Bonnie Brown

[Supply, June 6th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Peterborough. I am very happy to have the chance to take part in this debate because I would like to help set the record straight.

For almost five months now, the House has witnessed the same old story being trotted out almost on a daily basis by the opposition. The government has been subjected to all kinds of hearsay and all kinds of claims. I would like to ask the House to step back and take a look at the reality.

The motion before us calls for an inquiry into grants and contributions at Human Resources Development Canada. The first reality is that the issue of grants and contributions has already been subject to an inquiry, that is an examination by the House through its Standing Committee on Human Resources Development.

The committee has spent almost four months on this project, day after day, and just last Thursday tabled its report with its recommendations. The government will respond to that report within the 150 days provided by the rules. That is the first inquiry.

The second reality is that the issue continues to be thoroughly examined by the auditor general, an independent officer of parliament. The auditor general has promised to report to parliament in the fall. That is the second inquiry into this situation.

The third reality is that it has been examined by treasury board and by independent private sector firms. As a result, the President of the Treasury Board announced the implementation of a revised policy on grants and contributions, strengthening the management of public spending.

From three separate angles the public interest is being protected by parliamentarians, by the auditor general and by the officials of treasury board measuring all spending against their strengthened guidelines.

We would not have had this issue if not for the fact that the government is always looking for ways to do a better job. That is why HRDC, like other departments, does internal audits looking for opportunities to improve what it does and how it does it. Last year one of those audits focused on the management of grants and contributions. We all know what it said, but I will repeat it because the opposition seems to be incapable of remembering a few simple facts.

The audit found paperwork missing, not money but paperwork. It found this fact to be far too common across the department. Paperwork matters, particularly when it relates to ensuring accountability for the proper spending of Canadians' money. The department appreciated this and put together a number of steps to respond. When it took those steps to the minister, she said they were not strong enough and asked for a stronger response to ensure full accountability to Canadians. The department understood the priorities the minister placed on the matter and brought forward a six point action plan that the minister announced on January 19.

From one end of Canada to the other, HRDC staff began by reviewing the 461 files covered by the audit. Then they reviewed 17,000 active files and made sure they were all in line with the new guidelines of the six point plan. The result of this file by file review was that out of $1.5 billion in projects, $6,500 is still left as overpayments to be recovered. That is only a fraction of 1%. The department did not just look at the projects already in place. It put in place new conditions to make sure that every payment meets all the financial and administrative requirements before it goes out.

HRDC also set about to train staff on the new guidelines and to make the new expectations clear. That training has reached about 3,000 employees across Canada. There has been accountability for the action plan. The minister has already released a progress report as she promised. There is a special team in place to track performance. The minister has already told the House on various occasions that the auditor general and others would carry out their own reviews.

The department wanted to get the best advice on making the action plan a success, and that is why it worked with the auditor general, Price Waterhouse, the private sector blue ribbon committee, the Standards Advisory Board of the Comptroller General, and Deloitte & Touche. The minister said the department would report to Canadians and to parliamentarians regularly. Even the most meanspirited critic would have to say that commitment has been met.

Has there ever been an issue in parliament where the information has been more open and transparent than this one? Let us take access to information requests. In the year 1998-99 HRDC got 531 access to information requests. In 1999-2000 that jumped to 1,073 or twice the volume of the previous year. Fully half of those requests came in the last 10 weeks of the fiscal year. It is not surprising that as a result HRDC released almost 115,000 pages of documentation under access to information.

A researcher in the office of the Leader of the Opposition told CPAC that the department had one of the best access to information offices in Ottawa. He is not the only one who believes that to be true. The information commissioner has also cited HRDC as an example of a department that takes its access obligations seriously. Those accolades make sense because this is the minister who put more than 10,000 pages of detail on specific grants and contribution projects onto the Internet. All that transparency is a far cry from the histrionics and wailing that goes on among the opposition about information.

To summarize, a substantial set of reviews of the work of HRDC on grants and contributions are already taking place. HRDC is working hard to meet the avalanche of access requests. Reporting to Canadians on the progress of the action plan is taking place on a regular basis.

All that adds up to a clear and sincere commitment to give Canadians the facts about grants and contributions and a determined effort to get the management of these programs up to the level where it ought to be.

Is this just about paper? Of course not. It is about accountability. It is also about continuing the effectiveness of some very special programs and services. We believe grants and contributions are useful ways to put some taxpayers' money to work in partnerships; that is, to leverage it to get better results for Canadians.

I am proud to stand up and defend programs that build partnerships with other governments, with community agencies and with many other groups in our society to get some important work done, work that Canadians want their government to do.

[Human Resources Development, June 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, when a committee submits a final report on a study it has done, the government per se has not decided anything, has not chosen anything. It is simply that the committee has made a series of recommendations to which the government will respond within the 150 days prescribed in the rules.

