Debates of Nov. 28th, 2005

Canadian Taxpayers Federation

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the government's announcements are completely within the most recent fiscal framework.

I want to congratulate the Minister of Indian Affairs and the Prime Minister for the historic meeting in Kelowna last week. It will allow this country to make a huge change for the better in its relationships with aboriginal people.

Let me quote a comment made this weekend when the question was asked of the hon. gentleman which one of these things would he not do, speaking of the spending announcements, he said, “every one of them”.

Government Spending

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, we do it faster, better and more honestly.

According to Ipsos-Reid, Canadians will not be fooled. Sixty per cent of voters believe that the Liberals are “only addressing these issues after years of neglect” and it is a cynical effort to buy votes. It is so bad that even Liberals are speaking out. The member for Sarnia—Lambton said that he was turned off by the spending announcements.

It is this type of typical, frantic, partisan vote buying effort that gave rise to the sponsorship program. Does the Prime Minister really believe that rushing money out the door on the eve of an election will distract Canadians away from his Liberal government's sordid record of waste, mismanagement and corruption?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, let me finish that last quote. The question asked of the hon. gentleman on the weekend on CBC radio was with reference to the spending announcements by the government, “Which one of these things would you not do?” The answer from the deputy leader of the Conservative Party was:

Well, we will answer unequivocally none of those things would we cancel, none of these things would we not pursue.

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, let me repeat, we have a real Conservative platform that Canadians will embrace in this election.

The Prime Minister bragged yesterday that every single penny of the federal government's announcement had been budgeted for. Right. This is despite the fact that the finance minister admitted last Friday that there was over a $200 million error in the recent mini-budget. Of course, his record on income trusts and predicting surpluses is a bit dodgy anyway.

Christmas is coming and the Prime Minister and his elves have announced a blizzard of spending announcements attempting to buy the votes of Canadians. How many other mistakes and miscalculations has the Liberal government made in the government's attempt to rush out and buy Canadians with--

[The Speaker]

The hon. Minister of Finance.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask back, how many budgetary surpluses has this government filed? I can tell him. There are five more in the fiscal framework. It is the best fiscal record of any Canadian government since 1867.

Unlike the party opposite, we will stand with the unemployed with new labour market agreements. We will stand with our military in new military equipment. We will stand--

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Medicine Hat.

Income Trusts

[Monte Solberg, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is very right. He will stand with the unemployed.

Last week there were a number of published reports alleging possible insider trading on leaked information from the finance minister's office. Here is what one small investor wrote to us:

The latest information was released to a bunch of insiders from Bay Street....I personally lost around $2000....I believe somebody should be taken to task and end up in jail for insider trading.

Surely the minister understands the need to maintain investor confidence. Why is he not calling in the RCMP? What is he afraid of?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, there are appropriate independent authorities to supervise and investigate all stock exchange activities and they will decide for themselves, without any interference by either the hon. gentleman or the government whatsoever. I am satisfied that all requirements were honoured.

What we see here on the floor of the House of Commons is like a year ago and all of the wild comments about child pornography and last week and all the wild comments about organized crime. It is just another drive-by smear campaign by the Conservative Party.

[Monte Solberg, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it was a $100 million crime and it was pretty well organized. I do not know what one would call that.

The chief financial officer for the country basically said he would rather cover up for the Liberal Party than protect small investors. That is not acceptable. Here is what another investor wrote:

I want to know who had “advance” warnings on where the government was going on this. Which “insiders” to the Liberal Party had advance information on the surprise early announcement--

That person lost $5,000. That is what we all want to know. When will the minister stop covering for his--

[The Speaker]

The hon. Minister of Finance.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman's allegations are false. They are beneath contempt.

Public Safety

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we have been questioning the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness for a week now about the CIA prison planes, but the Bloc Québécois still does not have an answer. Yet a journalist working for a major daily newspaper was able to obtain the flight logs and conclude that the U.S. prison planes had landed on Canadian soil 55 times over the past four years.

What explanation does the minister have for the fact that she has no information for us, while the media, simply by consulting the flight logs, has been able to answer our questions?

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

Mr. Speaker, again let me reiterate for the hon. member, it is my understanding that the flights referred to by the hon. member from the Bloc Québécois were handled in accordance with normal operating procedures. To the best of my knowledge there is no credible information on the flights mentioned to suggest that these planes were used to transport suspected terrorists to and from Canada or that illegal activity took place.

A response to the letter from the Bloc Québécois member is being forwarded to him from me later this afternoon. I have asked that further inquiries be made regarding all the flights in question.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it has been proven that these planes belong to companies owned by the CIA, whose headquarters is a post office box in Washington.

