Tony Valeri

[Audio Taped Conversations, June 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister said that he was informed the member for Newton—North Delta wanted to cross the floor. The Prime Minister also said that no offer was to be made and no offer was made.

[Audio Taped Conversations, June 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, that is essentially the same question. I understand that the hon. member also wrote the RCMP to lodge a complaint, I assume, or ask the RCMP to investigate. The RCMP will determine where there is anything to investigate in this matter. In fact, if the member has any other information he would like to provide the RCMP, then all members in the House would certainly encourage him to do so.

[Audio Taped Conversations, June 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister said that he was informed that the member for Newton—North Delta wanted to cross the floor. The Prime Minister said that no offer was made or was to be made and no offer was made.

The hon. member mentioned the RCMP. I would reiterate that the RCMP will determine whether there is anything to investigate in this matter. If the hon. member does have any information to provide the RCMP, then he should do so.

[Office of the Prime Minister, June 7th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, as I have said in the House numerous times before, the RCMP will decide whether there is anything to investigate in this matter. If the member opposite has any information, then he should provide it to the RCMP, and I would encourage him to do so.

[Office of the Prime Minister, June 7th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, no.

[Office of the Prime Minister, June 7th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister said that he was informed the member for Newton--North Delta wanted to cross the floor. The Prime Minister said that no offer was to be made, and no offer was made.

[Audiotaped Conversations, June 6th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, what the Prime Minister was aware of was that the member had said he had wanted to cross the floor. The member did not cross the floor. The Prime Minister gave his chief of staff one instruction: to not make any offers.

There are serious questions being raised about the authenticity of the tapes and whether they were manipulated. I do not know why the hon. member cannot take yes for an answer. He can provide the information to the RCMP. He can pursue any further information with the RCMP. The RCMP will ultimately decide whether an investigation is actually warranted.

[Audiotaped Conversations, June 6th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that in the question the hon. member actually said he had called the RCMP and asked it to conduct an investigation. I would also suggest that if he has already done so, he should wait and see whether the RCMP does in fact launch an investigation.

If he has any further information to provide the RCMP, he should do exactly that. He felt confident enough to ask the RCMP to investigate, so now if he has any further information I would certainly invite him to provide it to the RCMP so that the RCMP can decide whether there is a basis on which to conduct an investigation or not.

[Audiotaped Conversations, June 6th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, again, if the hon. member believes that he has information that should be relayed to the RCMP, the RCMP will decide whether an investigation is required. Other than that, I can only point to the fact that there are numerous audio experts, such as Randy Dash, an Algonquin College professor and sound engineer, who said:

It appears that, on one of the recordings, an edit could have been done. It sounds like an audio edit. I'm saying that based on the millions of audio edits I've done.

Mike Murphy said:

--definitely an obvious edit here. It cuts off in mid-sentence.

[Audiotaped Conversations, June 6th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is basing his question on tapes that have been proven by many audio experts to have been manipulated. I can quote from many. John Dooher, a forensic audio engineer hired by the CBC, said:

This sounds to me, not only that this is an edit, but an edit done with something very crude.

The hon. member is asking that people step aside based on a tape that has been altered, which is very clear from the information that has been provided. I would ask the hon. member that if he does have information that he wishes to provide, that he provide that information to the RCMP if he believes an investigation is required and the RCMP will decide.