Debates of Feb. 27th, 2004

Haiti

[Aileen Carroll, Liberal, Minister for International Cooperation]

Mr. Speaker, Canada has been very active, both from the aid dimension and from foreign affairs as well. We have been emphasizing greatly that Mr. Aristide must take control of the situation and must deal with the realities. He must do what the international community has asked him to do: deal with the opposition and assign or bring in a prime minister.

We are being very cognizant of the situation, working very well with Washington and the UN, and cognizant as well of what Caricom and the OAS are trying to accomplish. Canada is very much a partner in the solution to this situation.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, 80% of Haitians live in grinding poverty. Economic strangulation imposed by the U.S. and by World Bank and IMF structural adjustments has made a desperate situation even worse. If President Aristide is removed unconstitutionally, that would amount to Haiti's 33rd coup d'état. Canada cannot turn a blind eye to an impending bloodbath in that impoverished country.

I ask again, will Canada support a UN based rapid deployment of forces to Haiti, in cooperation with Caribbean nations?

[Aileen Carroll, Liberal, Minister for International Cooperation]

Mr. Speaker, Canada has done nothing in the way of turning a blind eye. Canada has been the second largest donor of aid to Haiti for many years. We just recently freed up $5 million in a response to the OAS and what it is trying to accomplish.

We are working very closely with the United Nations. We will work in concert with the United Nations should the desire be there to have an international response, but first and foremost, there has to be a political situation accomplished, a political stability, before moving in, in a military way, would be an efficacious response.

Sponsorship Program

[Jay Hill, Canadian Alliance, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in reference to the sponsorship scandal, the Prime Minister has recently been quoted as saying, “I did not particularly like the way the government did it at the time”. He was the finance minister. He was the vice-chair of the Treasury Board and the senior minister from Quebec in Jean Chrétien's cabinet. He had the power to blow the whistle.

Why did the Prime Minister not speak up before millions of dollars of taxpayers' money was wasted?

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

Mr. Speaker, continually members on the other side keep trying to identify the Prime Minister as the actor in this piece. They have not put out a single fact that substantiates that.

What the current Prime Minister did the day he became Prime Minister was demand that we move the government to a basis of accountability, transparency and financial responsibility.

He gave me, as the president of the Treasury Board, an extremely tight mandate to establish comptrollership, to build a financial information management system and to put right the management of the federal government. That is what this Prime Minister did.

[Jay Hill, Canadian Alliance, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is no wonder that the government is now trying to muzzle the Prime Minister. Every time he opens his mouth about the sponsorship scandal he changes his story. First he said that he had no clue about what went on. Then he blamed federal bureaucrats. Then he blamed Jean Chrétien. Then he said Jean Chrétien was a man of integrity. Then he said he only found out two years ago.

Now he admits he knew the sponsorship program was not operating properly in 1996. Why did he not speak up then?

[Lucienne Robillard, Liberal, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec]

Mr. Speaker, I think that the opposition party no longer knows what to say about our Prime Minister, because he did exactly what was called for under the circumstances.

He has explained exactly what he knew when he was finance minister. Now that he is Prime Minister, he has taken courageous steps to encourage the greatest possible transparency regarding this matter and that is what we will continue to do.

[David Anderson, Canadian Alliance, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, there is absolutely no transparency in the government's account of this whole affair. We have documentation from the Treasury Board's assessment to cabinet that refers to this whole sponsorship program as “money laundering”.

Will the government admit that this was in fact nothing more than a money laundering scheme that has cost Canadians $100 million?

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member says there is no transparency in the government. We have a wide open public inquiry headed by a judge, which will go wherever he chooses to go to get the information.

We have an unprecedented release of confidential cabinet documents, Treasury Board documents and departmental documents. We have three separate legislative reviews and we have the public accounts committee, which we are sending everybody to.

What is not transparent about that?

[David Anderson, Canadian Alliance, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, this whole mess just stinks. We know that even while the money laundering scheme was being shut down, cabinet ministers were still working the program, lining up at the trough.

Now we hear that the current president of the Privy Council wanted the government to continue to give him sponsorship money based on “verbal agreements”. How much sponsorship money was doled out on what cabinet ministers refer to as verbal agreements?

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

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member alleges that certain people knew that the program was still operating and they were still applying to it. Opposition members were applying to the program at the same time. It was a program that sponsored good events in local communities.

