupaction that they were talking about a mountain, a hockey player and a Montreal swingers club, but that is not at all what we are talking about here.
The truth is the Prime Minister has controlled the Liberal Party for years. He had one of those ad firms do work for him. He was notified in a letter of possible criminal activity but he failed to call in the police.
Why did he betray the public trust?
Anne McLellan LiberalDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister did not betray the public trust. In fact, through his actions beginning on December 12, I think he has indicated to all Canadians how important that trust is to him. That is why he has made it plain he has nothing to hide. No one on this side of the House has anything to hide, which is why we will cooperate fully with the public inquiry and the public accounts committee.
Odina Desrochers Bloc Lotbinière—L'Érable, QC
Mr. Speaker, in his great show of indignation over the sponsorships, the Prime Minister has stated on several occasions that those who knew something and did nothing must resign.
He was present when his colleague Mr. Gagliano left; received a letter warning him of the sponsorship scandal; certainly heard the many questions raised in the House; and what exactly did he do to stop the scandal? Can he name one little thing he did at that time?
Jacques Saada LiberalLeader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister responsible for Democratic Reform
Mr. Speaker, the administrative problems had been known for some time. The Auditor General has brought to light some misappropriations of which no government ministers were aware.
We have reiterated our intention to cooperate fully with the inquiries now going on. I am speaking not only of the ministers in this government, but of all members on this side of the House and in the corner over there. We are ready to appear when it is time to appear. The rest is nothing but politics. That is not what Canadians are looking for.
Odina Desrochers Bloc Lotbinière—L'Érable, QC
Mr. Speaker, the current Prime Minister who says he is utterly outraged could have, very easily at the time, warned the Prime Minister or his office, warned his Quebec colleagues, discussed it in caucus, or taken many other steps that were available to him to put a stop to this situation.
How can he justify not having done anything?
Jacques Saada LiberalLeader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister responsible for Democratic Reform
Mr. Speaker, this is a strange question since we know that as soon as the government took office, the sponsorship program was cancelled, that as a result of the Auditor General's report an independent commission of inquiry was named, that an independent legal counsel was appointed to recover the funds and that the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts was set up very quickly.
There is a difference between rhetoric and fact. I think the facts speak very clearly in favour of the integrity of our Prime Minister.
Roger Gaudet Bloc Berthier—Montcalm, QC
Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General reports that 10 ministers spent $27,000 each for the same study.
We want the Prime Minister to identify these 10 ministers, who have caught the Groupaction disease and think it is normal to pay $27,000 10 times for a copy of one report.
Stephen Owen LiberalMinister of Public Works and Government Services
Mr. Speaker, the Groupaction files were referred by the minister of public works and government services in March 2002 to the Auditor General. When she reported in May, the current Minister of Finance, then the new minister of public works, immediately froze $4 million worth of money that would have otherwise been paid. He froze the program until it could be fully reviewed and introduced a follow-up file review and forensic review asking the Auditor General to do the same and referring more cases to the RCMP. This is--
Government ContractsOral Question Period
The Speaker
The hon. member for Berthier—Montcalm.
Roger Gaudet Bloc Berthier—Montcalm, QC
Mr. Speaker, everyone agrees that spending $270,000 for 10 copies of the same report is excessive. The government said yesterday that it would accept criticism.
We want more. We want the names of those ministers.
Jacques Saada LiberalLeader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister responsible for Democratic Reform
Mr. Speaker, if they are serious about wanting to get at the truth in all of this, why not give a reasonable chance to the process the Prime Minister has put in place precisely to get at the truth?
How can they assume the findings of the commission of inquiry which was implemented in fact to get at the truth?
There is a contradiction here that baffles me.
James Moore Canadian Alliance Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Mr. Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister is doing a lot of talking but not a lot of answering.
The former deputy prime minister, the member for Hamilton East, had a few things to say and I want the present Deputy Prime Minister's opinion. She stated about the current Prime Minister:
I don't think you can, on one hand, take credit for the financial state of the country and, on the other hand, say that you have nothing to do with the spending of that money. I don't think that's credible.
She is right and the Deputy Prime Minister is wrong. I want to know how she can actually defend and say that what the Prime Minister is saying about the spending of this money is credible.
Anne McLellan LiberalDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has committed himself and the government to getting to the bottom of this matter on behalf of Canadians. He and the government want to know what happened, how it happened and who was involved. That is why, in fact, we have put in place a public inquiry. That is why we have asked the public accounts committee to take this matter up. That is why everybody on this side of the House has said that we will fully cooperate.
James Moore Canadian Alliance Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Mr. Speaker, part of the problem in getting to the bottom of this scandal is that the Prime Minister is having more elaborate dialogue with Flat Mark than he is with the House of Commons.
I specifically want a straight and simple yes or no answer from the Deputy Prime Minister. Has the Prime Minister asked his cabinet ministers whether or not they knew about this scandal when it was going on? Has he asked them, yes or no? It is a simple question. It is step one to getting to the bottom of it. Has he asked them?
Anne McLellan LiberalDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Mr. Speaker, the simple answer is that no one on this side of the House has anything to hide.
Jason Kenney Canadian Alliance Calgary Southeast, AB
Mr. Speaker, the truth is no one on that side of the House has anywhere to hide because they have been caught red-handed. Does the minister not understand that the Liberal Party is coming open only because it has been caught red-handed in this massive rip-off of Canadian taxpayers?
The Prime Minister claims he knew nothing. He knew nothing about the conviction of a Liberal operative in Quebec for influence peddling. He knew nothing about the 2001 Auditor General report that talked about a web of political operatives in Quebec controlling grants to that province. Did the Prime Minister ever pick up the phone after one of these incidents and raise them with the prime minister--