[Human Resources Development, June 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, we have said all along that if there is evidence of wrongdoing we will refer such files to the RCMP, and we have done so.

What they are investigating and what results they will have are in their purview at the moment and not appropriate for us to comment on.

[Human Resources Development, June 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite is forgetting the multitude of roles that HRDC fulfils. He is forgetting about all the recipients of old age security, employment insurance and all the statutory programs that come under that particular ministry. In so doing he is insulting the recipients, and all the workers of HRDC who are to be commended for their hard work in going through this barrage of criticism based on personalities that is the hallmark of the party opposite.

[Human Resources Development, June 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, we have to forgive the member opposite. He has never attended a meeting of the HRDC committee and his question shows his lack of information.

The department was put in place in 1993. According to my arithmetic, that is not four years ago. The rest of his question is also based on faulty premises. Perhaps before he represents his party as the first questioner, he should make sure his facts are correct.

[Human Resources Development, June 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite is referring to the report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development. That report was tabled only yesterday. The government is examining it. The minister wants to thank the members of that committee for their work. The government will respond to all the recommendations in due course.

[Human Resources Development, June 1st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the committee tabled its report just this morning. The government will respond at the appropriate time to all the recommendations within that report.

[Genetically Modified Foods, May 31st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to respond to the charges laid by the member opposite, particularly the ones about the federal government destroying the fish in the fishery and destroying the coal industry. Even if the federal government had the power to do such things, there is absolutely no logical reason why any government would set about to accomplish it.

The employment insurance reform she refers to cannot be looked at in isolation from what is happening in the economy and the labour market. The decline she referred to in regular claims by women reflects improvements in the labour market rather than changes to the rules. In fact, the unemployment rate for adult women is now at 5.8%, its lowest level since 1975. Perhaps that is one reason why the number of claims has lowered. Women have enjoyed the best job growth in a decade at 3.2% per year. Furthermore, strong employment growth means fewer claims and longer periods of employment for women.

EI also has features that are important to women such as the small weeks adjustment projects which provide workers in high unemployment regions such as Cape Breton with higher benefits. Women qualified for 61% of the claims under these projects. Also the family supplement for low income Canadians with children has been increased to nearly $150 million. Six out of ten recipients of that program are women.

The government is working to ensure that all Canadians have access to jobs and to employment insurance when it is needed.

[Proportional Representation, May 18th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, as the member has noted, a review of the employment insurance economic boundaries is now under way. These reviews as set out in the regulations must be conducted every five years. They are conducted because just as the national unemployment rate changes over time, local and regional unemployment rates also change. We need to ensure that the system reflects local unemployment rates and remains fair.

These boundaries are set out fairly and are based on four factors: the urban-rural split as in the case of the member's riding; the homogeneity of the labour market; the geography; and the reliability of employment.

We have issued a proposal for public comment. The member has suggested that part of her riding is happy with that and part of it is not so pleased. We have put that notice in the Canada Gazette starting May 13. The opportunity for the member and the public to comment will last for 30 days.

The EI commission has reviewed the economic zones and members of parliament of all parties have now been briefed on the proposed changes. The commission has every intention of having the review finalized by the summer of this year. I encourage the member opposite and her constituents to put their views forward within the 30 day period. I am sure they will be taken into consideration.

[Proportional Representation, May 18th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I want to assure the member that affordable telecommunications services to Canadians in both rural and urban areas across Canada is a fundamental policy objective of the Telecommunications Act and it is key to the government's program called Connecting Canadians.

The CRTC has taken a number of initiatives to ensure that Canadians have access to a affordable, high quality telecommunication service, including an explicit subsidy from long distance carriers to support local telephone service which particularly benefits high cost rural and remote areas.

The CRTC has mandated that the level of basic telephone service generally available in urban areas must be provided in rural and remote areas. The CRTC has ordered the incumbent telephone companies to file service improvement plans to provide this level of service in those few areas where it is not available. This will mean significant investments by the telephone companies. However, in the end it will eliminate party lines and ensure that all Canadians can have access to the Internet without paying long distance charges.

Until 2002 the CRTC has capped annual price increases for residential service. Increases in residential rates are limited to inflation on average, with a maximum allowable increase of 10% on any particular local rate.

Under this price cap regulation, the telephone companies must file with the CRTC annual proposals for price changes.

Most of the telephone companies are proposing increases to be brought in over two years. In some cases, the companies are seeking approval for the maximum allowable increases in areas where the disparity between the cost of providing service and the price of service is the greatest. In Bell's territory, for example, most rural customers pay less for telephone service than urban customers even though the cost of providing them service is higher.

It is worth noting that, according to the OECD, Canadians continue to enjoy among the lowest telephone service rates in the world and the lowest—