Brian Fitzpatrick

[Softwood Lumber, April 28th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday was a historic day for the forestry industry in Canada. After us suffering through 13 years of Liberal inaction, it took only 80 days for our Prime Minister and this government to find a resolution to the softwood dispute.

The Liberal record is abysmal on this file. The previous prime minister was willing to sell out the return of illegal duties. He clearly stated that the return of only $3.5 billion was just okay with him. The former member for Papineau, as foreign affairs minister, was willing to get rid of the exemption for Atlantic producers. It is obvious that the previous Liberal government did not have the interests of the forestry industry in mind and was willing to sell out the industry just to get a deal.

The deal will improve the balance sheets of our Canadian forestry companies. The residents and the forestry industry of Saskatchewan are extremely pleased with this deal. This is a good deal for our country, for our residents and for the forestry industry in my riding. Under this Prime Minister, what Canada wanted is what Canada got.

[Federal Accountability Act, April 27th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his comments and his willingness to move this along. Some of his colleagues today made reference to the Auditor General and her ability to review expenditures with first nations communities in the country and that somehow this was wrong.

I want to bring something to the member's attention. In Saskatchewan I have had aboriginal people speak to me about a very serious situation. They have not received any of their child tax credit payments for their bands and they have other bands in Saskatchewan that have received way more than they are entitled to. By the looks of the books it looks like there could be perhaps millions of dollars unaccounted for in the administration of funds by Indian affairs in the province of Saskatchewan.

Children and young people in those bands are the real victims of this abuse. I turned the whole matter over to the Auditor General who told me that her hands were tied because she had no authority to review the matter, which I found quite shocking. I guess I should have known but I assumed that the Auditor General would have the ability to review this thing. This to me cries out for some accountability. The Auditor General should be able to lift the veil, look at these sorts of problems and root them out. I think the aboriginal people in Saskatchewan would want the Auditor General to review the books to ensure there is real accountability on this sort of matter.

Does the member opposite share the same view as many of his colleagues about not giving the Auditor General the ability to review the expenditures that go out to first nations bands in Saskatchewan and other provinces to ensure the money is really going where it is supposed to be going and that we are getting results for the money we are spending?

[Canada's Commitment in Afghanistan, April 10th, 2006]

Mr. Chair, I get the impression, when reading the media accounts and listening to some members of the House talk about our involvement in the Afghan war, that we were somehow co-opted into an illegal American-style war. I just want to state the way I understand the situation and then ask the hon. member to correct me if I have the facts wrong.

On September 11 an attack was launched against innocent civilians in our part of the world. Three thousand civilian people were murdered, 24 or so were Canadians and hundreds of them were from countries other than the United States. The war was against liberal, western, democratic values and the things we stand for. That was the motivating factor of that war, and it was a war.

Where did the terrorists come from? They came from Afghanistan. Seventy thousand of them had been trained in a state that sponsored and protected this group against civilized people around the world and nothing was done about these people. From my understanding, this enduring freedom war was sanctioned and approved by the United Nations.

I think the objective of our initial involvement in that war was to destroy those terrorist camps in Afghanistan and to remove the government in power that had sponsored and protected them, and, as has so rightly been put forward tonight, the role is to rebuild that country, to bring back some civilization and some badly needed things to their society.

Some of the wars in history were very questionable but, if my facts are correct on this matter, I am having a problem trying to find out how in any way this war is illegal, evil or wrong. This is a war in which we should be proud to be involved and we should solidly stand behind the men and women who are fighting for those values in Afghanistan.

If I have any of these facts wrong, would the member opposite, who is quite knowledgeable on these matters, please correct them for me?

[Supply, November 24th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Gomery report basically said that the Prime Minister did not know about the sponsorship scandal. He might have been careless but he did not know.

I read something the other day. It was the sentencing of one of the senior managers of WorldCom. He had been found guilty of the fraud involved with WorldCom. His lawyers were arguing before the judge that he was out of the loop. I guess he was the piano player in the operation. He did not know what was going on. The judge said to the individual that not knowing was not an excuse, that he should have known and he proceeded to sentence Mr. Ebbers to 25 years. That was the judge's pronouncement.

