House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2000, with 50% of the vote.
Government Contracts June 10th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, the government's reaction to the sponsorship programs scandal really confirmed that it was aware of these scandalous affairs and directly involved in them.
How can the Prime Minister explain that, instead of getting Canadians' money back, his government's first response was to meet with the firms involved that benefited from the system to warn them all to be careful in the future?
Main Estimates, 2002-03 June 6th, 2002
This is paired with his obsession to put his fellow citizens, Quebecers, in their place. This has led him to do all kinds of utterly irrational things. This has led him to all kinds of tantrums. This has led him to hire people who advised him in this way, and it has cost a fortune all for visibility. And, to come back to my dalmatian analogy, it has left him with a spotty record, spots that can be found in this sponsorship document that I have here.
I would therefore ask the Prime Minister and his advisers, particularly the President of the Treasury Board, who is here with us, to try to bring him back to reason, and to beg him to put an end to the wanton spending and the lavish meals and to try to think of the poor people who pay for all of this and who are having an increasingly difficult time bringing money home for themselves, to ensure they will have some dignity when they stop working.
Workers despair when they come home with almost nothing, when they bring home not even 45% of their salary, when 38 workers out of a hundred lose their jobs and end up collecting employment insurance. One hundred percent of workers pay employment insurance premiums, yet only 38% of them can collect benefits. The other 62 out of a hundred are ineligible for all sorts of mysterious reasons. The chances of being eligible for EI are slimmer than winning the lottery.
I know, Mr. Speaker, that you must remain neutral, and that you cannot comment on this. However, I can tell that you are looking at me and that you completely agree with my ideas.
Main Estimates, 2002-03 June 6th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, the Prime Minister has been in politics for forty years, and he has a lot of friends. It is this unfortunately that costs so much, namely, his friends, his friendships and his relations.
Indeed, the Prime Minister has been cut off for forty years from the day to day realities of the world of poverty. Even though he has long gone around with the reputation of being the little guy from Shawinigan, Shawinigan lost sight of him long ago. He has made tracks and moved into the big time. He has no idea of the difficulties faced by today's workers in a world of high performance, where you have to perform and where competition is the watchword. Any job you start has to be done quickly and perfectly. Some people suffer under this. Some businesses do too. They cannot keep up. So they close. These facts seem totally foreign to the Prime Minister, who has been out of touch with the people for forty years.
Main Estimates, 2002-03 June 6th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, I understand that a government needs a budget to operate. That is perfectly logical and to be expected. We have no objection to that.
We do object to the fact that this government never cut its own operations, costs or spending to the same extent it cut among the poor, the sick, the aged, poor children, in fact all children, and families. This is where the problem lies.
Had the government wanted to set an example and cut its own spending and splendour as it cut among the poor, we would be more inclined to have faith in it and say “You took the right approach, perhaps, to achieve your objectives, which we do not necessarily share”.
Instead, it continued to eat butter by the fistful while it dished out misery to the poor. This is what we criticize. If it wants a fine political career, it is going to have to get these principles into its head. It cannot go on abusing people indefinitely.
At some point, logic and principles are required. And the principles are that you do not do to others what you would not want done to you, and that you do not cut for others what you would not cut for yourself.
If they are guided by this logic, I am prepared to do my bit and say that they have some credibility, but that is a long way off.
Main Estimates, 2002-03 June 6th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, I did not really understand his question. I think it was actually a statement. I will try to respond to it in any case.
This country's budget is currently $172 billion. This is what is projected for spending, in the big documents beside him. This has not decreased since 1993. I remember in 1994, this government's first budget, by the minister who will reappear tonight, was in the order of $160 billion.
This is not centuries ago. This was in late February of 1994. The total budget was $158 billion, $159 billion, $160 billion. It hit $172 billion. It has not decreased, it has increased.
Government spending has always increased, except that the public service was cut. They cut where it hurts: the poor, the penniless, the children, the sick and seniors. This is what the government does well.
Main Estimates, 2002-03 June 6th, 2002
I too would have a beautiful cottage and I would let the minister stay there, even the minister of intergovernmental affairs, if he wanted.
We are going to say no to this $101million increase, because we find it obscene.
Main Estimates, 2002-03 June 6th, 2002
Yes, that is what it is.
The government is making cuts in the health sector, in transfer payments for education, health and social assistance. It is easy to pay down its deficit. Actually, all they have to do is stop paying the invoices or have them paid by the poor or by others. It is easy, just as it is easy to become rich.
People call themselves good businessmen nowadays, and say that they have made it. If the Canada Information Office and the sponsorship system threw a million odd in my pocket every day, and I did not have to lift a finger, or do a stick of work, I might be a financial success.
Main Estimates, 2002-03 June 6th, 2002
All this for a grand total of $544,087.
