John Williams

[Committees of the House, May 5th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, trust a Liberal member to focus on anything but the corruption scandal and involvement of the Liberal Party. He is talking about elections. He is talking about budgets. He is talking about agriculture. He is talking about anything other than the sponsorship scandal and the fact that the House has a responsibility to hold the government accountable. When the government is not accountable, it gets away with a hundred million dollars of taxpayer money and perhaps even more.

This is why we exist here. We are here to hold the government up by the neck and give it a shake and say, “You can't do that, there is a penalty for doing that and you'll be held accountable for doing that”. For the member to suggest otherwise is an affront to the House.

[Committees of the House, May 5th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the second report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts presented on Thursday, October 28, 2004, be concurred in.

I will be dividing my time with the member for Prince George--Peace River.

Last February 10, 2004 a political storm burst over Canada and the dark clouds continue to spread out even today. Last year we heard from the Auditor General how $100 million had been spent with little or no value. Jean Chrétien, as the Prime Minister of the day, presided over a corrupt program that became the largest political scandal in our history.

Yes, we have had scandals before. We think back to the railway debates under our first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, and the pipeline debates in the 1950s, but both of these occurred as we were building our great country of Canada. The railways were to unite our land from sea to sea and the pipeline was to bring wealth and prosperity to the west. However, this corruption scandal has the capacity to bring an end to our great country, the Canadian dream, and the nation that is admired by people all around the world.

This scandal has fueled the separatists in the province of Quebec. The scandal has infuriated the people of Quebec and they have soured on the federal government that has manipulated and ignored its own rules on referenda, funneled taxpayers' money illegally into its own pockets to fight elections, and the litany goes on and on.

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said this program was all about saving Canada, yet the minister of intergovernmental affairs at the time has said that a few advertising sponsorships around the country would not change anybody's opinion. The Prime Minister of the day, Mr. Chrétien, said, “So there are a few million dollars wasted, lost or stolen. What was the big deal? This was going to save the country”. Now we know it may be the catalyst that breaks the country.

This is a scandal, not that we have lost $100 million, which in itself is horrendous, but the fact that it may be the catalyst that brings this great country to an end. That is the corruption scandal of this country; the greatest scandal that we have ever had.

Last year the public accounts committee was charged by the current Prime Minister to investigate this issue. We think of the litany of witnesses who appeared before the committee and how they tried to save their own skins by blaming other people. We had Chuck Guité, a middle level bureaucrat, telling us how he could run into the minister's office at a whim. He could run to the chief of staff of the Prime Minister whenever he wanted to see the chief of staff. He was the conduit for what appears to be a conspiracy at the top that has potentially brought this country to its knees.

We know that the chief of staff to the former Prime Minister has been involved because he admitted that to the public accounts committee and to the Gomery commission. When he has been involved, we know that the former Prime Minister is involved because they were the best of friends going back many years. They shared all their information and the chief of staff would never have worked without the concurrence of the former Prime Minister.

We know that Alfonso Gagliano was involved. He admitted that at the public accounts committee and at the Gomery inquiry, where he should never have been talking to middle level bureaucrats, but he was, in giving them direction as to where the money would go

We had André Ouellet, the former minister of foreign affairs and long time member of this House who ended up running Canada Post, involved in illegal contracts being funnelled through advertising agencies. The money went to Canada Post under his direction and then who knows where it all went from there. We know that André Ouellet was filling his pockets with expense accounts without a single receipt and collected $2 million to $3 million without a single receipt, claiming reimbursement. This is the calibre and the character of the people who were running the sponsorship scandal.

We cannot forget Jean Carle, the Business Development Bank vice-president, also a very good friend of Jean Chrétien, who admitted at the Gomery inquiry that what he was doing was money laundering with taxpayers' money.

The Prime Minister appears to be involved. He has denied his involvement, but nonetheless, he appears to be involved because all his friends were involved, so why would he not be involved? Jean Pelletier, chief of staff, Andre Ouellet, Jean Carle, Alfonso Gagliano, these people were friends. They also had the levers of this country in their hands.

They had a guy by the name of Chuck Guité, who was at the Gomery inquiry yesterday, spilling all the information that he was handing out. Chuck Guité could move among these people at will because he was getting their direction: spend the money here; give the money there; illegal contract over there; bags of cash somewhere else; spread it around. But, while it was spreading around, it was all going in one direction. It was going to the advertising agencies who were all friends and all getting rich with taxpayers' money. However, they had their directions too because they were giving the bags of cash back to the Liberal Party.

Can we tolerate that today? This is the worst scandal that we have had in this country. I cannot believe that we are sitting here tolerating a scandal and the government is saying not to worry, that it will look after it. Something must be done. Therefore, the House and the public accounts committee will do whatever it can to ensure that this never ever happens again.

[Question No. 95, April 20th, 2005]

With regard to the shredding or destruction of documents and papers by government departments, agencies and Crown corporations in fiscal years 2002-2003 and 2003-2004: ( a ) what was the total amount paid to shred or destroy documents for each department, agency or Crown corporation; and ( b ) for each department, agency and Crown corporation, how many times was shredding and destruction of documents performed (i.e. how many “sessions” of shredding were purchased from outside services), what were the dates of the shredding or destruction of documents, what was the name and location of the company contracted to do the shredding, and what was the cost of the shredding as charged to the department, agency or Crown Corporation on a per-session basis?

