Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak to the Conservative Party of Canada motion, which is simplicity itself. I will read the main thrust of it:
--recognize that the current government is not new, but rather one that is intricately linked to the past decade of mismanagement, corruption and incompetence, and has accordingly lost the confidence of this House.
First of all, I wish to thank my colleague from Lotbinière—L'Érable for allowing me to share his allotted time. I congratulate him for what he is currently contributing to the public accounts committee.
It is not easy to try to get the truth out of people who choose not to remember. It is a feather in his cap that he is trying every way possible to achieve that. As we saw last week during the Alfonso Gagliano appearance, it is very difficult to get someone to admit to having known something when he has already made it clear to all the media that he knew nothing.
This is what we have to deal with as far as the whole Liberal government is concerned. This is the harsh reality. I understand, of course, why the Conservative Party of Canada is bringing such a motion before the House. The Liberals are trying to pass this off as a new government, with no one at fault. Some of the guilty parties have been fingered, the heads of some crown corporations have been dumped. They have even dared to say, the Prime Minister first and foremost, that there was a certain political control. However, as we speak, no political control can be pinpointed. Ministers remember nothing, nor does the Prime Minister, although several charges have been made against him.
I will list a few of these, and the ones I will cite did not come from the Bloc Quebecois. We have already spoken about what has been said in the media, including the million flags operation.
In 1996, the president of the federal Liberals of British Columbia, Doreen Braverman, informed the then finance minister, the current Prime Minister, that the government had bent the rules by which contracts were awarded and issued fake invoices under the flags operation. However, the current Prime Minister and former finance minister said, “I am not going to interfere. This matter comes under the former Minister of Canadian Heritage”. He said that he knew nothing, but that was not true. The president of the federal Liberals of British Columbia, not the Bloc Quebecois, made this accusation.
In February 2002, the Liberal policy committee chair, Akaash Maharaj, wrote a letter to the finance minister and current Prime Minister telling him that there were increasingly persistent rumours among the party faithful that the funds paid to advertising agencies were used to fund the Liberal party. Once again, the finance minister and current Prime Minister turned a deaf ear. This was from the Liberal policy committee chair, not a member of the Bloc Quebecois.
Then we learned last Thursday in the Standing Committee on Public Accounts from Mr. Gagliano himself that the close advisers of the current Prime Minister and former finance minister were present at the Communications Coordination Committee each time money matters were mentioned. I understand this, since the Minister of Finance issues the cheques. Therefore, department employees and close advisers were present.
The list of friends of the current Prime Minister goes on. As early as 1994, the finance minister had his own list. In a memo dated May 3, 1994, the current Prime Minister and former finance minister's chief of staff, Terrie O'Leary, asked finance department officials to consider various communications firms for an advertising campaign, including the Gingko/Groupe Everest consortium. The president of Everest, Claude Boulay, had worked on the current Prime Minister's leadership race in 1990.
I could go on. On the weekend, the Quebec Liberals told us that the word to use was no longer scandal but matter. I say that the more we investigate the matter of the sponsorship scandal, the better we will be able to prove that the current Prime Minister and former finance minister knew. Even if he did not intervene, he will be as guilty as the person who did commit the crime.
As for that topic, we shall see. That is the way the government is telling us today—as I heard the government House leader tell us a little while ago—“We have a new way of governing”.
Until now, all we tried to do was to have legislation in the future to ensure that the Liberal Party will never again be able to do what it has done. I agree with that. But today, they are still not ready to tell the public, which is demanding the truth, exactly what went on. That is hard to understand.
Under Jean Chrétien, it was the same thing. As for the 440 questions that have been asked—we heard Mr. Chrétien this weekend saying he had answered in English, in French and even in joual—the results were the same. The replies were the same ones we are hearing today from the mouth of the current Prime Minister and other ministers. No one remembers. It was nobody's fault. And they are trying to tell us today that things have changed. I am sorry, but absolutely nothing has changed.
I will continue to say that it has not changed. In fact, I am a member of the Standing Committee on Transport. This committee has provided the government with the current Minister of Human Resources—a graduate of the previous Standing Committee on Transport, as is the current Minister of National Revenue. There is also the hon. member for London North Centre, who is now a parliamentary secretary, and of course, the Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Initiative in Northern Ontario, who was the former chair of the committee.
I think that is funny, considering we are being told things have changed. The last week the committee sat, flight attendants came and told us that the government was getting ready to introduce regulation to reduce the number of flight attendants from one flight attendant for every 50 passengers to one flight attendant for every 40 passengers. Therefore, there would be fewer flight attendants on board. This was, once again, a regulation that was introduced.
I remember that every member of the Standing Committee on Transport I just named, who went on to become cabinet members, said it made no sense for the former transport minister to make decisions that were not ratified by the committee.
Believe it or not, the current Minister of Transport is on his way to having regulation adopted to change the number of flight attendants on aircraft without the Standing Committee on Transport having approved this option, heard witnesses or ascertained the safety of this measure, even though the Liberals talk about and rehash the issue of security in this House. No analyses were done, still they are about to introduce the change. This was denounced by all former Liberal members of the Standing Committee on Transport who have now become ministers.
Nonetheless, the current Standing Committee on Transport is doing the same thing, in that it is supporting the Minister of Transport who wants to regulate to reduce the number of flight attendants on aircraft, which could adversely affect safety.
Also, a noise regulation was referred to the Standing Committee on Transport by the former government as part of Bill C-27, which included a number of clauses dealing with noise pollution in railway yards and train stations. I am thinking of the Joffre yard, in Charny, and the Mercier-Hochelaga yard, in Hochelaga—Maisonneuve. There are problems there. Citizens are confronted to noise pollution issues.
Bill C-27 included an amendment allowing Transport Canada to take corrective action. The problem with noise pollution and the railway system is that there is no legislation—whether municipal or provincial—that can apply to Government of Canada property. All railway transportation lines and railway yards are federal property and thus come under federal jurisdiction. This means that no provincial or municipal standard can apply.
I mentioned the Joffre yard, in Charny, and the Mercier yard, in Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, but there are many others all across Canada. For the first time, there was an opportunity to force businesses that create noise pollution to try to correct this problem. But we have been told that Bill C-27 was not brought back by the new Liberal government.
So, hon. members can understand why it would be very difficult for me to support the position of the government House leader, who just told us, “This is a new government”. He said it very clearly in his speech. The democratic reform proposed by the government must be based on trust. The problem right now is that the public no longer trusts this government. Regardless of the measures that the Liberals will want to propose, the public will not believe them. So, it is time to call an election and let the public say whether or not it trusts this government.