Debates of April 14th, 2005

Business of the House

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. the government House leader if he could inform the House about his projection for legislation in the House for the week to come.

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we will continue with the opposition day.

On Friday, we will return to Bill C-43, the budget bill. If it is completed, we will proceed with Bill C-40, respecting the WTO.

The first item of business on Monday will be Bill C-40. If necessary, we would then return to the budget bill, which contains all the initiatives that I know Canadians support from coast to coast to coast, like the Atlantic accord, the new deal for cities, and the increase in payments to seniors through OAS.

We will then return to the second reading debate of Bill C-38, the marriage bill, which will be the first item on Tuesday. When that business is completed, we will return to departmental bills: Bill C-23, Bill C-22, Bill C-26 and Bill C-9.

Next Wednesday shall be an allotted day.

Points of Order

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I believe I heard the Minister of Public Works today say that it is pretty flowery language for an accountant. I happen to be married to an accountant. I have a great deal of respect for the profession and I have a great deal of respect for my husband. I would like an apology from the minister for the offensive language and the derogatory comments he made about a very worthwhile profession.

[The Speaker]

There does not appear to be any statement forthcoming from the minister.

The Chair has notice of a question of privilege from the hon. member for Calgary Southeast.

Privilege

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to charge the Minister of Public Works and Government Services with contempt for deliberately misleading the House. The minister has left two very different versions of the facts on the record of this House.

The Minister of Public Works and Government Services said in this House on April 11, 2005, in response to a question, and I cite from Hansard :

Mr. Speaker, it was the Liberal Party that engaged two auditors, PwC and Deloitte, to do a full audit of the books of the Liberal Party. That audited information has been provided to Justice Gomery. We are working with Justice Gomery's auditors to ensure that we get to the bottom of this.

On the same day, in response to another question in the House, the minister said:

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Party acted quickly to engage two auditors, in fact, Deloitte & Touche and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Both audits found that all contributions were receipted, handled and accounted for properly. These reports are in fact posted on the Liberal Party website and have been for some time. They have also been given to the Gomery commission, as of last December.

It turns out that this was not true. The Edmonton Sun of April 13, 2005 reported:

The Conservatives called the Grits on their audit line when they produced proof from firms Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Deloitte that their examinations didn't include cash flow to riding associations, and that they had to rely strictly on information provided by the Liberal Party.

PricewaterhouseCoopers said that what it was doing does not constitute an audit. In the document referenced by the hon. minister Deloitte says, “Our services were engaged to perform a forensic accounting review”. After the auditors determined that the Liberals were caught in telling a mistruth, the minister, in response to a question on Wednesday, April 13 in this place, said:

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 minister presented another completely different version of the facts to the House as soon as it was exposed that his government had misrepresented the facts about these purported audits.

On February 1, 2002 the Speaker ruled on a similar matter in regard to the then minister of national defence. The hon. member for Portage—Lisgar had alleged that the minister of national defence deliberately misled the House as to when he knew that prisoners taken by Canadian troops in Afghanistan had been handed over to the Americans. In support of that allegation, he cited the minister's responses in question period on two successive days.

The Speaker considered the matter and found that there was a prima facie question of privilege. He stated:

The authorities are consistent about the need for clarity in our proceedings and about the need to ensure the integrity of the information provided by the government to the House...But in the case before us, there appears to be in my opinion no dispute as to the facts. I believe that both the minister and other hon. members recognize that two versions of events have been presented to the House.

To put in context the severity of this misrepresentation of the facts, the Ottawa Citizen reported today:

One of Canada's leading forensic accountants dismissed the accounting reports commissioned by the Liberal party, which it held up as proof its books are clean, as “half baked” because they fail to track “dirty money” that was never recorded by party officials in the first place.

Forensic auditor Al Rosen, a chartered accountant and certified fraud examiner, said the Liberal party is “pulling the wool over taxpayers' eyes” by pointing to reports done by Samson Belair/Deloitte & Touche and PricewaterhouseCoopers as evidence the party never received inappropriate cash donations from Quebec ad firms, which subsequently received multimillion-dollar government contracts.

