Jean-Paul Marchand

[Department Of Agriculture Act, October 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I, too, would like to support the hon. member's motion calling for the annual report on agriculture to be submitted to Parliament. I think that this practice is totally appropriate and should be maintained.

Of course, part III of the Estimates on agriculture may contain data which is repeated in the annual report, but the information in the annual report is more detailed and more accessible to the people concerned by agricultural issues. It is an additional tool available to those who wish to know more about economic agricultural issues.

So I think it is quite appropriate to continue publishing the annual report, especially for this department with rather significant expenditures. This desire to stop issuing the annual report on agriculture reminds me of how reluctant this Liberal government is to show openness. An example of this can be found in the Department of Public Works where it is very difficult to access information. Of course, the minister will tell us that the information exists, that it is published somewhere, but it is very difficult to access it.

I also fear that this desire to stop publishing the Department of Agriculture's annual report is somewhat consistent with this government's lack of openness. I think that all the actions taken by the government to make information more accessible to the general public and the stakeholders must not be seen as a waste of money.

In conclusion, I think that the government should continue publishing its annual report on the Department of Agriculture.

[Department Of Public Works And Government Services Act, October 5th, 1994]

It most certainly is, because that is the problem. The problem now with Canada and the federal government is the $533 billion debt and the $40 billion or so deficit. We must control expenses and reduce waste. This is the basic thing to do. This is another example showing that the minister of public works do not wish to do anything in order to get his department in order and curb all the waste and patronage. We would be willing to cooperate, if only we had the proper information. We could work with this department to identify the areas where there is patronage and waste. While government clearly stated it was in favour of transparency, there is none in this bill.

[Department Of Public Works And Government Services Act, October 5th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am also very surprised to see the hon. member for Outremont praise Bill C-52. He might think we are progressing, but it seems to me we are not moving very fast. If this is a sign of federalism being profitable, I feel it is being sort of a slowcoach.

It is more than obvious that the public works department is a total failure in terms of openness. It is very difficult to obtain information from the minister. We asked over and over again for information on contracts awarded in our ridings, which is something quite basic I think.

Given all the waste, the patronage and the enormous deficit of this country, which everyone knows about, we must take all possible measures to deal with these problems and with inefficiency. The minister of public works did not see fit to include any provision in this bill which would make his department more efficient. This bill contains minor changes and nothing that would make a real difference.

The decision to amalgamate four services will not make federalism more profitable and will not convince Quebecers to remain in Canada. For heaven's sake, this bill does not even touch on the main problem. That is why we propose that a committee be set up to monitor and supervise operations within the department. We all know that. It is obvious.

When you ask questions to the Minister and hope for answers, you only get systematic rejection. Is that what the federal government calls transparency?

[Department Of Public Works And Government Services Act, October 5th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I simply wished to congratulate the member for Châteauguay. His speech was excellent and his reply to the member for St. Boniface most effective. He quite rightly pointed out that in refusing members of the Bloc access to information about contracts awarded in our own ridings, the Department of Public Works merely confirms its complete lack of interest in transparency. It is as though the department wished to conceal information.

So I wanted to congratulate the member for Châteauguay on his speech.

[Department Of Public Works And Government Services Act, October 5th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, as far as openness is concerned, again, of course this computer system provides information on contracts, on some but not all contracts. Many contracts are submitted by other departments or by public tender; maybe in some cases, maybe not in others, we do not know. Many contracts are not on that information system. Of course, an electronic listing of government contracts is not a bad thing. Of course not. But how do you go from there and say that merging four organizations in one department, Public Works and Government Services, will improve the efficiency of awarding contracts or even the openness of the process, when we have to know if there is really waste or inefficiency?

I even hear from some people who worked in the department that the regulations and their application are so confusing that they are afraid to disclose what goes on inside the Department of Public Works. There are all kinds of regulations in the government, but actually implementing them is another matter and that is where waste and inefficiency and patronage come into the Department of Public Works. And we know it. We said many, many times before that if there is one department where patronage and waste are a problem, it is the Department of Public Works and Government Services.

[Department Of Public Works And Government Services Act, October 5th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to let the member mislead this House. It is completely false to say that improvements were made in the Department of Public Works to make it more transparent and to reduce the influence of lobbyists.

Furthermore, for members of the Bloc, for example, it has become nearly impossible to obtain information on how Public Works awards contracts. As members of Parliament, we would like to have access to this information and we are prevented from having it. We get the feeling that there is not only lobbying and patronage but that there may also be a lot of inefficiency and waste.

So when the member says that the Department of Public Works is open and efficient, that is far from true.

[Department Of Public Works And Government Services Act, September 30th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, we are now debating Bill C-52, the purpose of which is to set up a new department, the Department of Public Works and Government Services.

