Jane Stewart

[Human Resources Development, February 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, again, there is nothing that I said previously in the House that was misleading. I stand by that.

We are talking about accountability. When this hon. member goes back to her riding I wonder what she will say to the taxpayers who ask her why she did not know that tax dollars were being spent in their riding and why did she not know that $7 million was invested in community undertakings. Her answer will be that she had no idea where the money went, but that she hopes it did some good.

I can tell her that that money has done good and it has made a difference in the lives of the citizens of Calgary—Nose Hill.

[Human Resources Development, February 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it was the internal checks and balances of the department that brought this information to my attention. It was my review of the audit that suggested we had to take it seriously. It is the response of the department that is now going to fix this problem.

We are going to make the results of that work public to Canadians so that they can measure our results. That is what Canadians want. That is the responsible thing to do.

[Human Resources Development, February 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am not trying to hide anything. I made the report public, for heaven's sake.

From my point of view the appropriate thing to do when you get information that says there are problems is to let Canadians know so that Canadians can appreciate the significance of the undertaking and they can also measure the impact of our results.

I am going to be looking forward to presenting on a quarterly basis the results of our reviews, the information that we get on the improvements that these undertakings are going to hold. There is nothing to hide here. We are going to fix the problem and it is not going to exist after.

[Human Resources Development, February 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I categorically reject everything in the hon. member's question.

When we look at the riding of Brant I want to confirm yet again that no rules were broken. The riding of Brant was identified as a pocket of high unemployment and therefore eligible for the transitional jobs fund and then again for the Canada jobs fund.

I want to point out that there were 250 projects across Canada that qualified for transitional jobs fund money where the unemployment levels were less than 12%, and half of them were in opposition ridings.

[Human Resources Development, February 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member talks about the employees of the department. I really wish she could have been with me when I addressed hundreds of employees in Ottawa and thousands across the country.

The employees of Human Resources Development Canada want a better system. They want the tools they need to provide a quality system to Canadians. The department is fully supportive of the initiatives that we are undertaking to fix this problem, and we will fix it.

[Human Resources Development, February 7th, 2000]

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am the minister. There was information in the internal audit, an internal check and balance, which said that we had to make improvements in the management of our grants and contributions. I took it seriously.

I indicated to the department to make this a priority and prepare an action plan with tight timeframes so that we could ensure that Canadians could see the results of our implementations. I insisted that we make this plan public, that we make it available to the Canadian people so they could see that there were problems but that we were prepared to deal with them. Canadians want problems fixed, and that is what I am doing.

[Human Resources Development, February 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member would look at the data, he would see that no moneys flowed, or the significant amount of moneys flowed from July onward.

I also want to remind the hon. member and the House that when we are approving projects like the transitional jobs fund, we have to get the approval of the provincial governments and that includes the Government of Quebec.

[Human Resources Development, February 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, let us just remember the 18 projects in the riding of Mercier, the nine projects in the riding of Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, the four projects in the riding of Roberval, and even a project in the riding of Laurier—Sainte-Marie.

When we look at the time when moneys flowed for these very important projects, it began in July, well after the election had been completed.

[Human Resources Development, February 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, walking away from challenges is never the right solution.

I received the information on this internal audit. I identified that there were problems in my department in the area of administration of grants and contributions. I demanded a strong response from our management team. We made the whole report public so Canadians would know that we have challenges but so that they also can measure us by our actions.

[Human Resources Development, February 7th, 2000]

Again, Mr. Speaker, I talked about how effective the transitional jobs fund has been for the 30,000 Canadians who did not have work before that program was implemented. I today would continue to say that that program has worked very well. I repeat however for the particular programs that were addressed and of which questions were asked in this House, I was forthcoming and identified that there had been administrative problems.