(Return tabled)

[Canada Grain Act, April 18th, 2005]

And the Liberal government too.

[Canada Grain Act, April 18th, 2005]

It has cost the farmers a million bucks too.

[Canada Grain Act, April 18th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I have a quick question for the member for Macleod which deals with the Canadian Wheat Board. As he pointed out, it is strictly for western farmers. It does not apply to any other farmer, here in Ontario for example, or anywhere else.

The Liberal government has made a great big noise about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and how we are all equal before the law. Why does the hon. member think that the government keeps insisting that western farmers must sell their grain to the Canadian Wheat Board and nobody else under pain of serious penalty, whereas Ontario farmers can sell it to whomever wants to buy it?

[Question No. 97, April 15th, 2005]

With regard to performance pay for public servants in the Executive (EX) category and the Deputy Minister (DM) category in fiscal year 2003-2004: ( a ) for each department, agency or Crown corporation, how many employees received performance pay, broken down by EX category (e.g. EX-1, EX-2, etc.); ( b ) for each department, agency or Crown corporation, how many employees are there in each EX category; ( c ) for each department, agency or Crown corporation, how many employees received performance pay, broken down by DM category (i.e. DM-1, DM-2, etc.); ( d ) for each department, agency or Crown corporation, how many employees are there in each DM category; and ( e ) for each department, agency or Crown corporation, what was the total amount paid out in performance pay?

(Return tabled)

[Standing Orders and Procedure, April 11th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I would like to believe that the government looks forward to a review of the estimates process, but I know very well that it does not. In fact, the deputy House leader from the government side just shut down the capacity for me to table an all party report dealing with the estimates that was tabled in the House in a previous Parliament. He was not prepared to accept it, so that it could be considered by the committee. So shame on him when he stands and talks about the capacity that the Liberals want to listen because they do not want to listen. They are forced to talk about some democratic changes because this is a minority Parliament. Otherwise, it would be business as usual, they would ignore Parliament, sweep it off the table, and they would continue on the way they want to.

The member talked about committee review of nominations. We just had a committee review of nominations. The government said that it would not listen to the wishes of the committee when it said that Glen Murray from Winnipeg would not sit on the environment review board. The Liberals said that they did not care what Parliament said, they will put him on anyway.

He bragged about committee reports at second reading. It means that debate is limited to three hours. That is why it is referred to committee before second reading, not because Liberals want to talk about the principle in committee, but because they want to shut down debate in this place.

The Minister of Justice talked about appointing judges. We had that fiasco here last summer with Supreme Court justices in, out, endorsed, and the government ensured the committee gave the endorsation the government wanted.

He talked about new committee chairs. That is because we asked for new committee chairs on this side not because the government volunteered them. We demanded them in a minority Parliament and we got them.

He talked about more petitions. When did the Liberals ever listen to any petition? Never. The idea of more petitions in the House is a joke when it comes to the democratic deficit.

I would like the deputy House leader from the government side to stand and tell us really what is on its mind when it talks about democratic deficit. I tend to think that if it had any chance whatsoever, it would ignore this place. That is why we have the problem we have today with the Gomery inquiry. That is why the Liberals have problems with corruption because they ignored this place and thought they could get away with it. Let him stand and talk about fixing the democratic deficit with some real integrity.

[Standing Orders and Procedure, April 11th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate. My particular interest in the Standing Orders is the business of supply. For most people supply means the estimates whereby Parliament votes the individual line by line budgets to the government in order to give it the authority to spend the money that has been authorized by Parliament, because until it gets that authority, the government cannot spend anything at all.

First, I would like to draw attention to a report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs from the 36th Parliament. It states in its opening statement:

In the 35th Parliament, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs appointed a Sub-Committee on the Business of Supply “to undertake a comprehensive review of the Business of Supply, with particular attention to the reform of the Estimates and the processes and mechanisms by which the House and its committees may consider and dispose of them”.

After considerable study and deliberation the subcommittee tabled a report with the committee in April 1997. The committee subsequently tabled the report in the House, but because of the pending federal general election the committee report was not examined in detail. It was subsequently tabled again in the 36th Parliament, I believe as the 51st report.

My interest in the business of supply and the estimates goes back a long way. I sat on that particular subcommittee. It had three general concepts of change.

The first one was that we bring in what we call program evaluation which emanated from a private member's bill in my name. It asked that every government program where it delivers services to Canadians be evaluated on a cyclical basis, for example, once every 10 years. Four simple questions would be asked. They would be simple but nonetheless fundamental questions so that we could really find out if the programs were delivering value for Canadians.

The first question would be, what is the program designed to do for us anyway? When I give speeches across the country people ask, “Are you not doing that already?” No we are not. What are these programs on which the Government of Canada spends money? What value are they providing for Canadians? That question needs to be asked.

