Jean-Guy Chrétien

[Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act, December 12th, 1996]

moved:

Motion No. 24

That Bill C-60, in Clause 22, be amended by replacing lines 4 to 8 on page 7 with the following:

"corporate business plan, for study, to such committee of the House of Commons as is designated or established to consider agricultural matters for study by that committee.

(1.1) After studying the corporate business plan, the committee referred to in subsection (1) shall either approve or reject the plan.

(1.2) Where the corporate business plan is approved, the committee shall advise the Minister of the approval and the Minister shall table a copy of the plan in the House of Commons for approval by that House on any of the first fifteen days on which that House is sitting after the Minister is advised of the committee's approval.

(1.3) Where a corporate business plan is laid before the House of Commons under subsection (1.2) and rejected by that House, the Agency shall not implement that plan."

Motion No. 25

That Bill C-60, in Clause 22, be amended by adding after line 8 on page 7 the following:

"(1.1) Before submitting its plan to the minister, the Agency shall consult a ) any person from the agriculture, fisheries, food processing, food distribution and public health sectors whom the Agency considers appropriate to consult; b ) any government of a province that has advised, in writing, the Agency of its wish to be consulted; and c ) the unions representing some or all of the employees of the Agency.''

Motion No. 26

That Bill C-60, in Clause 23, be amended by replacing line 40 on page 7 with the following:

"detailed statement of the assessment by"

[Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act, December 12th, 1996]

moved:

Motion No. 19

That Bill C-60, in Clause 16, be amended by replacing lines 30 to 34 on page 5 with the following:

"16. Notwithstanding section 9 of the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act, the Agency may, with the approval of the Minister,"

Motion No. 20

That Bill C-60 be amended by adding after line 37 on page 5 the following new Clause:

"16.1 (1) Notwithstanding section 16, the Agency shall not procure goods and services, including legal services, from outside the public service of Canada unless the Agency has satisfied itself that such goods and services are not available within the public service of Canada.

(2) Notwithstanding section 16, where goods and services, including legal services, are to be procured from outside the public service of Canada, the Agency shall, before procuring those services, call for bids for those services from the private sector."

[Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act, December 12th, 1996]

moved:

Motion No. 14

That Bill C-60, in Clause 12, be amended by replacing lines 28 and 29 on page 4 with the following:

"12. Notwithstanding that the Agency is a separate employer under the Public Service Staff Relations Act, a ) section 7 and subsection 69(3) of that Act do not apply to the Agency; and b ) for the purposes of paragraph 92(1)(b) of that Act, the Agency is deemed to be designated pursuant to subsection 92(4) of that Act. ''

Motion No. 15

That Bill C-60, in Clause 12, be amended by replacing lines 28 and 29 on page 4 with the following:

"12. The Agency is deemed to be included in the definition of "federal undertaking" in section 2 of the Canada Labour Code and that Act applies, with such modifications as the circumstances require, to the Agency and its employees."

Motion No. 16

That Bill C-60, in Clause 13, be amended by replacing lines 30 to 34 on page 4 with the following:

"13. The employees of the Agency shall be appointed pursuant to the Public Service Employment Act."

Motion No. 17

That Bill C-60, in Clause 13, be amended by replacing lines 30 and 31 on page 4 with the following:

"13.(1) Subject to paragraph 12(a), the President has the authority to appoint the employees of the Agency."

Motion No. 18

That Bill C-60, in Clause 13, be amended by adding after line 31 on page 4 the following:

"(1.1) One year after the Agency is established, the President shall provide, for study, to such committee of the House of Commons as is designated or established to consider agricultural matters, a detailed report respecting the criteria used in making appointments under subsection (1)."

Motion No. 36

That Bill C-60, in Clause 93, be amended by replacing lines 23 to 27 on page 29 with the following:

"93. (1) Subject to subsection (2), this Act, or any provision of this Act, or any provision of any Act enacted or amended by this Act, comes into force on a day or days to be fixed by order of the Governor in Council.

(2) The Governor in Council shall not make the order referred to in subsection (1) unless it has been advised by the Minister that the Minister has prepared a Code of Conduct and Ethics to govern the appointment of employees by the Agency."

[Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act, December 12th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I was not consulted.

[Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act, December 12th, 1996]

moved:

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-60, in Clause 5, be amended by a ) replacing line 20 on page 2 with the following:

"5. (1) Subject to subsection (2), the Governor in Council shall appoint a" b ) adding after line 24 on page 2 the following:

"(2) The Governor in Council shall ensure that persons appointed to the positions referred to in subsection (1) have a comprehensive knowledge and a broad experience of the areas dealt with by the Agency."

Motion No. 4

That Bill C-60, in Clause 5, be amended by replacing line 24 on page 2 with the following:

"may be renewed for one further term."

Motion No. 6

That Bill C-60, in Clause 10, be amended by adding after line 11 on page 3 the following:

"(1.1) Notwithstanding subsection (1), no person may be appointed by the Minister to an advisory board unless that person has been recommended for such appointment pursuant to subsection (1.3).

(1.2) Such committee of the House of Commons as is designated or established to consider agricultural matters shall invite each province and the organizations in that province representing agricultural interests to submit to the committee the names of candidates residing in that province for appointment to an advisory board.

(1.3) Subject to subsection (1.1), the committee referred to in subsection (1.2) shall, for the purposes of subsection (1), recommend from among the candidates the persons it deems most suitable to be appointed to the advisory board.

(1.4) The committee shall recommend persons under subsection (1.2) from each province and the percentage of candidates recommended from a province shall be equal to the percentage that the population of that province represents of the total population of Canada."

Motion No. 7

That Bill C-60, in Clause 10, be amended by replacing line 14 on page 3 with the following:

"Agency that such committee of the House of Commons as is designated or established to consider agricultural matters submits to it."

Motion No. 8

That Bill C-60, in Clause 10, be amended by adding after line 14 on page 3 the following:

"(2.1) On any matter within the responsibilities of the Agency, the board may advise a ) a provincial government; b ) a union representing some or all of the employees of the Agency; and c ) a person from the agriculture, fisheries, food processing, food distribution and public health sectors.''

Motion No. 9

That Bill C-60, in Clause 10, be amended by deleting lines 15 to 21 on page 3.

Motion No. 10

That Bill C-60, in Clause 10, be amended by adding after line 21 on page 3 the following:

"(3.1) The Minister shall appoint at least one representative of a union representing some or all of the employees of the Agency to the board."

Motion No. 11

That Bill C-60, in Clause 10, be amended by replacing lines 22 to 24 on page 3 with the following:

"(4) The Minister shall appoint as Chairperson of the advisory board the person recommended for that position pursuant to subsection (4.1).

(4.1) Such committee of the House of Commons as is designated or established to consider agricultural matters shall, for the purposes of subsection (4), recommend the member of the advisory board that it deems most suitable as Chairperson of the board."

Motion No. 12

That Bill C-60, in Clause 10, be amended by replacing line 27 on page 3 with the following:

"pursuant to the recommendation made under subsection (5.1).

(5.1) Such committee of the House of Commons as is designated or established to consider agricultural matters shall, for the purposes of subsection (5), recommend the amount that each member of the advisory board shall be paid as fees for his or her services."

Motion No. 21

That Bill C-60 be amended by adding after line 44 on page 5 the following new Clause:

"17.1 The Agency shall, once every year, provide to such committee of the House of Commons as is designated or established to consider agricultural matters a detailed report respecting all actions taken in that year by the Agency in the exercise of its powers under section 17."

Madam Speaker, again, these motions are well grouped. Motions Nos. 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 21 are amendments proposed by my colleague, the hon. member for Lotbinière.

The reason the Bloc Quebecois is trying hard to improve Bill C-60 is because of the serious risk of patronage. From 1984 to 1993, another party was in office and some people would literally wake up at night despising the Prime Minister of the time, because they were so fed up with his politics of patronage.

The party that took over from the Mulroney government does not fare much better in this respect. This is serious, as you are well aware. The government, through the governor in council, will appoint the president for a term of five years which may be renewed, and also the executive vice-president. There will be an advisory board of not more than 12 members, who will also be appointed by the governor in council.

What is even worse is that the regulations governing employment in the public service will be suspended for an indeterminate period of time. This means anyone can be hired, whether it is an uncle, an aunt, a nephew, a niece, a brother-in-law, a mother-in-law, a sister-in-law, the niece's friend, the sister-in-law's nephew, even the grandfather, if he still young enough to go to work. This is a serious matter. We are talking about an indeterminate period of time which could be six months, a year, two years, whatever. I have no doubt that the executive vice-president and the president will all be good friends, good Liberals.