I heard some member refer to Conrad Black and the U.S. I guess I can use the Bernie Ebbers case in the U.S. as an example. My question for the minister of public security is this. Does not knowing what was going on and being out of the loop exonerate the chief financial officer--

[Question No. 218, November 21st, 2005]

With regard to internal government audits of Technology Partnership Canada programs, were there violations of government conditions on the payment of lobbyists and, if so: ( a ) what are the names of the firms; ( b ) how much money did each firm receive; ( c ) who were the lobbyists who received such payments; and ( d ) what was the specific dollar amount that each lobbyist received?

(Return tabled)

[Supply, November 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for his comments. They are quite appropriate to the situation.

The Prime Minister says he wants to govern this country. In my riding, I have three major issues: a forest industry that is in very serious trouble, an agricultural situation that is absolutely depressing, and Saskatchewan quite literally is getting the short end of the stick by a mile and a half on equalization.

I would suggest to the Minister of Finance that he should probably talk to a real estate lawyer and do a basic statement of adjustments to find out how phoney his math is on this issue in that province.

Where is the Prime Minister? What is the Prime Minister doing? He says he wants to govern the country. He is in South Korea. That is, I believe, the 14th international trip by the Prime Minister in the space of 12 months. He wants to govern and I wish he would govern. We have pressing issues in my riding, desperate issues that need to be addressed by the government, but what is the Prime Minister doing? His urgent priority is to go to South Korea.

I wonder if the member opposite could provide some commentary about the Prime Minister's interest in dealing with the issues that are really important to Canadians in this country and really address--

[Privilege, November 14th, 2005]

Quite honestly, Mr. Speaker, not everyone was aware of the sponsorship program. It seemed like there was a club of MPs who were tuned into it.

I remember when I first came here there was a sponsorship for the Montreal Alouettes, the Montreal Expos, the Ottawa Senators and the football team, I believe. Four outfits that participated directly in sponsorship payments but in the CFL, the Toronto team, the Hamilton team, the Winnipeg team, the Rough Riders, the Eskimos, the Stampeders and B.C., they did not know anything about this and did not have any of the money.

Other NHL teams, such as the Oilers or the Calgary team, did not know anything about that but sponsorship money was flowing into the professional teams in Quebec. Obviously somebody was beating the drums in Quebec very well for these programs and people elsewhere in the country were oblivious to even the existence of these programs. It had a secretive nature to it. It is part of a veil of secrecy that the government has brought to the House of Commons where it hides things from the public to keep us in the dark.

[Privilege, November 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have three points on this matter. As Judge Gomery basically outlined, if money went into Liberal constituencies contrary to the Elections Act it was a violation, especially when somebody drops $8,000 or $7,000 cash into a constituency association. My goodness gracious, if any candidate does not have a clue or even asks a question about where the money comes from, it raises clear-cut suspicions among reasonable people. Those are the candidates who want to come to Ottawa and run our government. They do not even know where the money is coming from in their ridings when cash shows up. That is a problem.

People were working in the advertising agencies and on the payroll and they were not doing any work for the advertising agencies except doing political work for the Liberal Party in Quebec.

The other problem is the cash kickbacks, the money in brown envelopes. Anybody involved in any of those activities in my view was part of a criminal conspiracy. This is a serious matter. We need to get a full list of who these people are. We should have no more inquiries. These people should be facing the criminal justice system and the full consequences of our criminal justice system and, hopefully, we will have mandatory minimum sentences in place for the culprits who were involved in this when that day comes.

[Privilege, November 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I would just remind the member that when the Auditor General first released her report she said that every rule in the book had been broken. Judge Gomery also confirmed that basically every rule in the book had been broken and that this was a conspiracy. The effect of the conspiracy was to unlawfully take tax dollars away from Canadian taxpayers to pay for the Liberal Party and its friends and to run election campaigns and so on.

This matter goes much further than just being a civil tort. The plea of innocence on the part of members opposite is rather strange because the Gomery report confirms that the rules were broken and that the Liberal government was behind this plan to abscond with millions of dollars of taxpayer money. We all know that Judge Gomery could not assign individual criminal liability because the Inquiries Act prohibits him from doing so.

