Deborah Grey

[Option Canada, April 10th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the heritage minister has an interesting sense of accountability. The heritage department fast tracked nearly $5 million worth of grants to Option Canada even though the organization had existed only a few weeks. It had no track in handling public funds. When heritage auditors found out that the money went missing the government responded by acknowledging that the money went missing and then closed the case. End of story.

How many millions need to be lost before the heritage minister displays even the slightest hint of respect for taxpayers' dollars?

[Canada Development Corporation, April 5th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, one would think the Department of Health might have gone along for the ride too.

The finance minister had a huge interest in boosting profits at Connaught Laboratories during the year it imported tainted blood from U.S. prisons.

Years later he sat at the cabinet table and denied the victims of that tainted blood scandal the right to compensation from his government.

While they discuss it over there, this is clearly a conflict of interest and he knows it. We can see that. Is that not the real reason he is so concerned about these minutes?

[Canada Development Corporation, April 5th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I do not agree.

Any cabinet minister who had even the slightest involvement with the blood products industry in the eighties would have been in conflict sitting at the cabinet table when they were discussing compensation packages for tainted blood victims.

The finance minister sat on the board of a company whose subsidiary was cited by the Krever commission for 10 counts of misconduct.

The minister must be concerned about what is in those minutes and why they are being sat on. Why else would he send a finance official to Calgary along with the ethics counsellor?

[Canada Development Corporation, April 5th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the finance minister sat on the board of the Canada Development Corporation during the years that its subsidiary, Connaught Laboratories, was importing tainted blood products from the U.S.

After we raised this issue last spring, the ethics counsellor launched an investigation which took him to the new owners of the CDC in Calgary. Strangely, a finance official went along. Why?

[Aboriginal Affairs, April 4th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the minister talks about government to government relationships. Surely there is some responsibility for government to taxpayers, the people who are footing the bill. The amount of $640,000 went to the Acadia reserve chief and councillors, over three times what it had been just two years before.

Over that same two year period social services to the people and the children on that reserve were reduced by more than $200,000. So much for helping the poor.

If the minister is in this position to actually help people, I would like him to realize that these are tragic stories. Why is he ignoring them?

[Aboriginal Affairs, April 4th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, if that is the case, I wonder why there is even a position for the minister of Indian affairs, if he is not going to give any guidance to these people who have such desperate situations on reserve.

Taxpayers have a right to know that their money is being put to good use, and so do the aboriginal grassroots band members.

Asked to comment recently on the $130,000 tax free salary of the chief of the Acadia reserve, the minister stood and said “I have no reason to dispute it”.

Why is rampant poverty and dire straits not reason enough to dispute greed at the top?

[Aboriginal Affairs, April 4th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, political accountability on our aboriginal reserves across Canada is a disaster.

The chief of the Eskasoni reserve in Cape Breton took honorariums and bonuses totalling more than $300,000 last year alone, and yet his fellow band members are plagued by a 50% unemployment rate and dire poverty.

Why will this minister not stand to protect the band members?

[Health, April 3rd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, we know tax points are not for the federal government to give. In 1993 the government put in $18.8 billion. It then went down to $12.5 billion. Now it is back up to $14.4 billion. That kind of math is this government's track record.

He cut $25 billion out of health care, which is responsible for huge waiting lines, and he encourages health care workers to leave Canada, yet he will not meet with the premiers.

If he is so concerned about health care, why did he give another $3 billion for grants to the bungler over there at HRDC?

[Health, April 3rd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, that includes the tax points. If we just talk about health care funding, in 1993-94 it was $18.8 billion—

[Health, April 3rd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, he does know how to mince it up.

The Prime Minister knows full well that he has slashed billions of dollars out of health care. He presided over cabinet meetings where members fought around the table as to who would get more money for grants and contributions for their programs. Tragically, Canadians' number one priority, health care, was left waiting in the hallway. Now the Prime Minister will not even meet with the premiers to try to come up with a solution.

Why does he care so little about the health of Canadians?