Mr. Speaker, the second petition asks parliament to declare that Canada objects to the national missile defence program of the United States and to play a leadership role in banning nuclear weapons and missile flight tests.
Lost her last election, in 2008, with 39% of the vote.
Petitions June 15th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, the second petition asks parliament to declare that Canada objects to the national missile defence program of the United States and to play a leadership role in banning nuclear weapons and missile flight tests.
Petitions June 15th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. members for their consent.
I would like to table two petitions. The first concerns rural mail couriers. The petitioners are asking parliament to repeal subsection 13(5) of the Canada Post Corporation Act.
Committees Of The House June 15th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like consent, as I just missed petitions, to present two petitions. It will take less than a minute.
Petitions June 7th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, in the third petition which I wish to present the petitioners call upon Canada to object to the national missile defence program and to show a leadership role in banning nuclear weapons and missiles.
Petitions June 7th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, the second petition which I wish to present has to do with breast cancer. I fully support the petition.
Petitions June 7th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present three petitions today.
The first petition condemns the Chinese government for its persecution of the Falun religion.
Supply June 6th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, I believe I have already answered that question, but I will repeat exactly what I said earlier.
The member for Medicine Hat, who first raised that question in the House, was asked outside the House about it. I will read exactly what was written in the article:
But Solberg admitted his party had no evidence that Bakopanos or any of her supporters had demanded the donation in exchange for her support for the grant.
That is not what a member of parliament does. Members of parliament do their jobs and when election time comes, if any constituent or company, under Elections Canada, wants to give a donation, those donations are audited by Elections Canada, not by the member of parliament.
Elections Canada declared that I was duly elected as a member of parliament to represent Ahuntsic. Again it was non-partisan.
Supply June 6th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, there are several subquestions to the hon. member's question.
First, I want to tell him that the role of a member of parliament is to represent everyone. We simply cannot represent only a specific group among our fellow citizens, as the member said at the end of his speech. I represent everyone in my riding, those who voted for me and those who did not. This is the first thing I wanted to say.
Second, I believe that everyone on this side of the House thinks like me. What is happening now—and I think the minister already said it—is that the RCMP is conducting investigations. We welcomed these investigations. After all, we are the ones who asked for them. The minister asked for these investigations. We welcome them, precisely because we want to make sure that the truth will come out. Again, out of all the files reviewed, less than 1% are problematic.
Supply June 6th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, thank you for this opportunity to speak to the motion by the hon. member for Calgary—Nose Hill regarding the administration of grants and contributions programs.
The hon. member would like to see a commission of inquiry into the grants and contributions in Human Resources Development Canada. I do not really understand her reasons, because we know today, after what we have heard, that she does not really have any. This is just a political game which began in the House in October.
The auditor general is looking into the administration of grants and contributions programs. The Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities is also looking into the grants and contributions programs. The department itself has called upon the best expertise available from outside, independent resources to look into these programs.
All that this investigation is finding, and will find, is the truth—the truth that has already been laid out in detail by the department and by the Minister of Human Resources Development, i.e. the truth that was told by the minister when she first disclosed the results of the internal audit which was commissioned by her own department and which she herself chose to make public, as she has already stated in the House on more than one occasion.
The minister has appeared three times before the standing committee and, each time, she has answered all questions. During Oral Question Period in the House, she has answered the same questions. This has been going on since October.
The truth that this motion chooses to ignore is that the file-by-file review of 17,000 grants and contributions projects across Canada and the review of all the audited files, having a total dollar value of $1,581,000, revealed an outstanding debt to the government of $6,500.
I want to make a point of repeating this, because I think it is important. The opposition's criticism over HRDC's grants and contributions programs has an air of absurdity that is expressed by that figure—$6,500. When all is said and done, once again, the amount outstanding is $6,500, and not $1 billion, as members of the Canadian Alliance have always maintained.
As the original audit found, and as the minister openly stated, documentation was clearly inadequate. And this was pointed out by everyone in the House. The department moved to devise and implement a corrective action plan. The department is working with the auditor general on these corrective measures. The department has consulted and continues to seek expert input.
This week, we received the committee's report and recommendations. The minister has said that she will examine the recommendations and give her response to the committee's report.
Does the hon. member for Calgary—Nose Hill really believe she can justify to her constituents the burden of an independent inquiry in addition to the already considerable resources of the auditor general, the treasury board, independent expertise and the Department of Human Resources Development itself? How much more expertise is required to shed light on truth that is already known to the House and to all members?
Today I want to talk about my riding because I think it is important. Innuendos and all sorts of things have been said in the House about my riding and I would like to tell the Canadian public what my riding is all about and what a member of parliament does in his or her riding.
A member of parliament visits non-governmental agencies, small and medium size businesses and speaks with the people who run those businesses. The member looks at the needs of the people.
