Rahim Jaffer

[Sponsorship Program, February 20th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister would have Canadians believe that he can get their money back from his Liberal friends. Yesterday the Auditor General was highly dismissive of this promise, saying, and I quote, “I think it will be difficult to do that, given the lack of documentation that we found in the files”.

The Liberal Party set up this program to hide this money and only the Liberal Party knows where it is. How does the Prime Minister expect to keep his promise?

[Supply, February 17th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, there is no doubt about it. Many of the agricultural producers in this country, especially those dealing with many forms of livestock, are facing some incredible challenges, still because of this particular government's lack of influence when it comes to dealing with border problems with the U.S. and because it is not stepping up to the plate when it comes to trying to compensate many of these families. It is a terrible situation.

I know that from my own experience in Alberta. Even though I am not in a rural area, I hear from a number of my colleagues who are doing their best to try to help many of these families, but still the government has not stepped up to the plate and I think it is becoming a very serious problem for many of these families.

On the flip side, as hon. colleagues say, we see, as I constantly referred to in my speech, a blatant disregard for taxpayers' dollars. There are some people who cannot put food on the table, yet we have a Governor General who goes five times over budget from the original cost to take many of her friends on a cultural promotion trip. Although some of this can be very important, there should be a limit as to how much some of these public servants spend, and the Governor General is no exception to that rule. To go five times over budget, especially when farm families are starving, is completely unacceptable.

[Supply, February 17th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I think the point this hon. member is missing is the fact that the government put out numbers for the gun registration program; and it is not gun control as he referred to, because quite frankly I think we could have looked for a much more effective means of gun control than this registration would ever have accomplished. How could it go from $2 million to administer this program, which is what the government said it would cost, to now over $1 billion and rising? We still do not even know what the final amounts are.

Every day on this side of the House when we stood to ask the government how much it would cost to maintain this registry and how much would it cost to complete it, we never got an answer. The government does not know the answer and that is why this number continues to grow.

Quite frankly, the money that was spent on this registry would have gone to a much better use for control if we had looked at policing our streets more, beefing up our border security when it comes to the flow of illegal guns, and all these different angles that should have been explored rather than this registry, which has just been a boondoggle.

[Supply, February 17th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I have always taken so much pride in representing the riding of Edmonton--Strathcona, and I have always taken so much pride in being able to stand up in this place to represent Canadians, to talk about pertinent issues and to do the best I possibly can as a member of Parliament to advance great goals for Canadians. Yet here we are on a day like today dealing with the culture of corruption that has existed in the government since it has taken power. The exact same things those members said they would try to eradicate while they were in opposition seem to have become ten times worse than any previous government.

I stand up today with a saddened heart to discuss these issues because we should be discussing issues pertaining to BSE, softwood lumber and our place in the world. How can we deal with these issues and the integrity of the country when we have a government that seems to be corrupt to the bone? We just cannot do it. Canadians are finally coming to the end with this government and what it represents.

This is not something new. It is a trend that has continuously been building since the government took office. I want to take a moment to read today's motion into the record. It states:

That, in the opinion of this House, the Liberal government has and continues to nurture a culture of corruption through the abuse of its influence and the use of public funds for personal benefit and to benefit friends, family and the Liberal Party of Canada.

Just recently the Auditor General's report was tabled in the House. According to that report, the sponsorship program has cost at least $250 million. We hope, through the process of a public inquiry, that we can get to the bottom of this and find out if there has been even more abuse. It seems $100 million of these fees went to commissions for Liberal-friendly advertising companies that did little or no work.

It is bad enough that this sort of abuse has taken place, but the person who is in charge, the top dog, the Prime Minister of the country, is claiming that he had no knowledge of any of this happening. Let us look and see.

Since this report was tabled, he has given on separate occasions a number of different excuses. A number of my colleagues have highlighted them. I would not mind going over them because I was floored when I heard some of the excuses, particularly after hearing that the new Prime Minister would do things in a new way and that he would bring a new level of government. It seems like he has brought a new level of ignorance and corruption to the government.

First, he claimed that he did not know anything about the scandal. The next day he blamed a rogue group of public servants. When people were not buying that story, he admitted that he had heard about a number of administrative problems, when it came to the actual sponsorship program. He said that he really was not aware of it until the final Auditor General's report was tabled in the House.

It is hard for us on this side of the House to believe that the Prime Minister, who was one of the most prominent ministers in the government over the last 10 years and who was one of the chief members of Parliament at cabinet, would know nothing about the scandal and the abuse of taxpayer dollars. Now that the government has been caught, we are starting to find out more about the truth. Hopefully, before the election is called, Canadians will know the full truth about this matter and how much the Prime Minister and many of his ministers knew about the whole scandal evolving on that side of the House.

The truth of the matter is I think there has always been this sort of abuse, neglect and disrespect of taxpayer dollars. Only when they get caught do they make an effort to change any of the things that have happened on that side of the House. We have a number of examples to show even before this Auditor General's report.

I can speak from my own experience. When I worked on the revenue file, I dealt with the GST fraud issue. Some members may remember that issue. We did not know the figures involved. One of my colleagues has said $100 million. We thought it could have been up to $1 billion that was lost by the government because of its lack of control in the department of revenue to ensure that people who made false GST claims did not get the moneys. There were no checks or balances in the Department of Finance when it came to cheques being mailed out for false claims. It is incredible that this would happen. It took an inconsistency where someone actually received a cheque and was shocked because that person had put a false claim in. This story came to the media.

