Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this attempt at a diversion. Indeed, it is very representative of what the Bloc is trying to do with this 38th Parliament. It is central to the debate.
The motion tabled by the Bloc, upon which extremely important time is being spent here in the House, is central to everything that is going on. It is central to Canadian democracy. It is not important for the Bloc Québécois to make a point which, in my opinion, is extremely important. However, it has seen fit to bring out the participation rates for the last federal election. I am quite aware of this, for we know that Canadians and Quebeckers are simply more and more disconnected from political reality and from politics in its broadest sense.
Once again, the only purpose of motions such as those tabled by the Bloc Québécois is to send up smokescreens over the theme it holds dearest and on which it did not even have to campaign in the election. The theme which simply says, laying it on as thickly as possible, “The Liberals are crooks, the Liberals are this, the Liberals are that”.
I find it regrettable to hear what is being said on an issue as critical as the Gomery commission. Every day, on television—in fact there is live coverage on English, French and other channels—experts from the media look at some of the comments and testimonies heard, and then the Bloc Québécois, the Conservatives and the NDP do the same thing. They go so far as to presenting motions such as this one in the House, in an attempt to have Canadians and Quebeckers believe that there is no need to wait until the end of the inquiry since they have already decided that there are some guilty people, namely all of us on this side of the House.
But I want to go back to the actions taken by the Canadian government to shed light on this whole issue, since this opportunity was given to all of us by the Auditor General in her report. We were given the opportunity to try to do politics in a different fashion, but Bloc Québécois members do not want to wait. They would rather have people think that all Liberals are corrupt, and they would like the phrase “Free us from the Liberals” to become a slogan.
I hope Canadians can clearly see how a concept as important as democracy is being used and played with. It is important to ensure that people can become stakeholders. This means we should be here to represent those who elected us, and to ensure that events such as those relating to the sponsorships never happen again. However, this is not what is being done. The opposition is using all sorts of diversions in an attempt to pursue its own political agenda.
Personally, I am very pleased with the initiatives taken by the government to shed light on the abuse relating to the federal sponsorship program, including the actions taken to track down those responsible for this situation, and to see what can be done to correct it.
I want to start by congratulating my Prime Minister. I believe that, besides the official opposition, anyone who follows what is going on must find the current situation difficult. Day in and day out, we have to contend with this kind of behaviour in the House because the Prime Minister has made a political decision that was not easy to make. History has taught us that, more often than not, in politics, attempts are made to sweep everything under the carpet, instead of facing adversity square in the face. But great men are best tested in adversity.
In this case, we cannot be said to have taken a poll in an attempt to make political hay. Anyone in the country who can say with a straight face that we are trying to make political hay out of this should take a look around the House and see who is doing so.
Certainly not the Prime Minister. He is constantly under attack, while having had no involvement at all in the matter. My Prime Minister is no doubt deeply concerned by the misuse of public funds and by the blow dealt by this whole matter to the reputation of the Canadian public service, which is internationally renowned for its professionalism and good ethical practices.
Because of these political games being played in the House, the trust of the Canadian public in the political system, not the Liberals, is dwindling. I was just at a function where people were saying that they do not trust politicians in general, not just the Liberals, the NDP, the Conservatives or the Bloc in particular. We all know where politicians stand in the public eye; we rank very low in terms of the people's trust.
We must see this through, and that is the direction my party, the government party, has taken. We must get to the bottom of this, and that is what we are going to do.
As the Auditor General clearly indicated, the taxpayers' money has been mismanaged and misspent. You will never hear me say the contrary. The policy and regulations governing the awarding of contracts have not been respected, and the trust of the Canadian public has been betrayed.
This is inexcusable. The sponsorship program was small in comparison to other government programs with an annual budget of roughly $40 million. However, it was plagued with big problems and to correct them we needed to be firm and carry out our responsibilities with determination. Most of all, we had to do what was best for the taxpayers.
When concerns over the sponsorship program first came to light, no one tried to hide the problem or defend the indefensible. On the contrary, a series of specific, well thought out progressive measures were carried out to address the problems in order to prevent them from recurring.
When it became clear that the sponsorship program was fundamentally flawed and no longer had the trust of Parliament or taxpayers, it was dismantled and the organization in charge of managing it, Communication Canada, was disbanded. When the Auditor General released her second scathing report on the sponsorship program and federal government advertising activities, on February 10, 2004—this is an important date to remember—the government reacted immediately by adopting exhaustive measures that went beyond the expectations of most people.
