Debates of April 20th, 2005

Sponsorship Program

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

Mr. Speaker, we are not asking about the Gomery inquiry. We are asking about another Liberal scandal, a new Liberal scandal. I know the minister is up to his neck in defending Liberals from scandal, but this is a new scandal that only the transport minister can answer.

The transport minister lobbied the federal government for a $100 million contract without registering as a lobbyist as is required by law. The transport minister must stand in his place and do the right thing and resign. Will he do it?

[Jean Lapierre, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I swear—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Speaker]

Order, please. The Minister of Transport is rising to answer the question. The hon. member for Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam will want to contain himself so we can hear the answer. He did ask the question. Now we will have a response from the hon. Minister of Transport.

[Jean Lapierre, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I swear I never did any lobbying for a $100 million contract for anyone.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Warren Kinsella has stated, under oath, that members of the Prime Minister's entourage arranged for Earnscliffe to get a contract and that the Prime Minister was aware of that fact. All the Minister of Finance can think to do is hide behind the Ernst & Young report, referred to as “watered down” by Justice Gomery, the initial version of which identified a widespread failure to comply with contracting policies and regulations.

Since he knew, why did the Prime Minister not take action to prevent Earnscliffe, the firm of his close advisors, from profiting from an improper tendering process?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, again, the hon. gentleman seems to be relying upon some unreliable information. The allegations are not supported by the written record. They are not supported by the audit done by Ernst & Young. They are not supported by the Auditor General of Canada. They are not supported in the independent comments offered yesterday by Mr. Goldenberg. They are only supported by the opposition and even the deputy leader of the official opposition calls that source poisoned partisanship.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General said she did not see most of Earnscliffe's reports because they were filed verbally. In addition, Justice Gomery said the Ernst & Young report was watered down in response to pressure from officials of this government. This is being used as an excuse, when there was very clearly a conflict of interest.

How can the Prime Minister not have seen a conflict of interest when the his former chief of staff was the spouse of David Herle, who worked for Earnscliffe? How could he not see a conflict of interest when his chief of staff was the spouse of David Herle, who was himself the PM's campaign manager? Did he not realize this was a conflict of interest?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, first, Ms. O'Leary corresponded with the Ethics Commissioner; as a result of this correspondence, she declared her status, and then she followed the Ethics Commissioner's recommendations to the letter.

Second, Ms. O'Leary stated unequivocally that she had never interfered in the awarding of any contracts. Her answer is clear: never. She made this statement under oath.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister was aware of the interventions made to ensure Earnscliffe got the contracts for the Department of Finance, because he intervened himself to add pressure.

What does the Prime Minister have to say about Warren Kinsella's statement under oath that the former finance minister had even called him at home to complain?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the remark with respect to the alleged telephone call is completely fallacious. Again, I would ask the hon. gentleman to check the record. Check all the written record that is published in the material. Check with Ernst & Young. Check with the Auditor General. Check with Mr. Goldenberg. Time and time again you will find that your allegations are blatantly and completely false.

[The Speaker]

I hope the Minister of Finance was referring to any allegations I might have made when he said your, but I have been quite silent on--his. I am glad for the clarification. The hon. member for Repentigny.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the documents submitted in evidence to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts show beyond any doubt that the finance department intervened at least four times to promote Ekos, Earnscliffe and Everest.

How could the Prime Minister say here in this House on April 14 that he knew nothing and had never intervened in this regard, when documents show, on the contrary, that the Prime Minister was running his own little parallel sponsorship scandal?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's statement is not true, it is completely untrue. There has never been any intervention in the awarding of contracts. All I wanted as minister was an open competition, as did my assistant, Ms. O'Leary, the deputy minister and the finance department. That was what we proposed from the start.

The Prime Minister

[Jack Layton, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Yesterday the Prime Minister chose to make a presentation on his broken promises on foreign aid when this House was falling apart due to the actions taken by this government to take away the democratic right of the opposition parties to hold the government accountable.

We have tried to make the House of Commons work. How exactly does it help the House of Commons to work when the Prime Minister first tries to take away the democratic rights of the opposition and, second, refuses to explain himself?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member obviously must know, the planning for yesterday's presentation of the international policy review has been done for quite some time. It was very important that following the presentation I take the opportunity to meet with a number of key ambassadors so the message would go back to their capitals, and that is exactly what I did.