These people will appoint employees of the new food inspection agency in a fashion similar to that of the government. We raised this issue during question period. The director general of the space agency, which is located in Longueuil, or Saint-Hubert, lives in Ottawa and refuses to move. So, the government pays $1,300 a month to house him in a luxurious rental unit. Is it a frient of the government who is enjoying all this? Of course.

Look at the recent wave of appointments in our ridings. Our new returning officer in my riding is a well-known Liberal. The fact that he is a Liberal does not make him incompetent, but, by the same token, one need not be a Liberal to be qualified.

This retired gentleman was appointed, while we have young men and young women looking for work. They are very competent, but they do not have a job and have to rely on either unemployment or welfare benefits. This government has appointed in my riding a man who is drawing a good pension. Why not have given the job to a competent young person?

In my riding, the employment or unemployment insurance-we are not quite sure what word to use any more-board of referees is chaired by a notary who happens to be the daughter of a former Liberal member.

When representatives of the farm debt review board appeared before us at the agriculture committee, I was the only one to ask them: "Who do you have to thank for your appointment?" Jean-Yves, the representative from Quebec-he is from the St-Hyacinthe area-made it quite clear that he had his political affiliation to thank for it. And what affiliation is that? Liberal. In the greater Eastern Townships region, the same Jean-Yves has managed to win the nomination as Liberal candidate for the riding of Richmond-Wolfe in the upcoming election. He managed to get himself nominated.

Are we going to give the Liberal Party of Canada a blank cheque to waive the public service hiring procedures for an indeterminate period so that the new food inspection agency can become a patronage haven? Never. We will condemn this measure with all our might.

The fact that a person is a Liberal does not make that person competent. The name of Jean Bienvenue comes to mind; he was the minister of education in Quebec under Robert Bourassa. Guess what his political affiliation was. He was appointed superior court judge in Quebec. The fact that he was a Liberal did not make him a

competent judge. He was appointed by the Liberals, not the Conservatives.

We have proposed countless amendments to improve on Bill C-60, so that the people of Canada could have a reliable food inspection agency built on a solid foundation. To have a solid foundation, the best qualified people must be hired.

One of these amendments suggests that the education and experience of the president and the vice-president should match the agency's management and service delivery requirements. Qualified people should be hired. Chances are the government party will vote against that to protect themselves, because they do not want to have their hands tied, they want to be able to appoint whoever they please.

By ensuring that the president and executive vice-president of the agency have a comprehensive knowledge and a broad experience of the areas dealt with by the agency, we would minimize the risk of seeing one or more unqualified person appointed to these positions, as was the case of Justice Bienvenue, to whom I referred earlier.

We are proposing that the president be appointed for a term of five years and, if he does an excellent job, he could be appointed for one, but only one, more term of five years. After ten years in a position, I would say he would have given all that he can give, and that is enough. I bet our friends opposite will vote against that too. What they want is to be able to appoint the members of the new agency for life, like the senators.

I urge our Liberal colleagues to consider carefully what they want to do. If they want this agency to be above suspicion, it has to be as free of patronage as possible.

[Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act, December 12th, 1996]

moved:

Motion No. 5

That Bill C-60, in Clause 9, be amended by replacing lines 4 to 6 on page 3 with the following:

"9. (1) The Governor in Council shall, by order, direct that the head office of the Agency be in the location in Canada recommended by the committee referred to in section 9.1.

(2) The Governor in Council may, by order, direct that the head office of the agency be in a location other than the one recommended pursuant to section 9.1 but shall not make any such order unless a ) the Governor in Council has provided the committee referred to in section 9.2 with all the reasons for such a change; and b ) the committee has approved the change.

9.1 Such committee of the House of Commons as is designated or established to consider agricultural matters shall recommend, for the purposes of section 9, the location in Canada of the head office of the Agency .

9.2 Such committee of the House of Commons as is designated or established to consider agricultural matters shall, after studying the reasons for the change provided to the committee pursuant to paragraph 9(2)( a ), either approve or refuse to approve, for the purposes of subsection 9(2), any change in the location of the head office of the Agency.''

