Debates of April 13th, 2005

Sponsorship Program

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Calgary—Nose Hill.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has had many opportunities to set the record straight about whether he was just an acquaintance of Mr. Boulay or whether he had lunch with him, but he has refused to answer.

Why does the Prime Minister have a pathological aversion to telling the truth?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister was very open, transparent and cooperative when he was a witness before Justice Gomery, a commission that he had the courage to set up in the first place.

She is commenting on the testimony of a witness that has already contradicted some other witness testimony. I would urge her to do what all Canadians want her and her party to do, which is to wait for Justice Gomery's report.

Last night on television the leader of the Conservatives said, “There's lots of people in the Liberal Party of honesty and integrity”. He is absolutely right and our Prime Minister is one of them.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is one of the most pathetic performances by a Prime Minister I have ever seen. It is no wonder David Kilgour ran away from his party.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Speaker]

I suspect the hon. member for Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam was referring to the hon. member for Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont. I think that is to whom he was referring. He knows he has to refer to members by their constituency name and not by their real name.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, when the sponsorship scandal was in its heyday, Lucie Castelli, known as the Prime Minister's eyes and ears in his riding, sat on the Quebec Liberal Party's finance commission with Alain Renaud and Jacques Corriveau, who allegedly obtained almost $500,000 from Groupaction and the sponsorship program without doing the work.

How are Canadians to believe the Prime Minister's statement that he knew nothing?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, in his preamble, the hon. member referred to the hon. member for Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont.

I would like to remind the hon. member what the member for Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont had to say this morning on CBC. He said, “I never heard, in all the seven years in cabinet, a word about the problem with the kinds of things that were revealed at the Gomery inquiry last week. To me it makes sense that the Prime Minister did not know anything about this and he has said that many times”.

That is the hon. member he has referred to who has left the Liberal Party because he does not want to defend Justice Gomery.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think they are scraping close to the bottom of the barrel when they are relying on somebody who has quit the party to defend them and the scandal that the government is involved in. That is pretty pathetic.

Last year we learned that Castelli sought and obtained $500,000 in sponsorship cash on behalf of Serge Savard, the Prime Minister's million dollar fundraiser. Castelli assisted Serge Savard in getting sponsorship cash.

How can the Prime Minister still claim that he knew nothing about ad scam when his chief organizer was involved in getting cash for his million dollar fundraiser?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, our Prime Minister is not afraid of the truth. Our Prime Minister has put country ahead of party. Our Prime Minister has put principle ahead of partisanship. That is exactly the opposite of what the Conservatives are doing, what the Bloc is doing with this important issue.

The fact is the Prime Minister supports Justice Gomery because he believes, as Canadians believe, that Canadians deserve the truth. That is exactly what they will have with Justice Gomery's report, not a smattering of witness testimony that some days contradicts other witness testimony. Canadians do not benefit from that kind of partisanship. They benefit from the truth.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians and Quebeckers are entitled to the truth. However, on April 11 in the House, in response to a question from the leader of the official opposition about his actions with regard to the sponsorship scandal, the Prime Minister said, from his seat, “We are the government that fired the heads of a number of crown corporations. We are the government that recalled the ambassador to Denmark”. Those were his actions.

He told the Gomery commission, “We never judged Mr. Gagliano”. They never judged Mr. Gagliano, Mr. Speaker.

We want to know which truth to believe?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Both, Mr. Speaker. We were the ones who recalled Mr. Gagliano. We never judged Mr. Gagliano. It is a matter of Canada's reputation abroad. We will leave the conclusions to Justice Gomery, as we should.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if I understand correctly, he dismissed the ambassador without judging him. He got up one morning wondering who he could dismiss that day: Gagliano, what a coincidence.

Are we to believe this? Is he telling us that he never judged someone he dismissed? Is this the kind of truth we can expect from a Prime Minister, that was how he chose someone? This truth does not hold water. There are two different versions, one under oath and the other as leader. Which are we to believe?

[Pierre Pettigrew, Liberal, Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister was extremely clear just now in the House. He said that Ambassador Gagliano was recalled for reasons relating to Canada's reputation abroad. This had nothing to do with the deliberations by Justice Gomery and eventually the courts. It was a matter of Canada's credibility abroad, which certainly interests this side of the House more than the other.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we would like it if the minister were more concerned about the government's credibility. That would be somewhat of an improvement.