And there are single mothers; there are 1.5 million children living in poverty in Canada. The Prime Minister does not only have feathers to put in his cap, he has spots. Spots like my dalmatians, and this is one very spotty record. One and a half million poor children in Canada, for several years now, as we have noted. Small children who go to school on an empty stomach.
The Prime Minister should look after people and not behave like some sort of ethereal monarch who transcends a nation, not to say the world. He should have a bit of compassion and pity for the poor, for those less able to cope than he, for the sick, for those less talented than he is at making politics work for him and building a career as he has done all his life at the expense of taxpayers and of the less fortunate, who sometimes move a little more slowly, because we are not all race horses.
He has no pity for these people. One might even say the Prime Minister detests them. He must not like them very much to have the nerve to come to us this evening asking for a $101 million increase in the Treasury Board budgets. If only he would put this money to good use.
I saw the minister of intergovernmental affairs. He looked ridiculous not so long ago at the Standing Joint Committee on Official Languages. He promised us a plan for bilingualism in Canada, a plan to restore the official languages, using the Treasury Board's budgets; he has still not delivered anything. He has done nothing so far. He is sidestepping the issue and he does not seem any closer to producing anything.
We are talking about $101 million to throw into the kitty so that the Prime Minister can parade around like the cock of the walk, grandstanding all over the place. What he is doing is exploiting the poor, exploiting Canadians, exploiting workers who work their fingers to the bone just to bring not even half their pay home.
Main Estimates, 2002-03 June 6th, 2002
It takes quite a lot of nerve to do that. First of all, it was not a sponsorship. Besides, a $66,000 commission was paid to a company that did not do the job it was paid to do.
To compare this situation with something that people will readily understand, say I buy a car. The dealer does not deliver it, although I have paid for it. What is more, I have paid him 12% as a reward for his excellent service. That is what happened in this instance.
Another thing has come out today. The RCMP is the state police. The Mounties are paid by the state. Their pay comes from the government, from a fund set aside for public service salaries, for RCMP employees. Their 125th anniversary came along and they wanted to celebrate it in a big way. I cannot fault them for wanting to celebrate 125 years, it only comes around once, and is good for Canada's image. We are all familiar with the sight of a Mountie standing beside his black horse, its reins in his hand, a Mountie wearing wide riding breeches, tall boots, gloves and his hat, holding a lance with a little flag on it. We have no objections to that.
But it would have been just too simple to say “Here is $1,168,000. Have a great party”. A middleman was involved, one who had no need to be there. He got the $1,168,000 to pass on to the RCMP. He took his cut. He was entitled to 12% of the $1,168,000, which comes to about $130,000.
The Prime Minister could have made cuts there. He would not be forced to come to us today for another $101 million. He should take a look at this big document. It is appalling all of the scandals in here. Just in here alone, he could find the $101 million. The $101 million that he is asking for tonight is all in here. He did not think to cut these expenditures. It is not is style. His style is cutting from others, no cutting from his own needs and lowering his own expectations.
There are countless examples: amounts of $289,000 or of $550,000. There is one entry for $293,000 for Chicoutimi's outdoor expo. The people who went to this expo packed up their folding panels, put them in a trailer and set it up in Chicoutimi for $273,913. Then they packed up the trailer again and drove across to Rimouski, and that cost $293,478. Then they went to Shawinigan and that too cost us a pretty penny. Then they visited the Quebec City agricultural fair for $273,913.
If we were to look at this whole document, we would see that it is appalling. It is appalling and sad.
Yesterday, or today, there was talk of a CD-ROM. A CD-ROM was published for $125,000; we never did learn the name of the client, they refused to tell us. Yet, this is public money.
One hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars was paid for a CD-ROM and 12%, or $15,000, went to Groupaction. Unfortunately, the same name crops up. That is what is says here. Then, $3,750 was paid for the person who cut the cheque for $125,000; $80,237 for who knows what--it says subcontract; $319,000 in professional services for a grant of $125,000
Then, someone had the nerve to charge $525 for Lord knows what--other costs. Nobody does anything for free here. On top of that, they have the gall to charge $80 for travel.
Main Estimates, 2002-03 June 6th, 2002
The dalmatians' spots. This is where they originate.
I have the pile here, but it is not complete. It stops at May 8. Since May 8, there have been several more scandals. But I found so many scandals up to May 8 that I am not worried about finding more later, when I have had a chance to get the rest of the material, the up-to-date budget. I will find some for sure, because it is crawling with them.
I will focus on one of the spots. We all know that a certain company apparently did a project for the Canadian government, drafted a report, and charged $550,000 for it. That report was never found, absolutely never found. We have seen what effect that had. The auditor general got involved, and could not turn it up either. She found this worrisome and passed the file on to the RCMP. Her reaction was “We seem to have been duped here. We paid $550,000 for a service that was never rendered. We never received anything for our $550,000. To put it succinctly, the work was never done”.