Madam Speaker, clause 9 is very simple and almost laconic. It provides that:

The head office of the Agency shall be in the National Capital Region, as described in the schedule to the National Capital Act .

The senior officials we met last September 26 have drawn to our attention the fact that tomorrow morning, six months or two years from now, after a change of government, a new agriculture minister could, by order, to ease his conscience and continue to indulge in patronage, have the agency moved to his riding. Of course, we want to shield our fellow Canadian citizens from any potential abuse in that regard.

Let us remember that it can be done through a simple order in council. Why should the head office of the agency move year after year? The Liberal government, already in power for over three years, is very patronage-minded. It could eventually move agencies from one city to another, and that can be very costly.

Our amendment proposes to involve the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. It suggests two things. First, the location of the head office of the agency would be reviewed and decided by the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, and not only through an order in council.

This would make the process much more open and at the same time revitalize the role of House of Commons committees that, in fact, do not do much except execute orders coming from above, in this case, from the minister himself.

Once the head office is located somewhere, a future move is always possible or could become necessary 30 or 40 years down the road. To govern is to foresee, and people in the government should be smart enough to expect that the head office of the agency will not be moved 3 or 4 years from now. But who knows? That could happen, as in the case of the House of Commons, which moved from Montreal over a century ago. You may remember that, according to our history books, the Parliament Buildings were set on fire following a minor rebellion and, in its wisdom, the government of the day decided to move Parliament to another province, Ontario.

The second objective is that the future relocation of the agency's headquarters be subject to an in-depth review of the need for such a relocation and that the new site be approved by the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.

Relocating the agency's headquarters, with all this decision would imply-asking the employees and their families to move, moving the office furniture, renting space in another city, etc.-is out of the question without first having carried out a review of the reasons behind this decision. Of course, if it is a patronage decision, an irrational decision, then the committee, after hearing a lot of witnesses, would submit its recommendation to Parliament.

Changing topics, there is no need I guess to ask that the agency's headquarters, if they are to be established in the national capital region, be located in Quebec. When we go over the estimates for the Department of Agriculture, for instance, we see that, year after year, around 11 per cent of the departmental budget is spent in Quebec.

Let me remind the House that Quebecers represent close to 25 per cent of the overall population and pay over 23 p. 100 of the taxes collected in Canada. However, barely 11 per cent of the agriculture department's budget goes to Quebec.

I approached the minister of agriculture to tell him that it averages 11 per cent, although there were times when it dropped to 9 per cent and other times when it reached 13 and 14 per cent, but on average it is 11 per cent. So, how could he explain why his department is only investing 11 per cent in Quebec? Well, he said: "It is easy to understand, dear hon. member for Frontenac. There are a lot of infrastructures in the nation's capital, in Ottawa, offices and such. The nation's capital can almost be considered as being a part of the province of Quebec". Are there so many people living in Quebec but working in Ontario? Could be. But not enough to make up for the difference and reach 23 per cent, which would only be fair in our view.

So, if it is true that everything done in Ottawa could be considered as being done in Quebec, would it not be possible to establish the new agency in Quebec, since it is expected to open up in the national capital region? Set on the river bank, it could lean towards Ontario, a bit like the leaning tower of Pisa. In New Brunswick, not much leans this way, since it would have to reach over Quebec.

Would my colleague, the parliamentary secretary, who sits with me on the standing committee on agriculture, be ready to rise now in this place and to say: "Dear hon. member for Frontenac, we will give you something today: we will establish the head office of the agency in Quebec"?

As you can see, clause 9 provides that the head office of the agency shall be in the national capital region. I bet you $20 to $1 that it will be in Hull. I am being generous, I bet you $20 to $1 that it will be in Hull. However, I am almost sure I will lose. It does not matter. I am willing to take the risk that you make $20 on an outlay of $1, just so that you can see the major injustice being done to Quebec once again.

The head office of the agency will be the reflection and the heart of the agency. It is estimated that some 4,500 jobs will be directly created by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Of course, all 4,500 jobs will not be at the head office but easily 800 to 900 of them will be. This is very significant. Readjustments will have to be made within three departments.

