Debates of Feb. 26th, 2004

Sponsorship Program

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we have questions and we think that the House of Commons is as good a place as any to ask them.

The President of the Privy Council has no recollection. The former ministers of intergovernmental affairs, transport, fisheries and oceans and natural resources all have amnesia.

Unless he too is suffering from amnesia, can the Minister of Finance, who promised to clean up the Department of Public Works and Government Services, and who attended the June 10, 2002, meeting, tell the House from his seat, with certainty, if he is the one who made the comment in defence of the firms run by friends of the Liberal Party? He was there. Was it him or not? We want to know.

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, as we have indicated on this side of the House, ministers, if called upon, will appear before the public accounts committee and the public inquiry.

We have put in place an unprecedented set of actions to respond to the Auditor General's report. No one more than the government and the Prime Minister wants to get to the bottom of this situation.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there is a limit. We are in the House of Commons. The cabinet meeting minutes indicate that a minister defended the communications firms in the sponsorship scandal.

Again, I am asking the finance minister who spearheaded a plan at the time to put an end to this scandal: Is he the one who defended the sponsorship companies? Could he be the one who defended the sponsorship companies during that meeting?

[Jacques Saada, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister responsible for Democratic Reform]

No, Mr. Speaker.

[An hon. member]

It is not him. It was not him.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we would like the government to explain something. There were seven ministers. The minister responsible was not the finance minister; he just said he was not. That leaves six ministers—

[An hon. member]

Two of whom are still ministers.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

We would like to know something. Two ministers are still in cabinet: the Minister of Labour and the President of the Privy Council.

Could I ask the finance minister, since he recalls the meeting and he says it was not him, which of these two ministers, who are still part of cabinet, defended the advertising firms?

[Jacques Saada, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister responsible for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, the leader of the Bloc Quebecois and the Bloc Quebecois House leader want answers in the House of Commons. Yet, for some time now, they have not stopped preaching about all sorts of things, including the need to have a commission of inquiry to get to the bottom of things.

There is a commission of inquiry. Let them make use of it. They should be consistent with what they wanted in the first place.

Transportation

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.

It has to do with the report concerning the derailment at McBride last year where two railroaders were killed. There is a Transportation Safety Board report which states that “a number of bridge components were defective and determined that there were shortcomings in CNR's inspection and maintenance processes”.

I want to ask the Minister of Transport, what does the government intend to do about this or is CN going to get the same free ride that the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and the Minister of Labour have been giving CN during the rail strike?

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, we certainly take this very seriously. The Transportation Safety Board is investigating the accident to determine the potential causes and make recommendations.

The department will continue to cooperate fully with the Transportation Safety Board in its investigation. The department is being kept informed of its progress. We do have a ministerial observer on site as well. Any safety deficiencies that might be uncovered through the Transportation Safety Board will be acted upon.

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder who will actually be calling the shots here, the Minister of Transport or John Duffy, the former member of the Prime Minister's transition team. He is now a paid lobbyist for CN.

My question is for the Minister of Transport, perhaps the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, the Minister of Labour and anybody else that has anything to do with CN. Does it not concern them that CN has more access to the Prime Minister than they do, and they are in the cabinet?

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, that is an outrageous assertion.

In fact, the hon. member should know that anyone involved with the Prime Minister's transition team followed strict rules established by the ethics counsellor. At no time were those people in a position of conflict of interest, nor are they now in a position of conflict of interest.

I want to remind the hon. member that it is this Prime Minister and this government that has committed to, and delivered on, a higher level of transparency and accountability.

Sponsorship Program

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

Mr. Speaker, cabinet documents made public today are imploding the Prime Minister's explanation that he really had nothing to do with this and did not know what was going on with the sponsorship program.

The documents show that the Treasury Board approved an additional $40 million on top of what was already its set budget for the sponsorship program seven months after an internal audit found that there were all kinds of scandalous problems within the program.

Why was the $40 million approved by the Treasury Board after it was known that there was a problem with this program?

[Reg Alcock, Liberal, President of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board]

Mr. Speaker, seven months after the internal audit exposed problems in the program, 37 actions were taken to correct the program and all of the problems.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would invite the minister responsible to look at the figures, because they show that the government approved an additional $40 million for the program seven months after it had been established that there was something scandalously wrong with the program.

Why did the government approve $40 million for the program when it knew that scandalous if not criminal activities were taking place? Why did it do that? That is a simple question. Why did the government put more money into it?

[Reg Alcock, Liberal, President of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board]

Well, Mr. Speaker--

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Speaker]

Order, please. We have to be able to hear the answer from the hon. President of the Treasury Board. With all this noise, the Chair is unable to hear.

The President of the Treasury Board has the floor.

[Reg Alcock, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to respond to the member's question.

It is true that the money was approved after the fixes were put in place, but the--

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Speaker]

Order, please.

[Reg Alcock, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. There were two parts to the question, and I forgot one of them.

The member did say that after an audit that identified criminal activity was exposed, the government, knowing that, approved more money. If the member would like to table the audit and a statement about criminality, this is the audit that was--

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Medicine Hat.

[Monte Solberg, Canadian Alliance, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is pretty clear that the fix was in. That is the whole problem.

Today, the public accounts committee revealed that even after the internal audit came down and all the problems were revealed--including activities that clearly were borderline criminal activities, perhaps even criminal activities--$40 million more went into the program without any strings attached.

My question is: how can the Treasury Board president, the Prime Minister, and anybody involved in this, defend sending 40 million more dollars into a program that was involved in criminal activity?