Madam Speaker, I rise with respect to a question that was posed in the House on November 17, 2004. At that time I asked the Deputy Prime Minister why dozens of contracts had been issued suspiciously, each in the amount of $88,460 for management consulting services. I believe it would be fair to say that there were close to 100 contracts issued by the Government of Canada in relation to the residential school controversy.
To this point in time, the government has not come clean with Canadians on why those contracts were issued, who they were issued to, what the amounts of the services related to, or how those contracts related to the paltry sums of money which aboriginal victims are receiving under the residential school project.
The House was horrified in November to learn that 80ยข on each dollar which is spent on the residential school program is not going to victims. It is making its way to bureaucrats, lawyers, and experts, but not finding its way to the aboriginal victims who deserve these moneys.
At this point the Government of Canada has expended somewhere close to $125 million on this program, most of that spent on the ADR process which the Deputy Prime Minister takes so much pride in and which she displays to the House of Commons.
This program is a complete, unmitigated disaster. There are approximately 86,000 victims in this country who qualify under the aboriginal residential school program. After the expenditure of over $125 million, the ADR process, of which the Deputy Prime Minister speaks so fondly of, has accounted for something in the order of 27 settlements. That is 27 settlements out of 86,000 victims. The numbers are paltry. The settlements have been extraordinarily low. Canadians are asking how the government could possibly justify a continuation of this program.
The committee of the House that is dealing with this matter has been investigating this question over the last several weeks and has received no answers. The AFN is critical of the government's program. It calls the ADR process abusive. It will take 53 years to resolve these claims and will cost $2.3 billion in bureaucratic costs alone, let alone the costs of the settlement.
The Canadian Bar Association has recently waded in and published a report relating to this matter. Its report is a scathing condemnation of how the Government of Canada has handled this matter.
At this point it will take generations for these issues to be resolved. Billions of dollars will be spent on bureaucrats and lawyers. I am told that the Department of Justice has entire floors of lawyers at work in Ottawa, Saskatoon, and some other major Canadian cities. Those costs are not even accounted for in the dollars to which I have referred.
Our party has asked that the Auditor General be asked to investigate this matter. We have asked that she specifically inquire into the contracts that were issued for $88,640 to determine where they were issued, why they were issued, to whom they were issued, and for what services. We have also asked that the Auditor General investigate other questions of nonfeasance and malfeasance surrounding this program.
I would ask my friend to explain to Canadians why more than 100 contracts have been issued in the amount that I have referred to for these services.