Debates of Feb. 15th, 2005

The Environment

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister and the government will certainly not apologize for the fact that we have kept the situation of our government and Canada in such a way that now we have surpluses which we will wisely invest in order to improve the environmental policy of Canada. The difference between us and the NDP is not that they care or we care about the environment. Both parties care. The difference is that they do not have any strategy to keep the fiscal house in order for Canada.

Justice

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino said on the weekend that hard-core, gun-crazed gangsters were perpetrating a frenzy of violence and bloodshed in Toronto on the weekend. When the smoke cleared, two were dead and six were injured. Seventeen of these 18 crimes involved guns.

Alarmingly, Chief Fantino made a damning assessment that criminals have no fear of the justice system and that it neither deters nor rehabilitates. He and many others are calling on the government to take action to crack down and restore safety on the streets. When will the government legislate mandatory minimum sentences for the criminal use of firearms and end this ineffective gun registry, putting the money into front line policing?

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, we care no less than the opposition about the safety and security of Canadians. We made safety and security a centrepiece of our meetings with federal, provincial and territorial ministers of justice and we will continue to promote and protect the security and safety of Canadians.

Public Security

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the CBC is again reporting that the Liberals are not taking terrorist threats seriously. Our borders are like sieves, and our major dams are open to attack at any time. The Liberals are cutting back on the number of RCMP in Quebec and ignoring all the alarm signals.

The minister needs to wake up. She needs to tell us what steps she plans to take, without further delay, to protect Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, as I have said before in this House, the redeployment of RCMP officers in Quebec is not reducing the complement in that province. In fact, what the force is doing is redeploying those officers to ensure they can provide better border protection; for example, through the creation of more integrated border enforcement teams. In fact, we are redeploying officers so they can work more effectively with the Sûreté du Québec in the fight against organized crime, drug trafficking, gun smuggling, people smuggling and so on.

We are redeploying to be more effective and more efficient in protecting the people of Quebec and Canada.

Child Care

[Helena Guergis, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the social development minister has said that parents wishing to raise their own children at home are “out of date”, that children should be put into institutionalized care instead. Will the minister admit that he is the one who is out of date and understand that women deserve and want choice?

[Ken Dryden, Liberal, Minister of Social Development]

Mr. Speaker, as I have said in this House before, and as I said in the House earlier this morning, at the very centre of any development of any child is the parent-child relationship. That is at the very centre.

What early learning and child care is, is an option. It is an extra choice for those parents to put their children into an experience with other children where in fact they have a better opportunity of growing up with that variety of--

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Simcoe—Grey.

[Helena Guergis, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Mr. Speaker, working moms would prefer to help raise their own kids. However, the minister says that at home parental care is mediocre. He said that kids raised in their own homes do not have a rich experience. How dare the minister say that parents raising their own children constitutes mediocre care? Will this minister apologize to working women for his demeaning comments?

[Ken Dryden, Liberal, Minister of Social Development]

Mr. Speaker--

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Speaker]

Order. I am quite prepared to suspend the sitting until we get some order. The minister is rising to respond to this question. The question was asked. He is entitled to give a response. We will have order.

[Ken Dryden, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what I find stunning is the fact that it seems as if the party opposite feels that if it repeats a misstatement or if it repeats a mischaracterization often enough, it will make it so. Clearly it is not so. It never was so. It will not be so.

The Environment

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of the Environment keeps repeating to anyone who will listen that he is in favour of signing a bilateral agreement with Quebec to implement the Kyoto protocol.

Can the minister give us a report on the state of negotiations with Quebec, since the time repeats that he wants an agreement?

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, negotiations with the Government of Quebec are going very well. The last thing I would want to do is choose the hon. member from the Bloc to be a stakeholder in these discussions.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if there is an agreement with Quebec, the Minister of the Environment must take into account the enormous effort Quebec has already made in connection with the greenhouse gases.