“The engagements by the two auditing firms are not comprehensive enough to detect any scams or any form of dirty money transactions,” said Mr. Rosen, founder of Rosen & Associates Ltd., and a renowned critic of bad corporate accounting practices.

“Trying to use these reports to claim that everything is fine within the party is completely inappropriate. That's not what the reports say and what's missing from it is the cash transactions that don't get recorded in the books.”

Mr. Speaker, I submit that the attempt by the Minister of Public Works and Government Services to misrepresent the facts as part of his government's ongoing cover-up in this matter constitutes contempt. If you find this to be a prima facie question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, I will of course be prepared to move the appropriate motion.

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

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to respond to the hon. member.

First of all, I have the Deloitte report here which refers to a forensic accounting review. The hon. member would be interested to know that a forensic accounting review is in fact an extremely thorough review of accounting. In some ways it is more thorough than an audit in specific targeted areas.

I would also draw his attention to the Oxford English Dictionary which defines audit as an official inspection of an organization's accounts, typically by an independent body. In fact, the independent body engaged by the party was Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The fact is that the member is splitting hairs in trying to create the image that the Liberal Party has not cooperated fully, when in fact the Liberal Party has proactively engaged two firms, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte Touche, to review the information, to work with Justice Gomery's auditors, and to get to the bottom of this issue.

I would urge him, if he wants to talk about contempt for Parliament, to not accuse the Prime Minister of perjury on the floor of the House of Commons. When he did that yesterday, he debased not only Parliament but he attacked the institution of the office of the Prime Minister in an unprecedentedly rude, unfair and disrespectful way.

That hon. member, on an almost daily basis, says outrageous things about other hon. members on the floor of the House. He attacks reputations and slanders individuals without any concern whatsoever. I believe it is purely audacious for him to rise in the House of Commons to discuss anyone's behaviour in this House because on a daily basis he demeans the House of Commons with these types of interventions.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to make some comments. I have not accused the Prime Minister of perjury; however, I am very concerned about the categorization of these documents as audits, as we heard from the Minister of Public Works.

I practised law for a long time before being elected here. I called witnesses as auditors a number of times. I do not think there is any lawyer who practises law who does not understand the difference between an audit, which is certified by professional accountants, and a review, whether it is a forensic review or just a regular review. The distinction between those two in law is very clear.

Given the minister's background and his involvement in the business community, I would have thought it was very clear to him what the difference is between the two. There is a significant difference.

If that certificate is not there, signed by the professional accountant, it has a significantly different weight applied to it in our courtrooms and the way that it would be applied in this chamber.

There is a course of conduct that is going on here that is misleading to this House, and I support the question of privilege.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as a chartered accountant for over 25 years, I can certainly recommend that you consult with the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants handbook on auditing and accounting guidelines.

The member who just spoke is actually incorrect. Every engagement, whether it be an external audit or whether it be an audit review or a value for money audit, requires an engagement letter which outlines the terms and the scope of the engagement.

For every matter for which a firm is engaged, it will always give an opinion with regard to any questions or matters raised in that engagement and will be signed by the auditing firm.

In my professional opinion it would appear that there may be a matter of semantics. We have had the same thing in this place with regard to the Auditor General and her suggestions regarding value for money audits, which are not comprehensive audits. However, I can say that each and every engagement undertaken by a professional accountant must follow the same rules of professional conduct and the detail of work in true professional fashion. Accountants are also subject to professional and practice audits by the industry itself.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I find this very amusing, as someone who has a Master's in finance and ran several small businesses for many years. A review is very clearly not an audit, and I would like to speak to that point particularly.

An audit deals with the source documents. The auditors get the source documents and trace them back. They have their own scope and perform that scope. A review is simply not that. A review deals with the documents provided, in this case by the Liberal Party, and they are limited in their scope by the persons of whom they do the review. It is directly different. If we look at the cost difference, we will find that an audit is sometimes four or five times more expensive than a review would be.