I will resume the comments I was making before Question Period. To begin with, I would like to say that for several months, especially during the summer, all the Bloc Quebecois members have been sending letters to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services asking him to inform them of all the contracts awarded by the federal government in their ridings, which is a perfectly normal request one would think given that we are elected and want to keep an eye on the government to make sure that it runs smoothly. Surprise, surprise. The answers were negative in all cases. Across the board, the Department of Public Works refused to give out any information, saying that it was too costly.

We were surprised by that action, but of course on second thought we realize that the department is acting right from the start with a lot of secrecy about government contracts. It is becoming extremely difficult for us to get information on federal contracts in public works.

That is worrisome because, as I mentioned at the beginning, before Question Period, that somewhat reflects the government mind-set, first of all, not to act firmly about waste, not to reduce waste in government expenditures. That also reflects a lack of transparency by the government, despite its intention, its desire, as stated in the red book, to encourage transparency in government.

It is as if they wanted to hide information, as if there were something fishy, things that could not be disclosed, things that the minister and his department are trying to hide. Is it because it is too complicated? Why is it that elected government people cannot obtain information on contracts given by the government in public works and government services? Certainly, it is because of a lack of concern for transparency. And that is the least of our concerns.

I know, for example, that in the case of contracts awarded by the federal government, Quebec has always been short-changed. If you consider Quebec's contribution to the federal level and the share of public works and service contracts that Quebec should receive, the figure should be approximately 25 per cent and at least 23 per cent of all contracts. For a long time now-10, 15, perhaps 20 years-Quebec has been getting much less.

Last year for example, in 1993, the province was awarded 16 per cent of all contracts. It was 15 per cent in 1992 and 13 per cent in 1991. When you think that contracts awarded by the federal government are worth a total of $30 billion or more, this is a considerable loss for Quebec. It amounts to approximately $200 million a year. They may be trying to hide the extent of these losses.

In any case, there are hidden facts, there is a lack of openness on the part of the government. We would like to suggest at least some improvements. Unfortunately, Bill C-52 deals only with minor matters and moves things around and does not improve the operation of the Department of Public Works. With this in mind, the Bloc would like to make constructive, positive and concrete suggestions.

For example, the legislation should require that regular notices, say for example monthly notices, be given of all contracts awarded by Public Works and Government Services.

Normally, this should be included in Bill C-52. These notices should be public and easily available and provide data by federal riding, region and province. Such a measure would keep the members of this House informed on what is going on in the Department of Public Works so they would be in a position to exercise their discretion and disclose cases of misuse or waste.

We also want to make a second recommendation. The responsibility for public tenders should be decentralized in order that offices of federal members of all parties be more involved in the process, that members be consulted, or at least informed of the awarding process in the case of government contracts regarding their riding. This is not complicated. It is normal for the members to be informed of the federal government contracts in their ridings, so that they can shed some light on some of these contracts, play a positive role and do something about cases of waste or abuse.

We would even have another recommendation which would be to adopt a precise code or agreement on subcontracting in Bill C-52 in order for the government and the public servants to know the government's intentions regarding this practice which has been a policy for some time now. The very complex subcontracting infrastructure costs more than $5 billion at the federal level.

Over the last three to five years, subcontracting has increased at an alarming rate because the government never established a policy in this regard and has no guidelines indicating whether subcontracting would or would not be profitable for the government. We opened the door to subcontracting with all the problems we are experiencing now and there are no guidelines. We would have liked to seen some guidelines in Bill C-52 or a code for the government to deal with subcontracting.

We have another suggestion for the government. It might be time to give the federal civil servants the right to blow the whistle on the waste of money in the public service, because they know what is going on, but they cannot make anything public. Obviously, if public servants had that right, as is apparently the case in some American states right now, they would not only be more accountable for their job, but I am sure there would be less waste in government contracts.

Even if that suggestion goes through, some steps would have to be taken to ensure that public servants with that right would be protected and would not use it against their supervisors. We must provide some measures to make sure that exposure of abuse and waste by public servants works satisfactorily, and would be useful to the government.

In conclusion, following what I said this morning about the lack of openness of this government in awarding contracts at the Department of Public Works, and there are many of them, the lack of will of this government to give teeth to Bill C-52, while it is such an important department, because of all the contracts that are awarded every year- 150,000, 175,000-because of the amounts involved and mostly because of the doubts that we have about waste within the government, in order to allow that department to become more open and more accountable toward elected representatives we would like to propose an amendment

to Bill C-52. Therefor, I move, seconded by the member for Charlevoix:

That the motion be amended by striking out all the words after the word "That" and substituting the following:

"this House declines to give second reading to Bill C-52, An Act to establish the Department of Public Works and Government Services and to amend and repeal certain acts, because it does not provide for the development of a code of ethics aimed at ensuring the transparency of contracting activities and the acquisition of all goods and services by the Department of Public Works and Government Services".

[Department Of Public Works And Government Services Act, September 30th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my remarks were aimed at government expenditures which many believe are out of control. I meant no disrespect to members of the other House.