However it raises suspicions in a lot of minds about the list of people who were actually embroiled and directly involved in this massive fraud committed against the Canadian public. I have often been asked by constituents in Saskatchewan where the charges are and when these people will be before the courts and pay their dues. They see it the same way as they saw Enron or WorldCom or, as I mentioned in my speech to the House, the Devine administration where 14 people were convicted on the political side and served time in jail. People in my riding are asking when it will happen here and how far it goes.

For members in Quebec to say that they did not know anything about this program is really hard to accept.

[Privilege, November 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity to give this more thought over the break and I want to start by reviewing the facts as I see them, as it is always good to start from a factual basis. The question of privilege is centred on some mail-outs from the Bloc members to government seats in the province of Quebec. This has certainly caused a lot of anguish to those government members, but I would like to go through what is in the mail-out. It highlights key passages from the Gomery report, which I think is fair. It brings home some facts to people in the key findings of the commissioner. It includes photographs of some of the key government members opposite.

What kinds of messages were left with those constituents in Quebec? One of them was that money was given to Liberal friendly organizations for doing virtually nothing. Millions and millions of dollars were given to Liberal friendly organizations to do nothing. In return, what were these agencies required to do? They were required to make donations to the Liberal Party of Canada. They were required, I guess, to put Liberal workers on their payrolls to do no work for these agencies but to do political work for the party. They arranged for large amounts of money to be deposited with Liberal constituency organizations to make sure Liberals got elected in those ridings. The mail-out also makes it clear that the Liberal Party was behind this. The Liberals conceived this plan, executed it and carried it out to its fullest.

Individual members from Quebec are offended by the mail-out. They say it is being determined that they are guilty by association. They say they are Liberals involved with the Quebec Liberal Party, the federal Liberal Party and the leader of the party, Mr. Chrétien at that time. There may have been a lot of wrongdoing inside the party and in the Prime Minister's Office and in other departments, but they say they are innocent and they were not party to that. Yes, they say they were lobbying the government to get as much sponsorship money into their ridings as possible, but they say they knew nothing about this other aspect of the program. In fact, even in their own riding associations there might have been cash deposited from the program to pay for their re-election, but they knew nothing about that. They were completely oblivious to that.

It brings me back to a sitcom in the 1960s, Hogan's Heroes, with Sergeant Schultz, whose common phraseology was, “I know nothing, I see nothing, and I say nothing”. It almost seems that this might be a problem with a lot of the members opposite. They did not participate in this thing, they were not very aware of what was going on and they did not really want to know what was going on, but they sure lined up for the grants if they could get their hands on them.

In fact, I recall that in one situation a minister from Montreal got $3.5 million in one year for sporting events in a riding, including $250,000 for the Grey Cup. The Minister of Finance did not do as good a job on the sponsorship as that minister did; he only got $50,000 for the Roughrider committee in Saskatchewan at that time. The minister in Quebec got $250,000 for the Grey Cup committee in Montreal. Perhaps the finance minister was not as strong a lobbyist as some of the Quebec members. That particular minister obviously knew about the sponsorship program because she did very well on it in one particular year, that is for sure.

In our society, as everyone knows, the government has a lot of tools for communicating to the public to get its message out. Opposition members really do not have the same powers to communicate that the government does. One of the tools we do have is our 10 percenters. It is a way of getting the message out. Clearly, a lot of government members do not like opposition members trying to get their message out.

Quite frankly, I believe the mail-out that was sent to the people of Quebec was perhaps a hard message. Maybe it was something the Liberals did not want to see because it threatened their political careers, but I think what was contained in the householder was fair comment. That is really the test on these things.

I am surprised that the House of Commons would actually entertain the idea of taking away the freedom of expression and the democratic rights of opposition members to provide fair comment to people in this country. That would take away the charter rights of Canadians, especially those of members of Parliament, which is something the Prime Minister guaranteed his government would never entertain. The motion before the House would shut down the most fundamental of our freedoms, the freedom of expression, our democratic right, and would shut down our abilities as opposition members. I am truly amazed that members opposite would even consider such a motion.

I can understand why members opposite would be upset with this. As I mentioned before, when political scandals take place there are innocent bystanders and those innocent bystanders are going to go down with the ship. They are identified with the organization. It may be guilt by association, but the point of correlativity is that when the ship goes down, the innocent are going to go down with it. Quite frankly, I think Quebec members should have known a lot more about this sponsorship program than they pretended--