[The Speaker]

I appreciate the input by the various hon. members who have had something to say on this subject. I am not an auditor and never have been, so I really know nothing of the difference between these two. Obviously I will have to do a bit of reading on it.

I thank the hon. member for Calgary Southeast, the hon. member for Windsor--Tecumseh, the hon. member for Mississauga South, the hon. member for Fort McMurray--Athabasca and the Minister of Public Works for their interventions on these matters. I am sure on review I will find them all very helpful.

I will look at the matter and get back to the House in due course, having an opportunity, I am sure, to see what different kinds of audits or reviews, or whatever they are called, were done in this case. I will try to come back to the House in due course.

We are now ready to go on to orders of the day.

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Supply

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Rivière-Du-Loup—Montmagny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, indeed, before question period, I set out the reasons justifying the Bloc motion, which, I believe, will be supported by the Conservative Party and the New Democrat Party. I would like to reread it to remind us.

That the House call on the government to immediately establish a trust account into which the Liberal Party of Canada can deposit all funds received from companies and individuals tied to the sponsorship scandal and identified in testimony before the Gomery Commission.

A trust account is an account for money that cannot be withdrawn without special authorization. It has sufficient transparency so that the money in it is used appropriately when it is withdrawn.

Following the very serious allegations made at the Gomery commission, where we have been shown clearly that millions of dollars were diverted to the Liberal Party under a system set up to make use of public money, it seems important to us to make sure the Liberal Party of Canada does not undertake a fourth election with dirty money. The polls are currently showing that this situation is unacceptable.

The Prime Minister himself has said, in a letter to his supporters, that he laid off the heads of agencies who were involved in this scandal. They initiated legal action too, before the conclusion of the Gomery commission. One fact remains. A lot of money has been misused and may possibly have served to fund the Liberal Party of Canada.

The Minister of Transport has said that the dirty money should be returned. If this were the case, and in view of the public's dissatisfaction, I think it would be important for the government not to reuse this money in the next election. Finally, as this is a minority government, I think it is important to have this money taken out of circulation so that it cannot skew the rules of democracy.

Another important reason we have tabled this motion is that if we do not make such a move, the Prime Minister will not budge. Since 2002, we had to ask him repeatedly to set up a commission of inquiry in order to finally get one.

So, every time we put forward arguments or ask questions, in the final analysis, running out of arguments, he ends up admitting that he has to act. We have no choice but to adopt the same attitude in the current matter, so that the money will not be used again in the next election and the Liberal Party will not be able to benefit from it.

The Prime Minister must undertake to respect Parliament's decision. Throughout the last election campaign, he talked about the democratic deficit. Well, to ensure the democratic quality of life, there will be a vote at the end of this debate and we will then be in a position to observe what sort of majority emerges.

In fact, the Prime Minister should commit himself to showing his good faith and demonstrate clearly that he wishes to get out of the current situation. He should demonstrate that the Liberal Party of Canada has no intention to—once again—use money obtained through illegal means.

It is absolutely unnecessary for the Prime Minister to wait for the end of the Gomery commission hearings, since we are not asking him to give the money back to the government. We are simply asking him to deposit this money in a trust account. Thus, when the hearings are over, if indeed it is confirmed that this money is dirty, as we have heard at the Gomery Commission, the government will be able to give it back. Meanwhile, we must ensure that it does not use this money for electoral purposes.

We are also introducing this motion because the amount involved is very large. We are talking about approximately $2.2 million. This is the amount that we know of so far. For example, the amount officially collected by the Liberal Party of Canada by Mr. Brault's firms is $166,000. There were salaries and other payments made to Mr. Alain Renaud, for the Liberal Party of Canada, in the amount of $1 million. There were also payments made to several companies, of several hundred thousands of dollars, for a total, at this time, of $2.2 million.

This motion is aimed at ensuring that the dirty money cannot be used for the next election campaign and will not distort the democratic process. Therefore, I ask all members in this House to support it.

