Jane Stewart

[Human Resources Development, May 3rd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I bragged about it because indeed we took the recommendations of this company and implemented them. Yesterday in committee, and I quote, Deloitte & Touche stated:

—subsequent to our report...my understanding is the department has taken our advice, the advice of others and revised the action plan.

Again let us remember that the auditor general said this was an extraordinary response to an extraordinary circumstance.

[Human Resources Development, May 3rd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it turns out that the hon. member is at least a day late. If she had been her yesterday, as we made clear, Deloitte & Touche received the audit plan in the first draft. We paid them to look at it, to make recommendations, and they did.

If she had been here or maybe at the committee yesterday, she would have heard what they actually said, which was and I quote—

[Employment Insurance, May 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, if we want to look at what has been happening for the unemployed, we can look at the fact that two million Canadians who were not working in 1993 are working today. We can look at the fact that we have the lowest rate of unemployment in Canada in decades.

We can look at the investments that this government has been making in areas that have not had the opportunity to benefit from the surge in the economic growth in Canada. Those are the kinds of investments that we feel are important. Those are our responses to the unemployed.

[Human Resources Development, May 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, as I have said on a number of occasions, we have reviewed this file. Indeed the moneys that were presented to Placeteco were fully identified in the context of appropriate terms and conditions of the agreement.

Again, access to information is a process whereby information is reviewed and is protected according to privacy decisions. I do not make those decisions. They are made in the context of the act of this House.

[Human Resources Development, May 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, when we talk about papers from an individual business there are privacy concerns. I would encourage the hon. member to use the access to information process so that the appropriate information can be made available. That is what the process is there to do and I would encourage him to use it.

[Human Resources Development, May 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows the access to information program is managed by the department under the auspices of the information commissioner. If the hon. member made the request, he will receive the documentation, as is appropriate.

[Human Resources Development, May 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member has made an access request, the information will be made available.

This question gives me a chance to update the House on the number of access to information requests that the department has received. We are now up to 1,000.

We have a lot of work to do to provide the information that different groups want and we will do that to the best of our ability.

[Human Resources Development, May 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know where the hon. member was. I thought he was at committee today where the representative of Deloitte & Touche said “Yes, indeed, the department came to us and paid us to look at the recommended plan. We gave them advice and the department implemented our recommendations”. What could be better?

[Human Resources Development, May 2nd, 2000]

Again, Mr. Speaker, the leader of the Bloc is wrong. He should take time to do some research.

Deloitte & Touche was asked to look at our plan. They made recommendations and we implemented them.

They said that we needed greater cohesiveness to orchestrate the various actions in an integrated fashion. What did we do? We established a grants and contributions team to ensure that we meet their recommendations.

They said that we needed assurance that funds had been transferred according to program requirements. What did we do? We put in place a departmental directive on the issuance of payments, which requires sign-off by senior executives to ensure that the payments are made appropriately.

[Human Resources Development, May 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is wrong. Let us recall what the auditor general said about the action plan. He said that the action plan prepared by the department represented an exceptional response. What is good for the auditor general is good for me.