Reg Alcock

[Sponsorship Program, February 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the member might want to consult the person who sits up the bench from him who was taking exactly the opposite position a few minutes ago.

We are not investigating anyone. What we are looking at is the response of the crown corporations leadership to the concerns raised by the Auditor General. The Prime Minister has asked me to assure him that the management of the crowns have taken the concerns seriously and have put in place measures to address the concerns that were raised. That is all.

[Sponsorship Program, February 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, in the instructions that I received from the Prime Minister, I was not asked to replace the work that is done in the public inquiry and I am not doing that.

I said very clearly that the public inquiry will deal with the issues that it will deal with. Unfortunately, or fortunately, we have people in charge of these crown corporations who serve at pleasure who were there at the time that these acts took place. I have been asked to evaluate whether they have taken appropriate steps to satisfy the concerns that were raised by the Auditor General that would enable them to stay in control until such time as the public inquiry has done its work.

[Sponsorship Program, February 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, as has become common with the member, he is willing to jump to the verdict well before he sees the evidence. Like the queen of hearts he runs around wanting heads, but government cannot do that. It would be completely improper for us to come to any conclusions until we have examined all of the facts. I am doing that and I am doing it carefully. I will report to the Prime Minister when I have reached a conclusion.

[Sponsorship Program, February 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, this is an exceptionally serious matter.

The Prime Minister asked me after the report was tabled to evaluate the activities of people who serve at pleasure who were there at the time that these incidents took place, to satisfy him that the management of the crown corporations had responded appropriately to the concerns raised, had and put in place systems that would prevent this from happening in the future. That is what I am doing. I will report to the Prime Minister when I am ready.

[Business Development Bank, February 20th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the right hon. member for his question. I would like to thank him for the respect in the tone he has used on this very serious issue.

I have been tasked with conducting this review. I have assured everybody of two things. I will be as thorough, as careful and as responsible as I can, and I will be concluding this matter as quickly as I can, well before the date the hon. member mentioned.

[Sponsorship Program, February 20th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to offer, and I could do it as early as next week, to run a workshop for the members on mathematics and the files in question.

The member stands up and says that there are $250 million at play. It is the same thing they said about the $6,500 boondoggle for HRDC. The members simply do not get it. The Auditor General talked about this a lot yesterday. It is not $250 million. It is not $100 million. It is some figure quite a bit less than that. The Auditor General herself is having difficulty figuring it out.

[Sponsorship Program, February 20th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, let me see if I have this right. The member asks how we can trust the Prime Minister. This is the member from the party that put an incomplete document on the table alleging that it was a statement of fact. They did not have the courage to put the whole document on the table.

However, let us ask the Auditor General what she thinks about this: “I would say, as I have said before, that I believe the Prime Minister is taking this very seriously and has taken serious measures to address the concerns...”. That is Sheila Fraser, Auditor General of Canada, yesterday.

[Sponsorship Program, February 20th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, this is a serious issue. The junior Joe McCarthys on the other side of the House stand up all the time, making all sorts of slanderous statements, smearing individuals and smearing competent public servants, but they have yet to do what I have been asking them to do for two weeks: to put a single credible fact on the table.

If the hon. member people believes that people have been fraudulently dealing with public--

[Sponsorship Program, February 20th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the member for broken deals and incomplete documents stands on his feet to make a point. The problem is that every point he has brought forward thus far has not proved to be substantive.

If he wants to ask a question about who knew what and when, he might go no further than the member for Prince Albert who has chaired the public accounts committee for 11 years and never once talked about this until we made it public.

[Government Expenditures, February 19th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, let me see if I can sort this out for the member. On December 12 of last year, three-quarters through the fiscal year, the government changed and the new Prime Minister shut down Communication Canada.

In the principles of accrual accounting, one has to assign all the costs and close it out. We closed it out, and it is costing a little over $9 million to do that.