Steve Mahoney

[An Act To Give Effect To The Requirement For Clarity As Set Out In The Opinion Of The Supreme Court Of Canada In The Quebec Secession Reference, February 10th, 2000]

You did not invite me. Had they invited me, I would have been delighted to deliver a calm and rational speech on exactly what they should be doing with their united alternative.

The people in Quebec remember the advertisements the Reform Party ran in the last election. They attempted to suggest that somehow one's place of birth should disqualify one from standing to be prime minister. People remember that. I know Reform members have attempted to distance themselves from that. I know that by coming up with some new party whatever it is called, that again they are going to try to distance themselves, but the people of Quebec will not forget that.

I do not know which is the right word, sympathy or empathy, but having been here for two years and having worked with members of the Bloc and knowing them, I have a much better understanding of what it is that motivates them. They get motivated tremendously when they see the kind of intransigent position that a party like the Reform Party takes in relation to what amounts to a third of the country which is obviously and arguably one of the most important parts of the country. The province of Quebec provides us—

[An Act To Give Effect To The Requirement For Clarity As Set Out In The Opinion Of The Supreme Court Of Canada In The Quebec Secession Reference, February 10th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to keep some kind of flow. It might be difficult if this is the game we are going to be subjected to all afternoon. Members know full well that members are busy in committees and in meetings doing the work they were sent to Ottawa to do. A member's job is not just to sit in this place and participate by listening to a speech. As we all know, these speeches are available in Hansard . It is available electronically as it is occurring and we know that.

Tactics which simply waste the time of the House by continually calling quorum are silly. They do a disservice to the Canadian people and the people of Quebec who want to know what other parliamentarians from around the country think about the bill. I would hope members opposite would allow all members in this place to at least finish their speeches so there is a flow to their comments.

I was making the point that historically it is easy to understand why the Bloc members are against the bill. It is what they are dedicated to and there is no puzzle there.

It is difficult to understand what the problem is with the Conservative Party. But if we look back in history, we realize the deal Prime Minister Mulroney made with the devil when he invited the current premier of the province of Quebec to sit at the cabinet table. It is not hard to understand the current leader of the Conservative Party who has yet to show enough courage to stand for election to come into this place. There is a byelection coming up in the not too distant future in St. John's. Member after member of that party are defecting and resigning because they cannot tolerate the positions being taken. It is not hard to understand if we look at it from a historical perspective where the current leader of the Conservative Party is coming from, but it is shameful.

Tories in my riding ask me what in the world is going on and why they are doing this. It is obvious what the strategy of the leader is, even though he did not have the courtesy to discuss it with his caucus prior to announcing it to the rest of the world. His strategy seems to be that maybe the Conservatives can get some votes in Quebec and try to rebuild the party if they oppose this bill. It is shameful politics of the worst kind that they would play with the future of this country and the future of that province by taking that kind of a position.

What is it that really upsets the separatists and keeps them motivated? I think about the united alternative conference to which I unfortunately was dispatched as a representative, as a spy for the Liberal Party. It was like sticking a thousand pins in my eyes but I went. I was astounded to see separatists were actually invited to be headline speakers at the united alternative—

[An Act To Give Effect To The Requirement For Clarity As Set Out In The Opinion Of The Supreme Court Of Canada In The Quebec Secession Reference, February 10th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I want to touch on a couple of issues surrounding this debate that I, and probably many of my constituents, find somewhat puzzling.

The first issue was made by the speaker representing the Tory Party who just spoke. Many people in Ontario and in my community are asking why Joe Clark is opposed to this and why the Tory Party is divided on this particular issue.

If we take a look at this historically, we should ask ourselves why Brian Mulroney invited into his bed—

[Privilege, February 8th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member for Selkirk—Interlake referred to my speech this morning and suggested that somehow I had violated his privileges in this place.

I quoted from documentation that was not provided by the ministry but rather by our own caucus research bureau, quite extensive letters from this member dated June 24, 1997. I read the quote—

[Supply, February 8th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his questions. He actually made an interesting point. He said that I was standing here defending what he called a public relations disaster. I think that is what it is, actually. It is a PR disaster. We have not been able to get the message out because of the hysteria and misrepresentation by members in the opposition and frankly in the media. How do we defend a headline that says a billion dollars is lost when in fact it is not.

There is an old axiom in politics that says when one is trying to defend something one is losing. I understand that. It is very much public relations, and the public happens to be the voters and citizens of the country. The reason I stand here and say what I say is that it is our job and responsibility to get the facts out. It is not just the one-sided nonsensical arguments put forward by the opposition. There are a government position, an explanation and an action plan put in place.