Today I want to focus my comments on the measures that were announced in February 2004. Those measures have the answers not only in terms of holding people responsible for their mismanagement of the sponsorship program, but in terms of ensuring that this type of situation never happens again.
First and foremost, the government has created an independent commission of inquiry on the sponsorship and advertising activities, headed by Justice John Gomery of the Superior Court of Quebec. It has also given the commission very broad terms of reference so as not to limit the scope of its inquiry.
More specifically, the commission was asked to investigate and report on questions raised, directly or indirectly, by Chapters 3 and 4 of the November 2004 Report of the Auditor General of Canada, including the following: the creation of the sponsorship program; the selection of communications and advertising agencies; the management of the sponsorship program and advertising activities by government officials at all levels; the receipt and use of any funds or commissions disbursed in connection with the sponsorship program and advertising activities by any person or organization; andany other circumstance directly related to the sponsorship program and advertising activities that the commissioner considers relevant to fulfilling his mandate. Justice Gomery was also asked to make recommendations. In my opinion, this is his most important task because civil and criminal courts will consider numerous other aspects of this terrible situation.
Justice Gomery was also asked to make recommendations that he considers advisable to prevent mismanagement of sponsorship programs or advertising activities in the future. However, the opposition does not want to hear that part. This is an excellent opportunity, and I ask my colleagues to be patient because I think that it will be beneficial to everyone and will ensure that we know how to prevent this from happening again, instead of pushing personal agendas for, quite simply, crass and despicable purposes, such as Quebec's sovereignty or forming a new government. If this is more important than properly representing our constituents, I am no longer sure what being in politics means.
The commissioner made his opening statement on May 7, 2004. He then set about examining requests for standing and funding, and announced his decisions.
In September 2004, Justice Gomery opened the public hearings here in Ottawa, where he heard a number of key witnesses, including the former and present prime ministers, the Auditor General, and former and present Department of Public Works and Government Services officials, including Charles Guité who administered the sponsorship program until his retirement in 1999. These public hearings, scheduled to terminate by the end of May, are now being held in Montreal. The commission will hear final arguments in June and its fact finding report should be submitted by November 1. Justice Gomery is expected to produce his policy report and recommendations by mid-December. Justice Gomery has been given a difficult task with some tight deadlines, and that is all the more difficult because he has to accomplish this under public scrutiny. This is proof that we on this side of the House are not afraid.
It is tempting to present our own point of view, as the opposition parties are so blithely doing, shamefully taking advantage of parliamentary immunity. They are laying it on thicker and thicker every day, adding name after name. This places people in an awkward situation, although some of them likely have no reason to feel that way. They are, however, forced to suffer the consequences. Today I feel bad for the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who are proud Liberals like myself. While we were not even involved in all this, we bear the brunt of all manner of insults.
This is unfortunate, and a motion such as this one has just that effect. Just by looking at its wording—and I have no intention of acting like a lawyer here—it is clear that it is really unfortunate, because we have already promised in this House, I do not know how many times, to reimburse all the money.
So it is just a matter of playing little political games. We have also taken steps, through a lawyer, to recover the money. Civil proceedings worth some $40 million have been initiated. Some people are already in criminal court.
Do they not want to see what will happen? Have they already decided that all those people were guilty? Are those the principles being advocated in the Bloc Québécois? Is that the foundation on which they wish to build their own country, by using such a situation and saying, “We are creating our country, because with the Liberals and the federal government, things are going badly?” I thought, because they keep telling us so, that their plan was supposed to be so thrilling and easy to sell. It is so easy to sell that other people are getting hurt, as the Bloc pretends this is the only way we will be able to engage in good politics. I have some news for them: this is not the way to do politics.
Another sentence strikes me and we hear it more and more. They say this is the story of the Liberal kind of politics. I am sorry, this is not my way of doing politics; it is not Quebec's way of doing politics. All the measures taken by this government demonstrate it is going to undertake a real cleanup.
The opposition parties are only interested in exploiting the situation. They are not prepared to carry out a proper cleanup to ensure that Canadian democracy is in good shape, because our Canadians and our Quebeckers deserve better. With the Gomery commission, we will be in a position to achieve that level of perfection.