Art Eggleton

[Government Contracts, June 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would think the hon. member would be very happy that Moose Jaw is being saved by this particular project.

In fact, the Bombardier contract is part of a consortium that has delivered service to us already in Portage le Prairie, another community well served by the pilot training program. We were able to get this particular program because we were able to move fast within the NATO deadlines and we were able to provide a contract that will save the Canadian taxpayers $200 million over 20 years.

[National Defence, June 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, we have an independent unit, the national investigation service headed by Colonel Patricia Samson which in fact is independent of the operational chain of command. Furthermore an ombudsman will shortly be appointed that is totally outside the chain of command and reports to the Minister of National Defence.

This and many other safeguards in fact are in place or are being put in place to make sure our policy of zero tolerance is implemented. The hon. member of the opposition would rather we get rid of the victims. We would rather get rid of the perpetrators.

[National Defence, June 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, wherever this information has been known it has of course been treated quite seriously. Not all of these cases were known.

As I pointed out before in this House the national investigation service was only established last fall to deal with these kinds of investigations independent of the operational chain of command. We have also put harassment advisers in place. We are about to put an ombudsman in place. We are in fact improving the mechanisms and the training to make sure we can back up our zero tolerance policy and to change the culture which is necessary to do to ensure that this does not happen again.

[National Defence, June 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the leader of the New Democratic Party has it all wrong. Most of the cases I cited, most of the cases in Maclean's , were investigated by civilian police and tried in civilian courts in Canada.

[National Defence, June 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, absolutely not. Provost Marshal Col. Patricia Samson today announced that of the 26 cases covered by the Maclean's magazine article, 2 will be reopened, 6 will require further review, 15 are considered new allegations and will be investigated, and 3 were determined to have been conducted thoroughly and therefore no further action is required.

We are taking action on this. We have put in place the mechanisms. We put in place the training to make sure we show support for our policy of zero tolerance.

[Government Contracts, June 3rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, in fact NATO extended the deadline. But NATO clearly indicated that it would have to know from us by June 1996 whether or not we were going to be in a position to provide this training facility. Otherwise it would have looked at alternatives. We had to move very quickly to make sure that we could provide this service.

Are there foreign customers? At this point in time none have signed. However, a lot of interest has been expressed.

Let me tell members that all of the risk will be in the private sector. All of the risk will be borne by the consortium.

[Government Contracts, June 3rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my department wrote to the Reform Party on March 24 of this year and offered it access to every document involved in this whole endeavour. What was its response? Silence. Absolute silence. Reform members were not interested at all in looking at the details of this arrangement, which will create jobs in western Canada, jobs which they are now willing to give up. There are over 5,000 person years in jobs. Ninety per cent of them will be in western Canada. The base in Moose Jaw will be saved.

[Government Contracts, June 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it would be interesting to see if the hon. member wants to repeat that outside the House because there was no violation of the conflict of interest code. All those things are watched very closely.

This is a good deal for Canadians. It saves $200 million over 20 years. There was no other consortium of companies that would likely put a project of this magnitude together. We had a time deadline in which to get this in to NATO. A decision had to be made or we would have lost Moose Jaw. We would have lost over 5,000 person years of employment in western Canada.

[Government Contracts, June 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it has been said time and time again that there were no rules broken. This was handled in the proper fashion. As for the former air chief, all of the rules with respect to conflict of interest were followed. There was no lobbying done by that individual anywhere within the period of time.

Furthermore, this decision was taken about two years ago. In fact earlier this year the Reform Party had every opportunity to look at the records. It was offered to Reform members and they refused to do that. Instead they want to get up today and smear what is a very good deal that creates a lot of jobs in western Canada and saves the base—

[Communications Security Establishment, June 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 32(1) I have the honour to table, in both official languages, copies of the annual report of the Communications Security Establishment commissioner.