There was a problem with the management of certain companies that it appears were acting inappropriately, which is why charges have been laid and which is why we have a public inquiry. The problem is, this Prime Minister, when he was finance minister, had a tough job to do when we had a big deficit. He now has a tough job to do and he will get it done.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Laurentides, QC]

Mr. Speaker, after seeing inflated invoices, Myriam Bédard, an Olympic medallist, was forced to quit her job at VIA Rail because she refused a transfer to Groupaction. Worse yet, to justify himself, Jean Pelletier, Jean Chrétien's former chief of staff, made inappropriate and disgraceful comments about Ms. Bédard.

Instead of publicly discrediting her, would the senior managers at VIA Rail not have been wiser to look into Ms. Bédard's claims?

[Lucienne Robillard, Liberal, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec]

Mr. Speaker, Ms. Bédard has personally written to the Prime Minister of Canada. This letter is being considered as we speak by my colleague, the Minister of Transport, and by the President of the Treasury Board.

If the chairman of the board of directors said exactly what has been reported in the newspapers, we consider this to be completely inappropriate.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Laurentides, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when athletes come back with medals, every effort is made to roll out the red carpet but, when these same athletes denounce wrongdoing in crown corporations, they are completely discredited.

Will the minister who has the authority invite the guilty parties to make a public apology immediately?

[Lucienne Robillard, Liberal, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec]

Mr. Speaker, if the comments reported in the newspapers are accurate, the government finds them completely inappropriate, especially considering that private details of this person's life have been revealed.

I would hope that the board of directors at VIA Rail will take appropriate action.

Parental Leave

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette-Et-La Mitis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the federal government has indicated its intention of appealing the ruling by the Court of Appeal of Quebec confirming Quebec's exclusive jurisdiction over parental leave. There is no disputing that parental leave must be broadened and integrated.

Will the Minister of Human Resources admit that he is more interested in gaining a high profile for the federal government than in the welfare of young families and that, in the end, that is the main motivation behind the decision to go to the Supreme Court?

[Eleni Bakopanos, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development (Social Economy)]

Mr. Speaker, this provides me with an opportunity to remind hon. members of what the minister said in the House. There have already been discussions with his counterpart in Quebec and the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, to ensure that a collaborative approach to finding a solution is adopted. At the same time, it is true that we are going to pursue the appeal process, because there are constitutional issues involved that really must be clarified.

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette-Et-La Mitis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary said that the two ministers, that is the federal and the Quebec ministers, have met.

Instead of wasting time on pseudo-negotiations with Quebec, how can the parliamentary secretary justify the federal government's decision to appeal an issue as clear as the one presented by the Morin decision?

[Eleni Bakopanos, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development (Social Economy)]

Mr. Speaker, as I have already said, and I would like the Bloc to listen carefully, there are certain constitutional issues that need to be clarified through appeal.

At the same time, with a new government in Quebec there is a new openness. That government is prepared to negotiate and discuss an existing problem with us in order to find a solution.

We will continue to discuss the matter in good faith.

Auditor General's Report

[Deepak Obhrai, Canadian Alliance, Calgary East, AB]

Mr. Speaker, let me quote what the President of the Treasury Board said yesterday. He said “It is doubly possible there was a cover-up”.

Cover-up, cover-up, cover-up. The culture of corruption has to stop. Canadians are demanding it.

We want to know why he said that there was a possibility of a cover-up?

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

Mr. Speaker, if you read the Auditor General's report about some of the activities of a group that were not being very forthcoming you might come to that conclusion.

However, let me share with the member a conclusion that was reached by a newspaper in Vancouver when the Prime Minister was speaking to a group at a school. The reporter stated:

Let me assure all that these gym-floor Grade 8-to-12ers served up far superior queries to those heard in the drooling farce known as question period.

[Deepak Obhrai, Canadian Alliance, Calgary East, AB]

Mr. Speaker, talk about Liberal arrogance.

A series of audits since 1996 have revealed that there were many managerial and ethical breaches in the sponsorship program. Words like incompetency, arrogance and disregard for taxpayer money can be used to describe the management of this program.

Why is there a conspiracy of silence on the front benches?

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

Mr. Speaker, I have here a copy of the audit that the hon. member is talking about. I am prepared to send it over to him and if he can identify the words, which he just used, in this document, then I will respond to his question.

Government Contracts

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Canadian Alliance, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the government's promise of openness has become a useless and unenforceable promise. Its approach sounds like more of the same.

When the Prime Minister took office it only took him days to start awarding and paying off his friends at Earnscliffe.

In the interest of openness, which the President of the Treasury Board has let out a lot of hot air about today, will the government table all contracts it has given the Earnscliffe group since 1993?

[Lucienne Robillard, Liberal, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec]

Mr. Speaker, very clearly, every time a contract is awarded by this government, it must comply with Treasury Board rules and policies. This was the case with respect to the company referred to by the hon. member of the opposition.