Michel Gauthier

[Publishing Industry, March 22nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, for the minister's information, it is the Toronto lawyer of Paramount who made that statement. Toronto is still in Canada, Mr. Speaker. Tell the minister that! It is not very far from Kingston either.

Not only do we read English-language newspapers but we usually read a contract before we sign it. Since Paramount's lawyer himself expresses serious doubts about his client suing the Canadian government, it would be rather surprising if the government's lawyers had produced a legal opinion without any reservations that would have prevented the minister from going back on the deal.

Does the minister, who has failed miserably in his first test as defender of Canada's cultural heritage, not believe that he should table the legal opinion to show that he is really above reproach on this?

[Publishing Industry, March 22nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Canadian Heritage decided to allow the sale of Ginn Publishing to Paramount only for fear of being sued by Paramount.

The Star quoted Paramount's lawyer, Mr. Grover, who yesterday ruled out the possibility of Paramount suing the minister if only the minister had stood up to them.

My question is for the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Now that I have reassured the minister that he no longer has any reason to fear being sued, will he do what he should have done from the beginning in the Ginn Publishing case and cancel the sale to Paramount?

[Publishing Industry, March 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, does the minister also admit that, after reading the legal advice prepared for the previous Conservative government in 1990, he realized this advice was far from definite regarding the government's obligation to honour the so-called verbal promise it is now invoking? And would he agree to table the legal advice on which he is now trying to base his position?

[Publishing Industry, March 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Canadian Heritage. In the Ginn Publishing affair, today's Toronto Star , quoting sources in the Prime Minister's Office, made surprising revelations on the heritage minister's behaviour.

In particular, we learned that the minister did not see fit, before authorizing the deal, to read the legal advice on which he bases his own authorization.

How does the minister explain the thoughtless and irresponsible way he acted in authorizing this bad deal without first reading the legal advice in question?

[National Defence, March 17th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, this is a ministerial statement which complements an answer and does not require a long comment on my part.

I simply want to tell the Minister of National Defence that we appreciate obtaining supplementary answers. This particular one does not provide a lot of specifics. It simply tells us about how things should normally proceed from now on. But we want to point out to the minister that our colleague was very concerned about the negative situation prevailing on that military base, with a regiment whose behaviour seems very unusual.

I reiterate my colleague's concerns and remind the minister of the importance of ensuring that all the facts are known about the incidents which took place on that military base, which are disturbing, to say the least.

[Business Of The House, March 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, could the Government House leader tell us what business will be dealt with tomorrow and next week?

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, March 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, either the Prime Minister and his Minister of National Defence have the figures and they refuse to make them available to Canadians by tabling them here in the House or the Prime Minister made this decision to close the only francophone military college on the spur of the moment, to save his Minister of National Defence.

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, March 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the government says that its decision to transfer training activities from the College in Saint-Jean to Kingston was motivated by the need to save money. Unfortunately, we cannot get any credible figures. Yesterday, the Prime Minister said in the House: "I do not need to spend more money to see or to have experts tell me that we do not need three military colleges for 65,000 members" of the Canadian Armed Forces.

Considering that it will cost $6 million to maintain an empty building in Saint-Jean, that it will cost a lot more to train students in Kingston instead of in Saint-Jean and that the Prime Minister's project may end up costing a lot of money, is the Prime Minister not afraid that all these expenses will considerably reduce the amounts saved by concentrating officer training at the college in Kingston?

[Points Of Order, March 16th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I simply want to emphasize that of course we can refer to what is going on in a committee. It is customary to be able to refer to it in a question and not necessarily to deal with an issue under discussion. That is the nuance which the hon. member should respect.

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, March 16th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, what the Prime Minister does not realize is that it did not take longer than five minutes to see through the government and its charade.

Since, by his own admission, the Prime Minister cannot provide us with a satisfactory answer-and neither can his Minister of Defence who has been "shut out" of this matter-since he admits not having commissioned a study on the costs of maintaining both colleges with a smaller student population, how can he seriously talk about saving $23 million? On what basis can he make that statement?