The Prime Minister and the government did not wait to fire individuals and sue ad agencies involved in the sponsorship scandal.

How is it that they had enough evidence to sue the agencies and fire individuals, but not enough to make the Liberal Party put the dirty money into a trust fund?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, opposition members called for the recall of Mr. Gagliano at the time. That was done. They should be commending the Prime Minister for doing that and pursuing that course of action, not attacking him for it. Furthermore, it is clear that what is going on here is hysteria. It is reputations being smeared. Today the Ottawa Citizen said:

Reputations are being casually smeared, the self-serving claims of accused fraud artists...are accepted as gospel and...fragments of testimony are flung across the Commons aisle every day, under the cover of parliamentary privilege.

Why not let Justice Gomery be the judge?

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to the agencies, the government takes action. When it comes to senior officials, it takes immediate action. When it comes to the Liberal Party, we have to wait until the end.

Is the Prime Minister using the end of the Gomery inquiry as an excuse because he is planning to use the dirty money to finance a fourth election, since he is currently unable to finance his own party? That is the only way they could manage an election.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, the party has been clear. If the party received inappropriate money, it will reimburse the taxpayers.

The initiative taken by the Prime Minister to recover funds from 19 firms and individuals, $41 million of funds, is an important one. I am glad the hon. member recognizes the importance of it. It is achieving justice on behalf of Canadians. It is achieving justice on behalf of the Canadian taxpayer.

Regardless of his or her party stripe, anyone who committed fraud, anyone who achieved financial gain inappropriately on the back of the battle against separatism deserves to be punished.

[Rahim Jaffer, Conservative, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister claimed that some swindlers had organized a parallel system of funding for the Liberal Party in Quebec.

Beryl Wajsman, a Liberal, said that the only parallel funding system that existed in the Liberal Party was the one set up by friends of the Prime Minister.

Will the Prime Minister finally stop denying his involvement in his party's dubious funding and admit that his henchmen helped him finance his campaign through illicit means?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, once again the Prime Minister has been very clear that he has worked assiduously to support Justice Gomery. We as a government have cooperated fully with Justice Gomery.

In fact, the Liberal Party has cooperated fully with Justice Gomery by engaging auditors to conduct financial reviews and providing all that information to Justice Gomery. The party continues to work cooperatively with Justice Gomery because we as Liberals want to get to the bottom of this issue. We as Liberals want to defend Canadian values and the Canadian taxpayer and do the right thing.

Liberal Party of Canada

[Rahim Jaffer, Conservative, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, here is what senior Liberal organizer Beryl Wajsman said in Le Devoir about what the Liberal Party really thinks about ethnic minorities: “The Liberal Party of Canada needs the cultural communities only for two purposes, as slaves during an electoral campaign, or to buy tickets”.

The Prime Minister claims that he has the moral authority. How can he explain the immoral contempt his party has for new Canadians?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, that is really quite a twist. I guess being one of those new Canadians and a minister of the crown qualifies me as being held in contempt.

I think the only contempt that I feel is that which the Leader of the Opposition indicated toward one of his own members yesterday, when on a point of order he took the opportunity to identify the $50,000 that his member from Newton—North Delta charges his constituents in order to write me a letter and the Leader of the Opposition referred to that as criminal activity.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the minister knows that statement was entirely incorrect.

The special counsel for the Minister of Justice believes that cultural communities in this country should be seen and not heard. Beryl Wajsman in Le Devoir today said: “Every time the Liberal Party needs cultural communities it is for two reasons, as slaves during an election campaign, or to buy tickets”.

Will the Minister of Justice stand up and denounce these horrible comments, or is his special counsel simply telling the truth about Liberals?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I guess the opposition, and I hesitate to say the hon. members, have a difficult time understanding that people in Canada have adopted this country as their own and that they willingly participate in a democratic process. They are delighted to do everything that is required to be completely integrated.

Look at this side of the House. There are members of the new Canadian family from every walk of life, every race, every culture, every creed, and we do not hold them in contempt--

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Provencher.