For those who do not know, my riding of Ahuntsic has the largest textile manufacturing sector in Montreal. That used to be where most of the textile and most of the clothing manufacturing businesses were situated.
Because of the free trade agreement a lot of these companies had to look for funding to do research and buy high tech equipment. These same businesses went out to financial institutions in the private sector and looked for funding so they could become competitive and able to participate in exports and in other developments within their sector. These companies spoke to me about their needs.
When the Canada jobs fund was created it responded to the needs of 15 manufacturers in my riding. They received over $1 million under the jobs fund. What did these companies do with that money which the opposition says has been lost because they did not create jobs? In my riding of Ahuntsic 488 jobs were created through this fund, jobs that would not have existed if the fund did not exist. The private sector was able to give those manufacturers and businesses part of their financing, but not all of it. The rest came from government grants.
Those companies created jobs, but they did more than that. One company developed a fabric for bathing suits that is considered to be the best in the world.
From a small basement in one section of my riding, a manufacturer now distributes his product all over the world. With the money he received he bought high tech equipment worth $500,000 in order for him to be competitive and sell his Canadian products overseas. This is what these business people did with the money that was given to them with the grants.
I repeat for the Canadian public that 50% of the financing came from financial institutions in the private sector for each one of these files. I am convinced that those 488 jobs which were created in Ahuntsic would not have existed if it were not for the fact that they received grants from HRD. Those people would have been unemployed at the present time, and those manufacturers would not have been able to compete or to export Canadian products overseas.
Let us not forget something that the opposition members continue to neglect. Whenever a member of parliament is elected, he or she is elected to represent the needs of constituents. Those were some of the needs in my riding, but there were other needs as well.
Under HRD there are non-governmental agencies in my riding that work with the handicapped. Recently the minister and I had an opportunity to visit one of the projects that does recycling. That project, by the way, recycles all of the paper in all of the schools in Montreal. What did this project accomplish? Eight young people, many of whom were illiterate and had no skills, were trained in recycling paper so that later on they would be able to find jobs.
Of those young people, about 90% are now employed. Because of contributions made through HRD young people find jobs, handicapped people manage to work, and during the summer students are able to work because of a job creation program for students.
I am very proud to be able to support those projects in my riding, to continue to work with the business community, to work with the non-governmental organizations and to be able to provide them with the assistance they need to help ordinary Canadians.
Another thing I want to put on the record is something that the member for Medicine Hat continues to say. Of course, he is only one of a number of members on the Reform side who keep alluding to votes being bought.
I take great offence to that. I do not think the Canadian public can be bought. No one on this side of the House believes the Canadian public can be bought. I believe the Canadian public is intelligent enough to make a decision and elect the best member to represent them in this House of Commons.
I am very proud to say that the constituents of Ahuntsic and the constituents of Saint-Denis elected me to represent their interests. I take great objection to the fact that members on the other side seem to feel that when one is a good member of parliament, one is buying votes. The fact is that those constituents and those businesses decide in the end who they will support as their member of parliament.
I also want to put on the record that I find it very abusive of the right of privilege that we enjoy in the House for members opposite to make innuendoes and accusations about members of parliament. The member for Medicine Hat was asked outside the House about certain allegations and innuendoes he made about me inside the House. I quote an article that appeared in the Montreal Gazette :
But Solberg admitted his party had no evidence that Bakopanos or any of her supporters had demanded the donation in exchange for her support for the grant.
Members opposite use their cloak of immunity in the House all the time. When they are put on record outside the House they withdraw those allegations.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the Canadian public for actually knowing that in this place there are members of parliament who work very, very hard to ensure that their constituents do get grants that lead to creating jobs in their ridings and lead to allowing the unemployed, the handicapped and other constituents to be productive members of Canadian society.
President Of The Hellenic Republic May 29th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to welcome, along with over 300,000 Canadians of Hellenic origin, His Excellency the President of the Hellenic Republic on his official visit to Canada.
This is the first time since 1982 that a head of state of the Hellenic Republic has visited Canada at the invitation of the Canadian government. Canada and Greece have historically shared friendly relations founded on shared values for democratic principles, respect for human rights and international law.
One of the greatest moments in my political career was when I received, along with two colleagues of Hellenic origin, the Golden Cross of the Order of Phoenix for our contributions to promoting closer ties between our country of origin, Greece, and Canada, which with our Prime Minister, has given me the privilege of sitting in the House.
I wish to thank both the Ambassador of Greece to Canada who proposed my candidacy and the President of the Hellenic Republic, a great statesman, respected domestically and internationally, for bestowing such a great honour on the daughter of two Greek immigrants who chose what I consider to be the greatest country in the world as their second homeland.