Will the minister commit to signing a specific agreement on a territorial approach, which would enable Quebec to manage its own implementation of the Kyoto protocol on its own territory and would finally recognize the efforts made by Quebec in the past?

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, each one of us will do his part, and we will sign agreements with each province in order to ensure that each province's specific situation is taken into account.

Foundations

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, once again, the Auditor General is condemning transfer payments to foundations. She believes that these foundations are being used to hide federal surpluses and that Parliament is losing control over funds transferred to them.

Given the numerous scandals that have tarnished the current government and given that most of these foundations were established by the Liberal government, will the President of the Treasury Board agree that, at the very least, there is only one thing to do, and that is to designate the Office of the Auditor General as the external auditor of these foundations?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Auditor General for her report, as I have done each time she has laid down her report.

I would like to maybe add to the member's information about what the Auditor General has actually said about foundations. She said that a number of improvements had been made to the framework for the accountability in foundations to Parliament; that the government was committed to better reporting of the foundation; that we found more information each year on foundations than the estimates documents of all the sponsoring departments; that 10 of 11 funding agreements between sponsoring departments and foundations had provisions for independent evaluations; and that the annual report of the foundations included audited financial statements prepared in accordance with general accounting--

I think we are doing it.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the President of the Treasury Board should have read, too, the excerpt in which the Auditor General asks for the right of oversight of these foundations.

The Treasury Board continues to turn a deaf ear to repeated requests by the Auditor General and parliamentarians demanding better accountability by foundations.

Does the government not realize that it is possible to increase financial controls while maintaining the operational autonomy of these foundations?

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

Mr. Speaker, I hope the member is not suggesting that there is a problem with the way the foundations are spending their money. Certainly they are accounting for it in all possible manners and are quite willing to have evaluations. All the foundations in our sample have provisions for a financial statement and a report by an external auditor. Some foundations have included significant evaluation findings in their annual reports.

There is a dispute about whether or not the government should be directing the allocation of research funding. We prefer to use an independent peer review and I think the government continues to be of that view.

[Monte Solberg, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, $7.7 billion still sits in foundation bank accounts. In her report today, speaking of foundations, the Auditor General said, “Given the significant sums involved, I am concerned about the lack of adequate accountability to Parliament”. I have to say that I would take the Auditor General's word on this over the Prime Minister's word any day.

In the shadow of sponsorship, what possible excuse could the government have for not having adequate parliamentary oversight of the billions of dollars sitting in foundations?

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

Mr. Speaker, if the member would like to take the Auditor General's words, let me give him a few.

The government is committed to better reporting in foundations' corporate plans and summaries and their annual reports, and in the Estimates reports of sponsoring departments.

She went on to say that a number of improvements had been made to the framework for the accountability of foundations. In fact, the new Comptroller General is working closely with the Auditor General. Significant improvements have been made. I would invite any committee in the House to call any one of the foundations before it if it has concerns. However if they are suggesting that the foundations are mismanaging or illegally managing funds, they should say so.

[Monte Solberg, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my esteem for the member would rise tremendously if he would acknowledge what the Auditor General said today, that there was no ministerial oversight and no performance audits. This is just like an absolute mirror of what has gone on in sponsorship. The only thing missing is the paper shredder on the desk.

Why does the government continue to defend these practices when the Auditor General said, “Transferring funds to these foundations continues to place public money beyond the reach of effective parliamentary scrutiny?” What is the problem over there?

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

Mr. Speaker, there are two separate issues.

The first issue is the government's policy decision to put some amounts into foundations so they could be delivered, not by politicians, but by peer review to research institutions. As the Prime Minister has pointed out, if members talk to the university presidents across this country they will find huge support for this foundation.

On the issue of reporting, they all have audited financial statements. They appear before House committees when asked. They are subjecting themselves to evaluations. There is a dispute about how this gets done. We are working with the Auditor General and we will get to a conclusion.