The way for the Liberal government to demonstrate its good faith would be to step forward and vote for this motion, so that, ultimately, we would clearly see its real willingness to get to the bottom of the current situation. If the Liberals do the opposite, they will show us that their actions are aimed at getting them out of trouble, not at creating proper transparency.

Consequently, I invite all members of this House to vote in favour of the Bloc Québécois motion so that we can, as soon as possible, ensure that this money is set aside and cannot be used for the next election.

(Bill C-285. On the Order: Private Members' Business:)

April 13, 2005--The hon. member for Cypress Hills--Grasslands--Second reading and reference to the Standing Committee on Finance of Bill C-285, an act to amend the Income Tax Act (exclusion of income received by an athlete from a non-profit club, society or association).

Income Tax Act

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, discussions have taken place between all parties concerning the recorded division that was requested yesterday on my private member's Bill C-285, and I believe that you would find consent for the following motion. I move:

That the motion for second reading of Bill C-285 be deemed carried on division.

[The Speaker]

Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to propose this motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a committee)

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Supply

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise to participate in what is perhaps one of the most important debates in our country's history. Never before have there been such profound allegations of corruption against the party that is in power.

To quote the, until yesterday, Liberal member of Parliament from Edmonton--Mill Woods--Beaumont, “Here we are, a G7 country, acting like a northern banana republic. What country is seen as more politically corrupt than us at the moment?”

Sadly, many in other countries share his views. This Liberal scandal, is damaging our reputation right around the world. China's People's Daily reports, “Canada's ruling party badly hurt by scandal”. CNN calls this, “Canada's version of Watergate”. BBC World News reports, “Scandal anger mounts in Canada”. The New York Times headline reads, “Canadian Prime Minister Struggles to Keep Job”.

In France, the newspaper Le Monde said: “The Canadian Prime Minister is hanging on to power in spite of a corruption scandal affecting the Liberal Party”.

An article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune gets right to the heart of the matter. It states:

In what some say is Canada's version of Watergate, in terms of magnitude and potential damage, Liberal Party members are accused of having taken $818,000 from advertising agencies hired to promote federalism in the French-speaking province of Quebec.

This is truly a scandal without precedent, without equal in our history. Our country has reached a new and frightening low thanks to this Liberal Party.

In an April 12 Toronto Star op-ed entitled “Canada's Crisis of Responsibility”, Tom Axworthy, principal secretary to Pierre Trudeau from 1981 to 1984 and brother of former Liberal foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy writes:

One of the core problems the Gomery commission investigating the sponsorship scandal has revealed is the absence of any notion of responsibility from many of those in high positions. Neither in the 2003 auditor-general's report on sponsorship, nor in the Public Accounts Committee nor in the Gomery commission hearings have ex-ministers or public servants come forward to say, "Yes, managing this program was my responsibility, and I am accountable for what went wrong.”

Before I continue, Mr. Speaker, I want to let the House know that I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Nepean--Carleton.

The Parti Québécois is an example that the Liberal Party of Canada should follow with regard to the sponsorship scandal. When it was accused of having accepted $100,000 in illegal contributions from Groupaction Marketing Inc., it took steps to return the money. Three days later the PQ wrote to Justice John Gomery asking for the names of shareholders and employees of Groupaction from 1994.

That is an example that the Liberals must follow. In fact, on January 14, some Quebec papers said that while in Longueuil, the Minister of Transport promised that the Liberal Party of Canada would reimburse all money that could be linked to the sponsorship program.

In fact, English Canadian papers went further. They used a faulty translation which quoted the minister as saying:

The transport minister said he won't wait for reports from the Gomery Commission, an inquiry into the sponsorship scandal, and a lawyer appointed to study the matter.

Although the Canadian press later clarified the matter, the real reason English Canadian press included the erroneous information was because it seemed reasonable.

In September 2004, the Liberal Party had admitted that both of what the Liberal government now calls audits concluded that the party had received $1.5 million in donations from companies named in the Auditor General's report on sponsorship and advertising abuses. It then stated that it would only reimburse donations from companies whose directors were convicted of crimes.