I also tell the member in relationship to his other question that the minister informed the House on February 7, as reported in Hansard that:

Of the 250 projects across Canada that qualified for transitional jobs fund money where the unemployment levels were less than 12%...half of them were in opposition ridings.

I am sorry if the member has not been able to somehow persuade or have some influence, but I would suggest that he should keep trying. He should get himself someone in the ministry with whom he can deal and work. If his riding needs these funds, I want the member who I think is a very caring and socially well balanced conscientious member to know that the danger we are facing with all this stuff is that there will be no transitional jobs funds for anyone in the country, whether in his riding or mine. They will kill this program as sure as I am standing here through the misrepresentation and misleading hysteria that is going on.

I want Canadians to know that government accepts the responsibility to clean this up. The government accepts the fact that some mistakes have been made and it will be cleaned up by the minister.

[Supply, February 8th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that members of the Bloc are only interested in discrediting, in whatever way they can, any member on this side of the House who happens to be from the province of Quebec.

The fact is that the minister is in a different portfolio and the audit was requested by the Government of Canada. I do not know how much more transparent we could possibly be. The audit identified 37 out of 459 projects—$30 million out of $200 million—as having some difficulties. Three of those 37 have been investigated, representing almost $12 million, and they have been put in proper shape. I do not know how much more transparent and fair the government could be, except to continue investigating the remaining 34 files, representing about $20 million.

The member wants to attack someone from Quebec so that he can make headlines which will somehow further the only thing these people care about, which is the destruction of this country and their attempts to take the province of Quebec out of Canada. It will not work.

The minister is responding to the issues at hand. She has a six point plan that will put in place the kind of transparency and accountability that is needed. Any money that has been improperly spent, as the Prime Minister said yesterday, will be recovered by the government. We will not tolerate any of that nonsense. The situation at HRDC will be cleaned up and it will be cleaned up by the current minister.

[Supply, February 8th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, first, I apologize if the member thought it was bluster. I get a little excited at times trying to make a point. However, I think that Canadians need to hear from some of us who will, as demonstrably as possible, put the facts on the record.

The member just said it all. He has proven what I said and have suspected; that is, that the intent of the Reform Party is not to get the head of a minister. The intent of the Reform Party is not even to embarrass the government. The intent of the Reform Party is to kill the job creation funds that are in HRDC which go to the communities. They want to take that money, rip it out of the system and give it to their wealthy friends in the form of tax cuts. That is what he said.

My answer, sir, is no, I will not work toward that. I will defend these programs and make sure they get out to the people who need them.

[Supply, February 8th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it is clear to me that the party is struggling in that regard. The point is that Reform Party members talk about accountability and telling Canadian people the truth and putting forward issues of concern.

I want to stress this point. We are talking about an entire project of $1 billion. The audit was done on 459 individual projects within the $1 billion program representing a total of $200 million. One-fifth of the HRD job creation program was audited. Out of that one-fifth, 37 files were identified as having problems. Those problems ranged from as small as not putting all the paperwork in the right order to as serious as not having the proper documentation at all. This is not acceptable to the government and it is certainly not acceptable to the minister.

The minister came forward and indicated that an audit had been done and she provided us with the results. She gave us the six point plan that will be put in place to deal with the mistakes. I do not think any Canadian would expect an organization the size of HRD or indeed the entire government to be without its share of problems. But to suggest that because an auditor requested to come in by the Government of Canada has identified some problems in the files and that a cabinet minister needs to step aside over that is political hysteria.

Members know full well that they are churning the pot and feeding the hysteria through the media. The only thing that would make their day a success would be to force a cabinet minister as dedicated and as hardworking as this one to resign from the job because of some trumped up nonsense.

That is not to say the government does not recognize there are problems. The government asked for the audit in the first place. I do not know how many times we have to say that. The minister released it. The opposition would take credit for that saying “She heard we were going to ask for it”. Excuse me, I am under the impression it was on the Internet. We do not get much more public than that. The minister came out with it and said “Here is the result of the audit. Here are the problems we have identified and here is the action plan that we will put in place to fix it”.

What really bothers me about all of the hysteria by the members opposite and frankly by the media is that the real victims in all of this will be the community groups in British Columbia, in Newfoundland or in Ontario. They will be young people who need summer jobs. That is what this is about.

I say to hon. members to put themselves in the position of a bureaucrat sitting down somewhere in Halifax, Mississauga or Vancouver with an application before them while all of this is going on in the media. Might one not just be a little nervous?

