Deborah Grey

[National Defence, February 4th, 1999]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday in the House the minister said they are fully tested, it is our medical people, the doctors, who determine that it is safe to give them when they are given.

He just said they were tested and retested but not by Canadian doctors. In the scrum yesterday afternoon he said exactly the opposite to what he said in here yesterday.

Why did he say that our doctors had tested the vaccine when he knew that was not the case?

[National Defence, February 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, that is a really nice try but I just do not think the minister's answer is true for these reasons. He just said that it was tested and retested—

[National Defence, February 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, when our troops were sent to the gulf last spring they knew they might be in harm's way. After all, Saddam Hussein was known to possess anthrax. But as it turns out the real danger for our troops was the defence minister himself.

He ordered our troops to take a stale vaccine whose best before date had expired five years earlier.

Why did the defence minister order our troops to take a drug that veterinarians say is not even fit for dogs?

[Yvon Duhaime, February 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, if the Business Development Bank gives grants, what if any other bank were just to give grants? Any one of us would love to be on that list. The government keeps saying that this is arm's length. He received transitional job fund money and received seed grants as well. A lot of those funds were public funds that came from human resources. These are public funds that went into a private bank account. Any Canadian would love that kind of deal.

Who will investigate this? Obviously it needs to be checked. The ethics commissioner will not investigate it, so who will?

[Yvon Duhaime, February 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, things are pretty shady in Shawinigan. Yvon Duhaime bought the Grand-Mère Inn from the Prime Minister in 1993. He did not reveal his criminal convictions of drunk driving and assault when he received over $850,000 of taxpayer money in 1997 to expand his inn.

We now learn that a huge amount of this taxpayer money went directly into Duhaime's bank account when by law it is required to go to a notary.

I am sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this. What is it?

[Child Pornography, February 2nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the minister knows that over 60 Liberal members have signed a petition asking for exactly what will be happening tonight in the vote in the House of Commons.

Could the minister actually believe that the whole child pornography industry will just go on hold and sit tight for awhile while she expedites things through the court case? How can she take responsibility for inflicting such terrible and intolerable obscenity on one child in the country? How could she do it?

[Child Pornography, February 2nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, when the minister talks about expediting things her track record is not great. She has been the Minister of Justice for 601 days and she was going to look after the Young Offenders Act in a timely fashion. That is not expedited service.

For one terrified child one day is too long. She has the power to do something about this. When will she end this nightmare?

[Child Pornography, February 2nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, child pornography is poison. The minister is justifying another lengthy court battle about this whole case.

It may be a lawyer's dream to see this tragedy played out in the court system, but it is our responsibility as parliamentarians to protect the vulnerable and the innocent.

How could the minister justify one more day to make it legal in any jurisdiction in the country for someone to own child pornography? How could she justify it?

[Ethics Counsellor, February 1st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it would be so handy if the Canadian public and this parliament knew exactly what the ethical code and guidelines are. Nobody seems to know what they are. The ethics counsellor simply has coffee with and reports to the Prime Minister but not to parliament. He is accountable to parliament. Could the Prime Minister stand in his place and make this determination: I am committed, as I said in the red book, to have an independent ethics counsellor who will report to parliament and not simply to the Prime Minister?

[Ethics Counsellor, February 1st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's ethical questions grow longer every day. The ethics watchdog has now become the Prime Minister's own personal guard dog. I just received a personal letter from the ethics counsellor defending the Prime Minister and his actions. Is this the new Liberal definition of ethics?