Without further delay, I challenge the parliamentary secretary who could make you win $20, Madam Speaker. I challenge him to rise now and for once to make a decision not in favour of Quebec but a fair decision for all of Canada, that is, that the head office be located on the other side of the Ottawa River, in Hull, Gatineau or somewhere in the area.

I thank you, Madam Speaker, and I look forward to the parliamentary secretary's answer.

[Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act, December 12th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, since you have done such a nice job of reading the amendments, which we introduced this morning with the help of my colleague, the member for Lotbinière, and since you have grouped the motions, including Motions No. 1, 13, 22 and 23, in Group 3, you will note that they refer essentially to the federal government's intention of interfering in an area of provincial jurisdiction. Naturally, we must condemn this vigorously throughout this 35th Parliament, since this government takes advantage of its vast spending authority to blunder into areas of jurisdiction that, in many cases, are strictly the preserve of the provinces.

I am pleased to lead off the debate at report stage of Bill C-60. Through this legislative measure, the federal government is getting ready to create the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

The basic responsibility of this new parapublic agency will be to set standards for the safety, quality and manufacture of Canadian food products, as well as to develop minimum standards for imported products. This is obviously a very weighty responsibility for the government, and I am not in any way questioning the good intentions of the departments involved or their concern for public health.

However, I would like to remind the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and the cabinet generally that their policies are hardly original.

I would point out that Quebec has had unified food inspection services for close to 20 years, yes, a 20-year head start on Canada. The federal government has wasted 20 years meddling in provincial jurisdictions in an attempt to get a glimpse of what they were up to so that it could then turn around and adopt the same strategies.

In terms of results, it would be hard to think of a worse approach, but then this is typical of this country: going over old ground, rewriting existing legislation, and changing the commas in order to be able to call it something new. Finally, let us return to the initial point of my speech, instead of launching into a stinging criticism of the state of this over-bureaucratized country.

As I was saying before, the purpose of Bill C-60 is to establish the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Although this agency comes under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, it will consolidate the inspection services of two other major departments: Health and Fisheries. This leads me to believe that the federal government has studied the Quebec model thoroughly, for the bill provides for essentially the same bodies as in the Quebec government's system.

But the worst is yet to come. In its bill, the government calls for the agency, once created, to take precedence over all other food inspection systems. I find this federal attitude more than a little insolent.

I would like to draw the attention of the minister and his cabinet colleagues to a concept that is very simple, but ever so hard for the federalists to grasp: interference. This is a gift possessed by certain categories of people, particularly those elected members who belong to a federalist party, to duplicate, and even to deny the existence of, Quebec's distinctiveness in administrative and other matters.

Parliamentary rules prevent me from naming these individuals who are such past masters of the art of denying Quebec its fundamental right to affirm its identity and its distinctiveness. I cannot name names, but I can assure you that there are so many of them in this House, that they take up more than one side of it.

We in the Bloc Quebecois believe that the government is showing its arrogance toward Quebec and the other provinces by attempting, in the preamble of this bill, to assume a certain legitimate right over provincial activities.

In this connection, our amendment is aimed at limiting the impact of such an element, which would have the effect of dismissing all of Quebec's demands in one fell swoop. For decades, the provinces, Quebec in particular, have been objecting to the federal government's attempts to restrict some of the provinces' vested powers, and even to grab up those powers, without any consideration of the provinces' constitutional jurisdiction in these spheres of activity.

The federal government is increasingly moving to centralize powers, while continuing to claim that it is doing the contrary, in order to downplay its illegitimate actions. Such cavalier interference into areas of provincial jurisdiction cannot help but slow down the constructive discourse that could be initiated between the provinces and the federal government. The Liberal Party, with its eye on the next election, is in the process of undermining the credibility of the agency in question. According to Liberal logic, the agency could control all food inspection services in the country by developing national standards. To us this is unacceptable, because it considerably restricts the ability of the provinces to establish and administer their own set of standards.

The provinces would otherwise be free to decide whether or not they wished to go along with certain food safety standards that are more a matter of local custom than public health. Perhaps I may recall what happened last spring, when the Bloc Quebecois protested against the decision of the Minister of Health to prohibit and indeed ban consumption of raw milk cheese.

You will recall that Quebec is by far the biggest consumer of this kind of cheese. In the other provinces where this kind of cheese is eaten, consumers are mostly former Quebecers or people who have been to Quebec and who appreciate this type of cheese. This is one example of eating habits in Quebec that are different from those in other parts of Canada.