The Reform Party is the party that demands less red tape. In fact we will potentially see more red tape and more concern.

We want to have rules in place that the bureaucrats must follow. There must be financial accountability. The minister has said that she has put forward the plan that will do that, but we will drive wedges between the offices of HRDC.

I would ask any of these members, some of them I am sure have but I know many of them have not, to go to the HRDC office and look at who is there. There are single moms looking to get retraining in computers. There are 45 to 55 year old men who have been displaced in their jobs and are looking to find a new career, a new alternative. They need our help and why should we not help them? If we can help them with a grant that creates a job, then they have a job and they will pay taxes and they will become productive, proud members of society.

The risk here in all seriousness is that we will damage the relationship our dedicated HRDC offices have. I have one in my community on Glen Erin Drive that services Peel and Halton. We will risk the relationship those offices have with the community.

There is an organization in Mississauga called the Centre for Education and Training. It does tremendous work. It would access funds through the HRDC office to provide training, retraining and motivation. It provides job skills and job search skills. It helps people develop resumes. It helps people get back on their feet.

The problem we face is that we tend to be in such a strong economic climate. Unemployment is at the lowest rate it has been since the 1970s for all levels. Whether it is for women, for youth, or for the entire sector of society, the unemployment rate is at its lowest for all levels. Interest rates are low. Inflation is virtually non-existent. The economy is humming. The books are balanced. We are in a surplus and are awaiting a budget at the end of February that I believe will deliver tax cuts to Canadians. Yet people are sitting around saying that there has to be something wrong here, it cannot be all that good and they will not sit back and accept all this prosperity. We have too many problems.

People say we do not do anything for the homeless. Our minister went to Toronto and announced $743 million in partnership with the municipalities, provinces and the private sector. They should be able to leverage that $743 million into a couple of billion to create housing and help people get off the streets. Is it enough? I guess not. Maybe we would like to do more. I am sure many of us would. The government is trying to respond.

What we see is a feeding frenzy of mass hysteria that is absolutely unfair to the Canadian people, who, because they have read the headlines, think that somehow we have lost a billion dollars. We have not lost one cent. They know that. What has been potentially lost is the faith and the confidence that the community groups have in working with HRD.

Meet the men and women who deal in this business. Meet the Ray Fernbacks of this world, a dedicated civil servant who wants to help young people, people who are without jobs and people who are without hope. There are people like him all across this country. Simply because of the hysteria and the nonsense we are in danger of losing people like him and losing the relationship.

Opposition members know full well that many of the job fund programs have gone into their ridings. The hypocrisy of being in the House and listening as they wax on is terrible. Let us read what they have actually said.

The member for Dauphin—Swan River said: “I am writing to express my support for the TJF application made by the Rolling River First Nation”. The member for Selkirk—Interlake said: “I strongly recommend that the TJF provide funding for this excellent creation program”. The member for Vancouver Island North said: “This is a great opportunity for creating new jobs and new wealth in the Comox Valley”. The member for Battlefords—Lloydminister said in a letter to the minister: “I would like to ask that you seriously consider the request for funding and give the Voice of the Blue Rose Advocacy a favourable response”. The member for Nanaimo—Cowichan, regarding an organization called “Loaves and Fishes”, said: “I would like to request that any and all avenues of financial resources be considered in assisting this important work to continue. I fully support the TJF application put forth by Tough Duck”. It is interesting that these are all Reformers.

What this is really about is that the Reform Party wants to kill this program. The Reform Party thinks it is more important to give tax cuts to the rich than it is to help those small community organizations. It will not be tough duck; it will be tough luck. That is what will happen if the Reform Party has its way and runs its scalpel through the human resources development ministry. It will slash, burn and destroy programs.

Some of these names might seem funny, but these are community organizations that are working in the community. The money goes to hire people to help them deliver the programs. We should not laugh. Reform Party members, of all people, should not laugh at funny names. Goodness knows, they have so many up their sleeves that we never know what they are going to come out with. That is the real agenda.

The member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, one of the few in the Reform Party whom I respect, said: “I believe that it is a worthy, viable and visionary undertaking which warrants your consideration and ultimately your approval of the applications”. Another quality member in this place, the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, said: “I hope that the money will be forthcoming from the transitional jobs fund to bolster the economy of Port Renfrew. My hope also is that other projects will be considered in the future that will provide for job training opportunities that are sustainable over the long term”.

There are some real mixed messages.