Here is my question to the minister. As Switzerland, Iceland and the Council of Europe have done, has the minister made inquires of the U.S. government in order to find out if these CIA-owned planes were transporting prisoners? Did she make inquiries?

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, has made it plain that if we have any reasonable evidence or information to suggest that there was wrongdoing in terms of any breach of Canadian domestic law, or international law as far as that goes, the Minister of Foreign Affairs has indicated that he will follow up with his counterpart, the secretary of state for the United States of America.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in response to the exact same question on Friday, the Minister of Foreign Affairs said that he would refer this question to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness or the Minister of Transport. They are passing the ball back and forth, just like in the sponsorship scandal. They do not want to give us an answer. That is the problem.

So, I am asking her the question. Does she not find it a bit strange that these planes landed at Guantanamo and at Fort Peary, a CIA base in the United States? Could she verify this? We are not talking about New York, Los Angeles or Washington here, but rather about Guantanamo—not a very popular tourist destination.

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

Mr. Speaker, as I have said before, we have no information that would lead us to believe there was any illegal activity in relation to the use of those planes. I have also underscored in the House on a number of occasions that we have absolutely no reason to believe that any plane was used in relation to the practice known as extraordinary rendition.

I will again make it absolutely plain for the hon. member that if any information comes into our possession around illegal activity in relation to planes, we will obviously take that up with the United States of America.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we see this same attitude with regard to the sponsorships. We are told that the rules were followed, that there was no reason to believe that they were not and, if we have any information, to send it to them.

The Liberals are in power. The minister has the duty to verify this information. I am not asking her if she has information. If they do not want to know something, they need only not ask for it. If they do not want to see something, they close their eyes. If they do not want to hear, they turn a deaf ear.

Has the minister made inquiries of the United States in order to find out what these planes were doing in Canada, on their way to Guantanamo? That is the question. Let her answer it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I can reassure the hon. member that my officials have followed up in relation to this matter.

As I have said before, we have no credible or reasonable information to suggest that these planes were involved in any illegal activity, and certainly no reliable information that would suggest that they were involved in the practice of extraordinary rendition.

If my officials were to raise those kinds of serious questions, if I received information that suggested to me such actions were taking place, my colleague the Minister of Foreign Affairs would obviously follow up with the Secretary of State for the United States of America.

Terasen Inc.

[Jack Layton, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what is clear is the last thing the government wants is to find out any information from Canadians. It is not interested in finding out the truth. Here is another example.

The Prime Minister knows that Terasen Gas is up for sale. It is going to be sold to Americans, and yet no public hearings are being held. Again it is a question of the Liberals shutting their eyes to reality. Another piece of Canada is about to be sold off.

Our gas and water assets are being sold off to Americans. A minister last week said that the sale was a good thing. Could the Prime Minister tell us what is good about selling off a piece of Canada?

[Lucienne Robillard, Liberal, President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, the information the hon. member has is incorrect. There is absolutely no question of selling our natural resources. They still belong to this country, to the province of British Columbia.

That said, we have reviewed every aspect of the case and under the Investment Canada Act, we find that this will provide significant dividends to everyone in British Columbia and Alberta. We have therefore agreed to the transaction.

Health

[Jack Layton, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the government clearly does not know what is going on. We are talking about the sale of a natural gas distribution system and drinking water systems that provide water to Canadians.

It is the same thing with health care. We see the creeping Americanization of health care. In British Columbia clinics have opened up. They charge $1,200 to join and $2,300 a year to stay a part of the system. This is the Liberals' approach to waiting lists. It is called buying one's way to the front.

Why did the Prime Minister not come clean on the whole issue of privatization of health care in the last election?

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, I want the leader of the NDP to know that for the last 10 years every year one province or the other has been penalized under the Canada Health Act, and we shall continue to do so. I want the hon. leader of the NDP to know that we have invested $41 billion in health care over the next 10 years.

I want him to know that he ran away from working with us to strengthen public health care into the lap of the Tories whose sole aim is to actually gut health care and end federal owned health care. I would ask him to be accountable to the people of Canada on that.

Income Trusts

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, here is how one banker described the Liberal income trust scandal in the Financial Post :

The government has leaked this out to their friends and cronies in the business community and...panicked the little investors who sold. It's brutal. It's third world. It's unbelievable. The government then tells a bunch of Bay Street insiders what it is going to do so they can profit. And then it does it. It's insane.

The Liberal culture of entitlement is all about benefiting powerful insiders at the expense of ordinary Canadians. Why did powerful Liberal insiders benefit yet again from access to information that should have been secret?