We started to investigate it and found that millions of dollars had been abused because of the lack of respect on that side of the House for taxpayer dollars. It is outrageous. Only when the government got caught did it say that it had a whole department that was focused on GST fraud and that it changed the accounting practices. We actually had to grill the previous minister in committee. Finally she decided to change the reporting process so Canadians could find out how much was lost throughout the years of the government being in office, especially on the GST fraud.

Because the government kept lumping the amount of money that was lost into general revenues for the department, in accounts receivable which it was still in the process of trying to track down, the number could have been in excess of a billion dollars. That is another billion dollar boondoggle of which we never got to the bottom.

I do not have to remind Canadians about the ones that were more topical and that gained a lot of interest from the media. The HRDC boondoggle was the same sort of abuse on that side of the House. It was a disrespect for taxpayer dollars. A continuous flow of money went to people who should not have received it. Ultimately, there is still no accountability.

We have the gun registry about which we have heard more and more. Again, only after the work on this side of the House by one of our diligent members, the member for Yorkton--Melville, who kept hammering the government saying that the numbers were not adding up and it was not coming clean with Canadians, did we start to find out the abuse of taxpayer dollars in that department. Now the costs are upwards of $1 billion. This is unacceptable. That program was supposed to be no more that $2 million. Now some estimates are that it will reach almost $2 billion. This is outrageous and is another example of abuse by the government.

Even when it comes to the Prime Minister's own backyard, how can we trust what numbers the government puts out? I think that is the crux of the problem. Canadians have lost confidence in the government. When initially questioned about how much the Prime Minister's companies, Canadian Steamship Lines, had received in grant money, the government put out a number of some $137,000. We would like to take the government at its word, but obviously through the diligent work of one of our colleagues, the member for Edmonton Southwest, who put a question on the Order Paper to find out how much that money was, we found it was $161 million.

How can the government stand in this place and ask Canadians in almost a repentant style to forgive it and trust it when it comes to bringing openness and transparency into this place? How can the government even imagine that Canadians can trust it to do so?

When these numbers come out in such flagrant ways, there is no accountability. The government does not seem to know what is happening in its own departments. The Prime Minister himself is not aware of how much money, even during the portion of the time when he was finance minister, that his companies were able to obtain. This is outrageous.

We finally are seeing the straw that has broken the camel's back. The member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot has come out and said that he cannot remain with a government that seems to be void of ideas, full of corruption and obviously is heading in a completely opposite direction of where he as a member of Parliament is heading. Many of us came to this place to try to strive for Canadians, to put Canadians first, to give them the best government possible. He cannot remain in that government. I would like to echo the end of his press conference when he said that maybe it was time for change.

I hope Canadians will remember that if the government has the audacity to go to the polls in the next couple of months.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, February 16th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I must say you look great in the chair. You really fit it well.

My hon. colleague spoke eloquently about how great and diverse Canada is and I think everyone in the House would agree. There is one thing I would like him to focus on. The Speech from the Throne did not address the issue of immigration. The member talked specifically about the idea of supporting Canadians who are the backbone of this country no matter where they come from. One of the basic issues that we have been talking about across the floor is the idea of accreditation of many of the recent immigrants who have come here and actually giving them the chance to work in their professional designations.

Unfortunately we see too many people driving taxis and working as janitors and not in the areas where they should be working, such as engineering or medical doctors. This is a problem the government has been sitting on for 10 years and has done nothing about it. If he speaks so passionately about immigrants, why does the government not do more to support them?

[CISN Radio, February 16th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate CISN radio in Edmonton. CISN radio has been a pillar of support in our community, contributing to numerous charitable and local projects.

Among the many honours it has received were the president's award from CORUS Entertainment, and afternoon DJ Chris Scheetz's nomination for “on air personality of the year” from the Canadian Country Music Association.

The crowning achievement was the awarding of the Canadian Country Music Station of the Year.

For the community, Chris Scheetz lived in a tractor for five days to raise over $103,000 for struggling farm families. CSIN's efforts with the “Mad Dash to the Border” rallied Canadians to support Alberta's beef industry.

Most recently, CISN raised over a million dollars during a radiothon for Stollery Children's Hospital Foundation.

I am proud CISN FM is located in Edmonton. I congratulate the station on a very successful year.

The next time members are in Edmonton I ask them to remember to turn their radio dial to 103.9 FM.

[Government Contracts, February 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Prime Minister said the real question was, what happened to the people who received the money? Some of those people are still sitting in his cabinet. Some of their campaigns received money from those sleazy Liberal ad firms.

Will the Prime Minister take action against his members or ministers who received this money, that was stolen from the public, through this scandal and funneled through their campaigns? Yes or no.

[Government Contracts, February 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, we now learn that the sponsorship scandal continues to spread throughout the whole government. We have learned that companies involved in the scam have given money for the election campaigns of the health minister and the government House leader.

I want to know, in the spirit of openness and transparency, whether the Prime Minister will suspend these cabinet ministers during the public inquiry?

[Government Contracts, February 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's own colleagues do not believe him. The member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, the member for Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok and the former heritage minister have all said that this matter was discussed in 1999 and that the Prime Minister was well aware of it. Yet even as of a few minutes ago during his press conference, the Prime Minister was blaming everyone else.

Why will the Prime Minister not accept his responsibility for this scandal?

[Government Contracts, February 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, according to the former heritage minister, the current Prime Minister was aware of the scandal while he was finance minister. Yet, the Prime Minister claims he knew nothing.

What version are Canadians supposed to believe: that he knew that millions of dollars had been stolen from Canadians, or that he was too incompetent to properly manage their money?