Grant Hill

[Ethics, June 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, ethics in cabinet are far more important than these petty leadership battles. In recognizing the ethical problems, last Friday one of the parliamentary secretaries said “The government wants to get to the bottom of this mess”.

Why did the Prime Minister not get to the bottom of the ethical mess instead of going through another leadership rival? Tobin was first. The finance minister was second. Who is next?

[Ethics, June 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister says that he likes a good fight. I thought he meant that he would fight against ethical misconduct by his ministers in cabinet.

Could he explain why he instead chose to fire a senior finance minister? Another leadership candidate gone.

[Government Contracts, May 31st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I think the word “diversion” will have to be used a lot. The people who expose government scandals are traitors to the Prime Minister.

In his own words, “I would like to have the names of those who are double crossing the rest of the caucus and the cabinet”.

Does the Prime Minister not recognize that people who expose government scandal are heroes to the taxpayers of this country?

[Government Contracts, May 31st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I suppose that kind of diversion might work somewhere else but it will not work with Canadians.

Here is what else the Prime Minister had to say. He said that he was looking for those who were double-crossing his cabinet. In fact it is not the activities he is concerned about, it is the poor little cabinet.

Why does the Prime Minister not recognize that the unethical actions of the government is the problem, not the people who are exposing it?

[Government Grants, May 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the problem is he is a brother and it involves the appearance of a conflict of interest. Listen to what they say about patronage today. I am quoting the justice minister, who said:

--it is time to end the hypocrisy and let ministers...have more of a say in which communications agencies are chosen to do [their] work.

More of a say? I say that the Canadian public does not want the minister to have any say in communications agencies, none.

[Government Grants, May 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, once long ago the Prime Minister and his cronies were offended by patronage. In fact 10 years ago, when in opposition, this is what they said about getting jobs and contracts for friends, and I quote:

--we've seen two different incidents within the last 10 days of this Family Compact type of affair, I think the people of Canada have a right to know what's going on...

I agree. Do the people of Canada not still have a right to know what is going on with this kind of sleaze and patronage?

[Government Contracts, May 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the ethical standards are so interesting, are they not?

We come back to the red book promise. The red book promise was pretty specific. It stated that we would have an independent ethics commissioner that would report to parliament. When will we get that?

[Government Contracts, May 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, let us go deeper into the ethical morass that the Prime Minister is in.

On Thursday he said that what the public works minister had done was just fine and on Sunday he demoted him. What changed between Thursday and Sunday?

[Government Contracts, May 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the minister responsible for CIDA told the House of Commons that she had done nothing to obtain an additional $1.3 million for Transelec, a company that belongs to a friend of the Prime Minister.

However, according to the media, CIDA proposed transferring this money to the government of Mali for Transelec. What actually happened?

[Government Contracts, May 21st, 2002]

The auditor general said plainly that this company should not even have bid on the contract.

Hon. members will notice from the answer that we did not get any indication of whether or not the $1.3 million will be spent or not.

I will ask the question again. Will this minister stand up and tell the Canadian public that we will not waste one more nickel on this company from the Prime Minister's riding? Yes or no.