So when in January the transport minister stated in Longueuil, Quebec that the federal Liberals would reimburse all donations received from groups involved in the sponsorship program, the translator made the fundamental mistake of believing that the transport minister was sincere and that the Liberal Party of Canada would essentially follow a path similar to that which was being taken by the Parti Québécois. What a foolish mistake to trust a Liberal.

There is a huge difference between the reaction of the Parti Québécois and that of the Liberal Party of Canada and it is attributable in part to the amounts of money involved. For the Parti Québécois, it is only $100,000, a relatively small sum, while it is a fortune for the Liberal Party of Canada.

The two external audits made in September 2004, which revealed that the Liberal Party of Canada had received $1.5 million from actors in the sponsorship scandal were not audits at all, but mere account reviews.

Simply put, both reviews showed that the Liberals received $1.5 million from people and firms involved in the sponsorship scandal. However, that does not include the money that Liberal ridings and candidates received. Moreover, the reviews were limited to four bank accounts and to the documents provided.

In other words, it is almost certain that the Liberal Party actually received substantially more than the $1.5 million it had publicly admitted; $1.5 million in dirty money.

Further, because of the way the money was hidden it is possible that a significant amount of money went to various leadership and riding campaigns, as well as to the 1997 and 2000 national campaigns of the Liberal Party, and we will not find out these amounts for quite some time.

Therefore, if the Liberal Party admits, after an incomplete review based on the balances of four bank accounts and missing documents, that it received $1.5 million in dirty money, one could assume that the real total could be double that, if not more.

If the amount of money that the Liberals will be allowed to spend nationally in the next campaign is roughly $18 million, and if they had received say $3 million from companies and individuals involved in the sponsorship scandal, that would mean roughly $1 out of every $6 that the Liberal Party of Canada will spend in the next election will be dirty money. That is right, $1 out of $6 TV ads alleging Liberal integrity will be paid for with dirty money and, quite possibly, produced by a tainted agency.

The dirty money also paid for one out of six pamphlets, which may have been printed by a company controlled by someone involved in the scandal.

When you see a Liberal advertisement, you can be proud because you paid for at least one-sixth of it.

This is outrageous, hideous and in the literal sense of the word “scandalous”.

The sad truth of the matter is that not only does the Liberal Party not want to return the money, it cannot return the money. In fact, it received millions in dirty money. There is no way that it would consider repaying it or putting it into a special account, as the transport minister has proposed, or putting it into a trust account, as the motion today requires.

Quite simply, the Liberals require all of the money that they can get their mitts on to fight the next election. Their promises to return the illegal funds right now are hollow. In truth, the Liberals would rather campaign with dirty money than have a campaign with less money. It is a most pathetic situation in which the Prime Minister finds himself.

It cannot be said that the Liberals lie; it is enough to say that their conception of truth and that of the Canadian taxpayers do not coincide. So, when they promise to return all monies received illegally or improperly, or from any source found guilty of wrongdoing related to the sponsorship program, I do not believe them.

In his April 11 press release, “Liberal Party of Canada Collaboration with the Gomery commission”, Mr. Michael Eizenga, president of the Liberal Party of Canada, states:

Every single dollar received [by virtue of any illegal or improper transaction] will be returned...It is imperative that we hear from Justice Gomery in order to reconcile the amounts using testimony he has heard.

Nonetheless, in the Prime Minister's open letter to Liberals that can be found on the Liberal Party website, the Prime Minister does not see any possibility of returning the dirty money. He writes:

The Liberal government has filed...a lawsuit against 19 defendants, including several communications companies and their directors, to recover $41 million...With Justice Gomery's conclusions in hand, I will act swiftly and surely to ensure those who did wrong face the full consequence of their actions.

In the same letter the Prime Minister writes:

Canadians are looking for someone to step forward and to be accountable for cleaning up this mess and as prime minister and Liberal leader, I accept that responsibility.

However he does not really want to accept that responsibility and so he refuses to answer any question that might involve him personally. We saw that today in question period when he was asked whether or not he actually had lunch with Claude Boulay of Groupe Everest and whether their conversation resulted in a $500,000 contract for his million dollar fundraising friend Serge Savard.