At the Department of Health, people were thinking about all this, and probably because they had nothing else to do and had to justify their pay cheque, they said: "From now on, no more raw milk cheese will be imported or manufactured; cheese will have to be made with pasteurized milk". Of course there was a howl of protest from the official opposition, supported by consumers. I remember that someone put a question about this to the Minister of Labour, whose roots are Italian. I cannot refer to him by name, but he is a fellow citizen, formerly from Italy. When he saw he would no longer be able to get his favourite cheese, he said: "Oh dear, I will have to talk about this to my minister, because she is making a serious mistake". See, that is a good example.

In the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area, they make a kind of tourtière called cipâte, made with partridge and hare. It is a local specialty. Tomorrow morning, an inspector with the new agency might say: "Cipâte is no good; it might be dangerous to the health of the people of Lac-Saint-Jean. So there will be a nation-wide ban on making tourtières with hare and partridge".

I realize you are going to say I am exaggerating. Eighteen months ago, who would have thought that a few senior officials at the Department of health would consider banning the consumption of the best cheese in Canada? But it happened.

Without the media coverage, the government would never have backed down under pressure from the Bloc Quebecois. Not that the Bloc was incapable of doing a good job as the official opposition, but because the government, although this is a constitutional monarchy, often behaves like an autocratic and totalitarian government. It prefers to ignore the public interest and support the interests of the major lobby groups, while maintaining an illusion of power based on order and the public good.

In concluding, Bill C-60 is an important bill that will affect three departments. We in the Bloc Quebecois found a number of weak points in Bill C-60.

We intend to introduce more than 35 amendments in the course of the day, and my colleagues and I will do everything we can to try and make the Liberal majority think twice. I know that several people on the government benches think our amendments are very constructive and could improve the bill considerably. The purpose of the first group of amendments is simply to prevent the federal government from infringing on provincial jurisdictions.

[Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act, December 12th, 1996]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-60, in the preamble, be amended by adding after line 21 on page 1 the following:

"AND WHEREAS the Government of Canada promises to respect the legislative authority of the provinces;"

Motion No. 13

That Bill C-60, in Clause 11, be amended by adding after line 27 on page 4 the following:

"(4.1) Notwithstanding subsection (4), where the Minister proposes to establish any policy or standard under that subsection, the Minister shall consult each province before establishing that policy or standard with a view to obtaining the agreement of the provinces to the proposed policy or standard.

(4.2) Where, after being consulted under subsection (4.1), a province advises the Minister that it disagrees with the proposed policy or standard and the Minister then establishes that policy or standard, the policy or standard shall not be applicable to the province where the province also advises the Minister that it does not wish that policy or standard to apply to the province."

Motion No. 22

That Bill C-60, in Clause 20, be amended by replacing lines 28 to 30 on page 6 with the following:

"20. The Minister may enter"

Motion No. 23

That Bill C-60 be amended by adding after line 35 on page 6 the following new Clause:

"20.1 No agreement entered into by the Minister under section 20 shall infringe upon any power that the province may exercise over the inspection of food or a related matter pursuant to section 92 of the Constitution Act, 1867."

[Petitions, December 11th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I have the honour to present four petitions by voters in my riding of Frontenac.

The petitioners are asking the government to undertake proceedings to abolish the Senate as soon as possible. I fully support their request and I encourage the government to give serious thought to

this progressive measure, which will mean an annual saving of over $43 million. Candu=wordwatch

[Canada Post, December 11th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, Canada Post has given Profac responsibility for managing the renovation and replacement of its buildings in a territory that extends from Windsor in Ontario to Halifax.

Not long ago, after a call for tenders in which three companies were asked to bid, Profac awarded the contract for repairs to windows in the Thetford Mines post office to a firm in Ontario.

Profac offers its services as a contractor and then works on the principle of contracting out. Since we are talking about public moneys, it would be normal for the exact value of the contracts awarded to Profac to be made public. More transparency is certainly needed in the process of awarding contracts for the crown corporation.

We think it is too bad that calls for tender are not open to the public, because this system would encourage local businesses and promote growth and development in the regions. It is clear that Canada Post is creating some controversy about its current management methods.