Bonnie Brown

[Human Resources Development, May 5th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite has just made an allegation of impropriety. If she has proof of this she should bring it forward and we will investigate.

[Human Resources Development, May 5th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, once again I would say that those invoices which they have requested will be released if it falls within the law. The member knows there are legal requirements that must be followed when publicly releasing personal or business information.

I would encourage the member to stop making unsubstantiated allegations and stop jumping to conclusions.

[Human Resources Development, May 5th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, there is a process for opposition members to access information they require.

Yesterday they told us that they had asked for this information through access to information, and I am confident that all the information they are requesting, that can be released within the law, will be released, as is the usual practice.

[Human Resources Development, May 5th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, we have given answers on this particular file probably 50 times in the House and the answer remains the same.

In order to call back funds we have to establish the existence of an overpayment. Our review of this file does not indicate that there was an overpayment. Therefore we cannot ask for the money back.

[Human Resources Development, May 5th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, on the contrary, this minister is leading the government into methods of modern comptrollership and transparency.

In this age of telecommunications, no one can hide anything and no one wants to hide anything. We have released 24 internal audits for the perusal of the opposition. Unfortunately the opposition always looks for only one part of those internal audits where certain things have been identified as being in need of improvement. The opposition never mentions any time an internal audit shows good practices, or best practices.

As usual, the way those members look at life, they harp on the negative.

[Human Resources Development, May 5th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the objective of the report was to identify potential risk areas in the management of the operation and maintenance funds and to review existing internal controls.

It is an interim report based on 15 interviews where people were asked to identify possible risk areas. This is part of the ongoing process of the department to ensure that we have adequate financial management processes in place.

[Oath Of Allegiance To The Flag Of Canada Act, May 3rd, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I must say that if the member opposite questions why we are still talking about it, we are still talking about it because the opposition members seem to be obsessed with it. That is why we are still talking about it. In addition to their wanting to talk about it, their motivation is probably because the newspapers are covering what they are saying about it. That is why we are still talking about it.

One journalist in particular has talked about the trivialization of the House of Commons with the persistence in talking about this single subject which the member insists on calling a scandal. Is it a scandal when in one of our programs we had 10,000 projects which probably interacted with about 100,000 people when we consider the boards of directors and other investors? In that particular project a year after the start-up of these businesses, 95% of them were still going ahead. That is a better rate than a bank. When a bank comes in with capital for a new business or an expansion, its success rate one year later is usually that only 77% of its projects are still alive.

I do not call it a scandal when the Government of Canada sponsors projects that have a better success rate than those sponsored by a bank. I think that is a darn good record.

As far as the Deloitte & Touche comment on the minister's six point plan to fix the problems at HRDC, one has to think about the order in which things happened. Officials of the department developed a plan and they presented it to Deloitte & Touche. Deloitte & Touche was hired to comment on the first draft of the plan, as was the auditor general. All the various players made comments.

Deloitte & Touche has not seen the revised plan because it was not hired to come back and comment on it. The hon. member is quoting from the first set of comments and neither he nor Deloitte & Touche really know whether in fact those suggestions were incorporated or not.

[Oath Of Allegiance To The Flag Of Canada Act, May 3rd, 2000]

Madam Speaker, the member opposite is throwing numbers around, which is leaving an inaccurate impression in the minds of those who are listening to or who will later read this debate. The $20 million she referred to is the sum total of all the investment in this project. It is investment that came from this government, from the provincial government, from private investors and from a chartered bank. Our share was by far a minority share.

Having said that, I must say that our priority is to help Canadians get back to work. That is why we supported the creation of about 291 jobs in an area with a 20% unemployment rate. We did that along with the Government of Nova Scotia. This was a good use of taxpayer dollars.

Obviously it is very unfortunate that the company ran into financial difficulties and had to declare bankruptcy, despite nearly everyone's best efforts and best will. One has to ask why this company ended up going bankrupt when it was off to such a good start. Is it perhaps because the member opposite has spoken so negatively about this project on many occasions in this House that some investor pulled his investment, or is it because a bank closed down a line of credit? Could that be it? Surely not. Or, could it be that the member spoke negatively about this project because the ideology of her party is against aquaculture which this project represented? I do not know.

I do know what the local paper said about it. On February 22 the Port Hawkesbury Reporter observed: “When our elected representative—”, that being the member opposite, “—openly condemns federal aid in this area, then it is time to ask that representative to step down. The families of those former fishermen are just as important as the families of miners. They do not deserve to have their representative trying to jeopardize their employment”. Their representative was successful in that attempt because that company is closed.

[Criminal Code, May 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, when the hon. member first asked his question in the House he referred to a specific grant. At that time the minister invited him to provide us with the details of the story he was telling. She promised to look into the matter and provide him with an adequate response. However he did not bring it forward.

I was not surprised because he is continuing on with the style of the party he represents. That involves presenting incomplete information and leaving innuendoes, giving Canadians the impression of wrongdoing on the part of the government.

One thing that is consistent is that members of that party never have any proof. When invited to bring forward information in order that an investigation can be launched, they never bring their information forward. This suggests to me that they want their accusations and their innuendoes to hang in the air, poisoning the trust of Canadians in their government, eroding the traditional bond of trust that has existed between Canadians and their government and is the basis of civilized behaviour in this country. This is irresponsible. If taken to the extreme, if Canadians believed these innuendoes, it could lead to social chaos.

Why would they be doing this? The reason is that they want Canadians not to have faith in sending their tax dollars to Ottawa. Why is that? It is because their rich friends want their taxes reduced. They want the government to have less money to provide the kinds of programs that HRDC provides so well to Canadians who do not have so much, Canadians who do not have jobs, Canadians with disabilities, unemployed Canadians.

We need tax dollars to provide those programs to give all Canadians the dignity of work and the dignity of a life that is as comfortable as most other Canadians have.

[Employment Insurance, April 14th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the employment insurance system was completely reviewed and revamped in 1996, only four short years ago. We have monitoring and assessment reports which monitor the progress and the adjustment of Canadians to this new system.

As far as discrimination against women under the new system, it seems rather strange to me because women's unemployment rate right now is at the lowest point in 15 years at 5.6%. Sixty-one per cent of all claims involving small weeks projects were made by women. Two-thirds of our new family supplement recipients were women. Women have done well by our reform.