The second question would follow from there. Now that we know what it is supposed to do, how well is the program doing what it is supposed to do? The third question would be, is it doing it effectively and efficiently? The fourth would be, in this complex world in which we live, is there a better way to achieve the same results?

Program evaluation is needed to keep the programs that the Government of Canada delivers focussed for the benefit of Canadians.

The second major recommendation was that we have a committee of the House of Commons on the estimates. We are not experts. There are very few experts on the estimates in the House. Therefore we needed a committee that would look at the estimates process much more rigorously than the other standing committees do. It was given a mandate to look at six or seven fundamental parts of the estimates which generally get overlooked.

First of all is statutory spending. We do not in the House approve statutory spending at any time other than the time we set up a program. For example, i believe that unemployment insurance was set up in 1947. At that time there was a clause in the bill saying it would get the money it needs. That was the last time Parliament voted any money to the employment insurance program.

Statutory spending needs to be reviewed on a cyclical basis. That was part of the mandate.

The other one was tax expenditures. These do not even show up in the financial statements of the Government of Canada. RRSP deductions, for example, are deductions from income tax. There is no revenue for the Government of Canada. There is no expenditure by the Government of Canada, but they are a major public policy. We need to look at that.

Crown corporations have been in the news this past year. They should be examined as well.

Non-statutory spending is what we vote on but we tend to gloss over. There is non-statutory spending, statutory spending, crown corporations and tax expenditures. Loan guarantees show up as one dollar items and we do not pay any attention to a one dollar item but when the loan goes bad and comes back as a $500 million item, by that time it is too late. We want to take a look at loan guarantees and a number of other things.

Today I want to talk about the estimates process.

Here in the House of Commons we have developed our system of motions, amendments to motions and subamendments to motions. We went through that with the Speech from the Throne, the budget debates and so on, but the process is hijacked when it comes to the estimates. We do not have a motion, amend it, and a subamendment. We vote on the subamendment first. We vote on the amendment second. We vote on the main motion third.

If I as a member of Parliament put in a notice of motion to reduce the estimates by a certain amount, be it a dollar or more than a dollar, that is not an amendment to the motion that gets voted on first. That causes the President of the Treasury Board to bring in a superseding motion to reaffirm the original expenditures. When that passes, my motion is out of order. The system is hijacked, and because the process is highjacked, parliamentarians ask why they should bother. The process has become a farce.

The estimates are tabled by the President of the Treasury Board in this House and they are referred to the committees. If the committees do not look at the estimates, they are deemed to have examined them and reported back without change. Because the committees look at the estimates, the House does not debate the estimates at all. The rules do not allow it.

The subcommittee on supply recommended that we make some changes to the Standing Orders. Among these were that committees be allowed to reallocate within a department up to 5% of the spending from one program to another program. That would be something for members of Parliament to get their teeth into. If they made these changes, they would table a report in the House justifying their position. It would not be done on a political whim. They would have to table their rationale for it. If they did that, the government would either have to object or bring in a royal recommendation allowing the change. If the government objected, it would have to present to the House its rationale for things remaining as is.

We would have the two sides of the argument, the committee saying there should be reallocation, the Treasury Board maybe saying to leave it as is, both with their reasons attached. Therefore let the debate begin, let Parliament be seized with the issue and let Parliament make the decision.

We also said that since it was a novel idea, that we re-examine it after two business cycles. I did not see it as revolutionary, but that report was tabled in 1997 and here it is 2005 and we are still working to get it implemented.

This is part of the democratic process. If the government of the day, which says that it wants to fix the democratic deficit, believes in fixing the democratic deficit, I would hope that it would endorse this report and accept these recommendations.

Remember that it was an all-party committee and the recommendations were accepted unanimously in 1997. For that reason the recommendations are legitimate. They are serious. They are there to improve the effectiveness of Parliament. They are there to improve the effectiveness of democracy in this country. It does not seem much to ask because as I said, the process has been hijacked and the process today is a farce.

On that basis I have here in both official languages the 51st report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, which has already been tabled in this House. I ask for unanimous consent to table the report again in both official languages and have it referred to the procedure and House affairs committee, as it deliberates on these amendments to the Standing Orders so that it can have the rationale from the committee back in 1997 and it can understand what is going on.

Madam Speaker, I would ask that you seek unanimous for me to table in both official languages the report of the business on supply of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs and that it be referred to the committee.

[Sponsorship Program, April 7th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, this morning the public accounts committee released its report into the sponsorship scandal. It is a 100 page report containing a serious indictment on the mismanagement of $100 million of Canadian taxpayer funds by the Liberal Government.

The Auditor General said that every rule in the book was broken. The report has 29 recommendations calling for a revamped internal audit system to catch the problems before they take hold, changes to the Auditor General Act so that the Auditor General can follow the money and changes to the Public Service Employment Act to prevent political employees in ministers' offices from claiming, without competition, senior roles in public service.

Finally, it contains recommendations on the obvious: do not write cheques until a written contract has been signed and do not have the same person approving the contract and managing the contract. In essence, do what the private sector has done for years: build integrity through sound management.

Would that not be a wonderful thing if we thought we were getting the same from the Liberal government?