I would like, however, to take this occasion to congratulate the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of National Defence, the Minister of International Trade and the minister responsible for overseas aid. I must say that yesterday was a very successful day for Canada.

Whistleblower Legislation

[Jack Layton, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we just offered the Prime Minister an opportunity to explain why he would take away the democratic rights of the opposition parties and he refused to answer the question. That says it all.

Let us turn to the whole issue of corruption. The Prime Minister pretends to care about corruption but what he says does not match what he does. In the new whistleblower legislation that has been brought forward, the very individual who in 1999 brought forward the entire scandal on sponsorships would not have been protected. How is it dealing with corruption when he will not protect the people who expose corruption?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to have a question on this bill. In fact, we put this bill before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. It is conducting an extensive study. It has made a series of recommendations and I am in the process of examining them. This is a first reading bill that is designed for the House to be involved in its design. We will respond in due course.

Government Contracts

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, raging Liberal Warren Kinsella raised concerns as far back as 1995 through memos, letters and phone calls about rigged contracts that he felt favoured the company employing the Prime Minister's leadership campaign manager. One memo read that the “competition was flawed, the payments are excessive, the work is probably not needed, and the research community can be fully expected to blow the whistle on the political connections”.

The Prime Minister's former EA, Terrie O'Leary, confirmed under oath that she had discussed these concerns with the current Prime Minister. We now know the Prime Minister was aware of these concerns over the shady contracting. What, if anything, did he do about it?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, again the hon. gentleman is simply following the wrong path. Mr. Kinsella is not supported by the written record that has been filed with the public accounts committee. He is not supported by any of the audits that have been done, either by Ernst & Young externally or the Auditor General internally. Some of his testimony yesterday was directly contradicted by Mr. Goldenberg.

Indeed, the only support he has is from the opposition and that very member has described him as a “poisoned partisan”. So much for his star witness.

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, there is not a lot of love in the Liberal ranks, and the Prime Minister can hide but he is eventually going to have to run.

This question is for him. These are serious allegations in reference to questionable government contracts being used to subsidize the Prime Minister's leadership campaign. Warren Kinsella also said, “I and perhaps others would consider it inappropriate that you cross-subsidize that political activity using the public treasury. That's inappropriate”.

Will the Prime Minister now admit his knowledge and his involvement in the contracting practices of his department that funnelled taxpayers' money through Earnscliffe to finance his leadership activity?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member made a reference to leadership money. The hon. member knows that at that period of time there was no leadership race. In fact, the leadership race did not occur for another six or seven years.

What the hon. member omitted to say is that every single penny I raised in the leadership race has been fully disclosed. It is all in the public record. The question is, since I have fully disclosed, why have the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Central Nova not made full disclosure of their leadership funds?

Sponsorship Program

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

Mr. Speaker, that is pretty selective memory.

The Prime Minister gave sworn testimony that Boulay was the merest acquaintance, only for a very short time around 1990, but in 1994 he wrote one of several distinctively personal letters to Boulay. This one promised to give Boulay's business a boost. A very busy new finance minister took the time to personally send Boulay's resumé directly to the federal office for regional development in Quebec for action. Why the unusual privileged treatment?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to quote from Paul Wells' blog. In fact, Paul Wells says:

Claude Boulay's testimony has been substantially exculpatory of [the Prime Minister]...we've spent the week hearing speculation and hearsay about Boulay's relationship with [the Prime Minister], and both [the Prime Minister] and Boulay have now testified that there wasn't much of a relationship. There are places in the world where a politician who'd leaned on hearsay as hard as [the Leader of the Opposition] has this week would be a little sheepish after a day like today....

Members opposite should all be hanging their heads in shame after the character assassinations and drive-by smears.

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

If only those Liberals knew the meaning of shame, Mr. Speaker.

Here are some facts. Not only did Claude Boulay work on the Prime Minister's 1990 leadership campaign, he also worked on the Prime Minister's local campaign in 1993. We also know as a fact that, weeks later, the new finance minister, now the Prime Minister, gave his good buddy Boulay a tangible reward with a personal referral for government contracts, so the Prime Minister has to explain--