Madam Speaker, on February 9, I rose in the House to ask the following question:
As the NDP predicted, the Liberal government wants to go ahead with its privatization plans. The Prime Minister's right hand man is quoted in today's National Post as saying that he wants to see government operations privatized.
Can the Deputy Prime Minister tell us why the government is prepared to abdicate its role in favour of the private sector and the banks, as the parliamentary secretary has said?
The answer I got from the President of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board was as follows:
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for this question.
I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to say the government has no plans to privatize services. We are exploring a wide range of options. We have met with the unions. We have said that we will be including them in the process. We are going to look at every means possible to modernize the delivery of public services.
I want to come back however to what was said in the newspaper.
It was in the National Post of February 9, 2004. The member for Scarborough East said, and I quote:
This is the buzz item, the big ticket. This is the way government is going to be done.
The member for Scarborough East, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, said that on the issue and then continued by saying:
The whole system needs to be brought into the 21st century. If we were in private business we'd be out of business.
The article continued:
The leaders of the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the federal NDP have served notice they will fight privatization, but [the member for Scarborough East] said he anticipated that. “They're locked in the Marxist-Leninist dialogue of the 1960s and '70s and I feel sorry for them”, said [the member for Scarborough East].
Let me continue with the article:
Nycole Turmel, president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, said her union has studied previous attempts by Ottawa at P3s, such as with the Defence Department's supply chain, and found costs actually increased.
“If [the member for Scarborough East] has a mandate to look at the privatization of the infrastructure and leading to privatization or letting the administration go with the structure, then it really proves our concerns. This is the first person who is openly saying it,” she said.
As members heard today, we again raised a question about this in the House of Commons. We raised a question about privatization of hospitals. Canadians across the country are worried.
Canadians fear the hidden agenda of the government concerning privatization. From the way the hon. member for Scarborough East and parliamentary secretary expressed himself candidly in the paper, it is clear he is accusing the unions and the NDP of being stuck in the sixties and seventies. It was easy to see where he was headed.
This question was valid on February 9, 2004. It is important that we know the government's plans. On the one hand, it is saying that it does not want to privatize, but, on the other hand, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister is saying just the opposite. That is why I want to ask the question once more tonight. Canadians should know where they stand.
Does the present Liberal government intend to privatize public services? Or will it work hand in hand with the public service without trying to privatize call centres, for example, as rumours have it?
There is a great deal of doubt. I would like to hear the parliamentary secretary give us the federal government's vision, and tell us whether it intends to privatize public services. Some vague answer is not good enough. Is it yes or no?