Finally the day of reckoning is here. Mr. Dithers, the Prime Minister, cannot run away. This motion will force him to choose between truly accepting his responsibility or running a campaign in which he knows that his campaign is being run and financed with dirty taxpayer money.

The Prime Minister could show moral fortitude. He has a choice. I urge him to support this motion and do the right thing in the name of accountability and also to do the right thing in the name of national unity.

I almost had to laugh this morning when I was walking into the office and I grabbed the National Post. On the front page was a story written by Mark Kennedy which stated, “Liberals to make national unity a key election issue”. In 1995, when the Liberal government created the sponsorship program, there were 54 Bloc Québécois MPs in the House. Today, 10 years later, there are 54 Bloc Québécois MPs in the House and they are set to win more seats.

Not only that, sovereignty is on the rise in the province of Quebec and there is not a single Canadian in the country who is not offended by the corruption of the Liberal government.

If the member for Etobicoke North wants to challenge me on the question of who is in bed with separatists, I would be glad to hear it.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, yes I will challenge the member on that because the reality is, and I have seen it every day since we have been back in this session of Parliament, the Conservative Party of Canada and the Bloc, the separatists, have been working together on a whole range of issues in the committee structure, on issues that do not make any sense for Canada, but the Conservatives know where the politics are. They know that they have some work to do in the province of Quebec so what do they do? They play footsie with the separatists and the separatists play a bit of footsie back because that is the way they get things done.

In the committee structure we know that if the Conservatives and the Bloc get together they have the numbers to defeat motions and propose motions. It is an unholy alliance and Canadians need to know all about it.

I take great exception to the hypocrisy of saying that they are not in bed with the Bloc and the separatists because they are.

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

Mr. Speaker, speaking of hypocrisy, the fact is, if the member looks at the data, that the Liberal government has voted more with the Bloc Québécois than the Conservative Party has. Of course he turns a blind eye to that fact.

Second, if the member from Etobicoke really does not like the fact that the Bloc Québécois is sitting here in the House of Commons, he might think about having a conversation with his transport minister who created the Bloc Québécois as a force to destroy this country.

The reality is, from the Conservative Party, to the New Democrats, to the Bloc Québécois, to now the independent member of Parliament from Edmonton, to a number of Liberals who do not even show up in the House in question period any more to get the Prime Minister's back, there are millions of Canadians and a majority of the members of Parliament in the House who want to get to the bottom of this scandal because it is the worst and most ugly corruption in Canadian history. We want to get to the bottom of it.

I find it laughable that the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party would say that they want the next election campaign to be about national unity.

Let us go from coast to coast. Every province in Atlantic Canada is offended that the Liberal government will not pass the Atlantic accord unless it is piggybacked on to its budget.

The people of Quebec are angry and frustrated with the sponsorship scandal and they will throw every Liberal MP out in the next election campaign.

Dalton McGuinty, the Liberal premier of Ontario, has had it up to his neck with the nonsense and the mistruths of the Prime Minister.

The prairie provinces are frustrated with the BSE situation and the fact that the Liberal government has done nothing.

Alberta is angry with the fact that the Prime Minister appoints senators rather than those who are duly elected by the people.

British Columbia, day in and day out, gets ignored by the government.

Talk about national unity. On top of that, there is not a citizen in this country who is not offended that the Liberal government takes money from taxpayers, gives it to its friends and its friends kick it back to the Liberal Party in order to abuse its power to get elected with dirty money. That is not national unity. That is a national disgrace and the member from Etobicoke should know it.

Business of the House

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, discussions have taken place between all parties regarding the motion from the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia to concur in the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Health and I believe you would find consent for the following motion. I move:

That at the conclusion of today's debate on the motion by the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia that the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Health be concurred in, all questions necessary to dispose of this motion be deemed put, a recorded division deemed requested and deferred until the end of government orders on Wednesday, April 20, 2005.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

(Motion agreed to)

The House resumed consideration of the motion.