Charlie Penson

[Petitions, March 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition to present today that has been signed by 25 people living in my riding of Peace River.

It urges parliament to ensure that the possession of child pornography remains a serious criminal offence and that police forces be given the authority to enforce this law for the protection of children.

[Human Resources Development, March 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that we hit a nerve pretty solidly over there today.

We know the HRD department gave Iris Hosiery $6 million. The minister just told us that. It was scaled back to $6 million. We know that the industry associations advised against it. We also know that Iris Hosiery gave the Liberal Party $21,190.

If Iris gave $21,000 in donations to the Liberal Party, if this was incidental, why did HRDC go ahead and give that money against the advice of industry associations?

[Human Resources Development, March 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I guess the answer is that the Liberal delegates probably will not get to ask questions of the minister.

We know the HRD department gave Iris Hosiery $6 million. We know that the industry association—

[Human Resources Development, March 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, we hear the minister saying that they talk about this a lot, but we have noticed in the last several months there have not been very many answers. I hope the Liberal delegates at this weekend's convention do not get the same kind of treatment from the minister.

[Human Resources Development, March 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, HRD was warned that the Iris sock grant would be a job killer and it certainly was.

Within weeks, two firms in the same sector had to shut their doors. Yet with two of their competitors out of business, Iris socks still could not deliver on its promises.

Iris created less than one-half of the 3,000 jobs promised. In fact, Iris did not live up to its half of the bargain. When Videotron did not deliver, it had to pay back $200,000. Why has the minister not demanded that Iris hand back $3 million of taxpayers' money for its broken promise?

[Human Resources Development, March 16th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it just happened to donate $21,000.

Listen to what the former HRDC minister had to say when he announced this questionable grant: “Some would say today's announcement has a strong pre-election aroma about it”. That is it exactly. This grant really does stink.

Will the HRDC minister admit now that this had nothing to do with creating jobs and everything to do with winning the election in 1997?

[Human Resources Development, March 16th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, when the HRDC minister granted the $6 million to Iris Hosiery in Quebec, she did so even though the president of the Canadian apparel industry stated that this subsidy would jeopardize the level of competition in the industry.

Let us try to get this straight. HRDC subsidizes a company supposedly to create jobs even though it was told it would kill jobs in the same industry by driving competitors out of business. Was this done because Iris Hosiery was a large donator to the Liberal Party of Canada? What else is it?

[Supply, March 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member talking about the potential for losing doctors to the private system. I think she called it being seduced into the private system and away from the public sector.

I ask for her opinion on what is happening right now with Canadian doctors being seduced into the private sector. It is even worse than that. They are being seduced into the private sector in the United States. We are losing all kinds of doctors to the United States.

[Committees Of The House, February 25th, 2000]

It sounds like the Boy Scouts to me.

[Committees Of The House, February 25th, 2000]

It is the same money.