Brian Pallister

[Canada Post, December 1st, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, Canada Post wants to jack up stamp prices. The Liberals say it is okay with them. It is not okay with the Conservative Party.

Canada Post has been manipulated by the government to be patronage heaven. Over the last number of months we have become aware of Liberal-friendly firms being given untendered contracts and dozens of Liberal supporters and donors being given jobs.

After millions of dollars wasted at Canada Post by the government, what possible justification could there be for a $55 million tax grab?

[Canada Post, November 30th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it never rains but it pours at the Post Office. Auditors are condemning the awarding of contracts, relatives must come out of the closet and the price of postage stamps is going up a notch.

How does the Minister of National Revenue explain that increase? Is it due to Liberal mismanagement, waste, corruption, or remnants of André Ouellet's policy?

[Canada-U.S. Relations, November 18th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker,

Winter is coming, Christmas is near, The anti-American carollers cheer, Damning those Yankees with all that they've got, Carolin', carolin'; Perish the thought.

The carollers sing out the simplest of tunes,All Yankees are brutish, warmongering loonsNever thinking that they're the best friends that we've got,Carolin', carolin'; Perish the thought.

Their soldiers, their firemen, had husbands and wives,They stood up for freedom, they paid with their lives,But the anti-Americans have already forgot,Carolin', carolin'; Perish the thought.

Canadian farmers cannot sell their beef,Too much is their cattle, abundant their grief,But the Liberal relief plan is let them smoke pot,Carolin', carolin'; Perish the thought.

What the carollers chant is unwise and untrue,To quiet them a piece of duct tape would do.But the Prime Minister needs all the friends that he's got.Except carolin', carolin'; Perish the thought.

[Aboriginal Affairs, November 1st, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, that is 10 years of empty rhetoric from the government on violence against aboriginal women. The fact is Canada's aboriginal women are among the world's most vulnerable people. They have no matrimonial property rights. They cannot own their own homes. They are not yet, because of the inaction of the government, protected by Canada's human rights act.

Aboriginal women deserve better. This party will offer them better. That government does not. Why has the Liberal government given nothing more to aboriginal women over 10 years than empty platitudes?

[Aboriginal Affairs, November 1st, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, recently, Amnesty International issued a scathing report critical of the Liberal government's inaction with respect to violence against aboriginal women. However, since that time, the federal government has remained silent on this issue. The minister has not spoken to Amnesty International and he has not spoken to the families of the victims. Rather than respond, he has simply chosen to remain silent, as he is doing in response to questions today.

Why the delay in meeting with the families of the victims of aboriginal violence?

[Points of Order, October 27th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I too rise on a point of order. A moment ago in response to a question I put to the Minister of National Revenue, he put on the record that I was asking him to break the laws of the country by calling on him to do a public audit of André Ouellet, the former Liberal appointee and president of Canada Post.

Such is not the case. I would not want a statement of that nature to remain on the record. The fact is that I have simply asked him to call a public audit because it would be in the best interests of Canadians to have a public audit done.

[Canada Post, October 27th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are acting, but they are acting in a way to cover up the facts. How can Canadians see the facts when the facts are being hidden by the government?

The Liberals are saying they are going to do a secret audit. We understand the need for a public audit of André Ouellet. We understand that public money was used and we understand the public interest would be served by a public audit.

Before the election the Prime Minister said he believed in the things we continue to believe in. When did he lose his faith in getting to the bottom of the André Ouellet saga?

[Canada Post, October 27th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, André Ouellet squandered $10,000 a week in lavish spending during the eight years he was the president of Canada Post.

The government tells us that such abuse is no concern of theirs. They would like to give us lessons in transparency. Taxpayers are learning now that they will again be paying a lawyer for Mr. Ouellet's “dippings”.

Will the Prime Minister once again hide behind the Gomery commission, or will he call for a government audit of the lavish spending of the minister who emulated him?

[Charitable Organizations, October 22nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the facts are these. Revenue Canada threatened to revoke the charitable status of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Calgary. It threatened to audit Focus on the Family after it expressed its views contrary to the government's. Yet the United Church of Canada, on side with the government, received no such threats. There is a clear pattern emerging. Those opposed to the government are threatened; those who support the government, hands off.

I would like the minister to stand in his place today and acknowledge that this and all public policy debates are the property of Canadians, not the property of the Liberal Party of Canada.

[Canada Post, October 20th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure we will all shed a tear for that lack of severance pay.

The minister said there is a single purpose audit being done, but it is obvious that the single purpose of the audit is to ensure Canadians do not get to the truth on this issue.

The fact of the matter is that André Ouellet would not have spent $2 million on lavish hospitality and travel if it had been his own money. It was not his money. It was the Canadian public's money. The Canadian public deserves some clear answers to some straightforward questions.

Where is their money? When do they get it back?