Thirty-seven projects have been identified. Interestingly enough, out of those 37, which represent $30 million—not $200 million, not $1 billion, but $30 million—which is still a lot of money—three of those projects have already been investigated. The files have been put in order and no further action is required by the ministry staff. Those three projects represent almost $12 million of the $30 million, which is almost half. Certainly over one-third of the entire area which was identified has already been dealt with, cleaned up and put to bed. The recommendation is that no further action need take place.

The rest of the investigations are ongoing. We can rest assured that in every HRDC office in the country people probably spent a fairly busy weekend going through the files, and so it should be. Because we refuse to buckle to the nonsensical demands of the opposition does not mean that the government, the minister and the prime minister do not take this seriously. This is serious stuff. When the auditor says “We have identified problems”, any government had better react.

In fairness, why not allow for a reasonable length of time for the government to do the work to clean up the mess? If there are not changes put in place, then perhaps the opposition's demands would make sense. If the government does not correct the problems that are there, whether they are systemic or they happen once, it has to investigate these things because Canadians expect no less than that kind of accountability, openness and transparency, that kind of serious effort by their government. Frankly, that is what is going to happen.

It is not just the Reformers. I will share with the House what the Conservative member for New Brunswick Southwest said: “It would not be fair to suggest that party affiliations play a role in the awarding of money”. I agree. They got over half the projects. He went on to say: “The resulting employment during construction and the permanent jobs to be created from the project will greatly benefit the people and the economy of the St. Stephen area”.

We all know the importance and the significance of this job creation fund. We know what it means to our youth, to our women, to our aboriginals, to our people who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. We know the importance of the partnerships and the relationships that occur right across the land, and we have the serious potential of doing damage to programs that are fundamentally important to all Canadians.

I will reject this motion, as will my colleagues. It is unworthy of the opposition.

[Supply, February 8th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, there is another name but I guess that is the short form. Who would want to wake up and see CCRAP as the name of the newly formed party? I understand.

[Supply, February 8th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I want to spend some time talking to the Canadian people about some of the facts because I have some information they might be interested in. Members opposite will of course have their fun heckling.

The first fact was used by the member for Calgary—Nose Hill when she recently said that “the government ordered the audit”. That is interesting; the government ordered the audit.

I serve as vice-chair of the public accounts committee which is chaired by a member of the opposition. The public accounts committee hears from the auditor all the time. Every week he and his staff come in. They talk to us about areas they have audited which were not ordered by the government for which the agenda was set either by the public accounts committee or by the auditor himself. The important thing to establish is that the auditor is independent. Every member in the House must agree with that. The auditor is totally independent of any political interference whatsoever.

The integrity of the auditor of the government of this country is second to none. Anyone who knows him and his staff knows they are dedicated, fair and extremely thorough. They will go through programs, whether requested by a committee, the government, a minister or on their own, in such minute detail that some of the things they find out are truly quite amazing. Guess what happens. From time to time regardless of what party is in power around here, the auditor comes up with some problems. That is what he is there for. That is what the whole system is about.

The member for Calgary—Nose Hill stands in her place and says the government ordered the audit.

I spoke to a group of young people yesterday, high school students who were touring our precinct. They were quite astounded when I gave them the facts because what they had read about this supposed boondoggle were headlines screaming “A billion dollar boondoggle”. I explained to them, and they are obviously more intelligent than some of my hon. colleagues opposite, that the actual program is a job creation program. It takes $1 billion and funnels it out into community groups from sea to sea to sea to create jobs for young people, to supplement wages for small businesses, to assist in hiring people, to deal with people who need training, to deal with people with disabilities, to help aboriginal Canadians with a hand up to get jobs, training and skills so they can get on with becoming participants in our society and to develop partnerships with community groups. That is what this program is all about. Members know this.

The real danger here in the misrepresentation that has gone on, is it continues to go on simply for one reason and that is that the opposition smells blood and indeed all of us know that this is a blood sport. We have to be tough and we have to stand up and defend and make them accountable because being in opposition they can say whatever they want.

We know about the Reform Party's accountability. We know that the Reform Party fires caucus members faster than Brian Mulroney changed his Gucci's. We know that if there is one person out of line or out of sync in the Reform Party, even the venerable House leader, he is simply booted out of caucus by the leader who stands in front of Canadians and purports to say they have a new way of doing business.

The Reform Party kicks people out of caucus faster than it takes to change the name from the united alternative to CCRAP. I should not say it because children may be watching. We all know what the acronym is. The Reform Party kicks people out of caucus faster than it takes to change the acronym from CCRAP to some other one. They woke up and there was this word which they normally associate with something on their—