Another example of government waste or lack of transparency is family trusts. We are having a very difficult time getting information regarding family trusts. The finance minister is keeping it a secret. This is yet another case of a blatant lack of transparency on the part of the government.

As I said earlier, this is a serious problem which affects the government in general and the Department of Public Works and Government Services in particular. It is even more obvious within the Canada Communication Group. This particular group, which is part of PWGSC, was illegally given money by other departments trying to preserve their budget for the following year.

At the end of the fiscal year instead of spending the money they had left they transferred it to Canada Communication Group as payment for services planned for the coming years but not yet rendered. This is totally illegal and we have been told that there are several millions of dollars in this fund. Several departments have been contributing to it. This is what has been going on within this government.

We doubt whether this will be rectified. Faced with such a fraudulent scheme, the President of the Treasury Board has yet to take action that would restore our confidence. As a matter of fact, there is nothing this government is doing to deal with waste, patronage and the lack of transparency that inspires our confidence. Some of the CSIS spirit seems to be floating over this government. It is trying to conceal rather than reveal what is going on within government, and I am convinced that the problem is worse in the Department of Public Works and Government Services. It is mainly in that department that we should have more openness, in order to prevent thousands and thousands of cases of abuse and waste of public funds.

I should say that the problem is compounded by the minister himself, who acts in a way that might not be appropriate. He said he intended to relocate a number of Public Works employees in the maritimes, in his riding.

[Department Of Public Works And Government Services Act, September 30th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-52, which is at second reading today, is primarily an attempt to group four different services under the same authority.

These services either existed as distinct entities before, such as public works and government services which were formerly two separate departments, or were part of another department, as was the case for telecommunications and translation services. In any case, under the new legislation those four services will

now be part of a single department, the Department of Public Works and Government Services.

The primary objective of this bill is obviously to implement an organizational restructure. It is simply a musical chair exercise to reduce, in the months to come and according to what we were told, the number of civil servants from 18,000 down to 14,000. In other words, the government wants to eliminate some 4,000 jobs in the public service and offer essentially the same services.

From that perspective, the bill is not without merit. If the government can reduce the number of civil servants and still provide the same quality of service, particularly in the current context of excessive government spending, debt and deficit, then it must do it.

The problem is that this legislation does not go far enough. It could go a lot further toward improving the operations of the Department of Public Works and Government Services. It is very unfortunate to stop short of doing that, because the hon. member said the following.

"It is another initiative to revitalize. This is not mere housekeeping. This is job creation. This is an incentive approach. This is government in action, with clout, based on simplicity". It is a lot of mere words that we hear from the government. Basically it is housekeeping. These are a lot of empty words because there is no revitalization whatsoever.

As a matter of fact the law that is being proposed is discouraging to some extent because it does not address itself to the real problems that concern the Ministry of Public Works and Government Services. I am not surprised because the government really does not have the backbone to act where action is needed.

The fact is that except for a musical chair exercise, a grouping together of various services, this housekeeping bill does not include anything very exciting for anyone. Even though we are told that this is the first major change since that legislation was drafted in 1867, the bill still does not introduce anything new.

In fact, civil servants to whom we had an opportunity to talk have insisted that they did everything in their power to ensure that no new provisions were included. The various related acts were grouped together and great care was taken to make sure that nothing was changed. The exercise was conducted as though it was important not to affect existing structures.

This is precisely why Bill C-52 is such a disappointment. There is nothing new in this bill to improve the performance of that department, to reduce waste, or to eliminate abuse. Yet, changes or improvements to the Department of Public Works and Government Services are long overdue. We all know that this department is often accused of wasting public money.

Mr. Speaker, you and all the hon. members in this House, not to mention the public watching us on television, are aware of specific instances of waste in government, which can hurt because it is taxpayers' money being wasted. This waste and this abuse are often linked to the Department of Public Works and Government Services or directly or indirectly. The reason is obvious. As my hon. colleague said earlier, the department spends a lot of money in Canada, grants something like 175,000 contracts each year and has hundreds of thousands of civil servants and thousands of construction and service contracts to look after. In the past, the department has wasted a lot of money and significantly contributed to increasing the government debt.

The public also knows full well that this department is the major channel for government into patronage. Without going into too much detail, how else would the government manage to award construction or service contracts to its friends and supporters who poured funds into its war chest? In fact, we saw again this week to what length government members are ready to go to leave the door wide open for unlimited corporate contributions.

We on this side of the House have tried to limit contributions to campaign funds to a minimum and to enforce throughout Canada an act limiting contributions similar to the legislation in force in the province of Quebec, which is quite reasonable and much more democratic and helps to reduce abuses and patronage.

Again this week the government voted in favour of an act which does not limit donations from large corporations in Canada. Once the party these compagnies have financially supported is in office, the companies want their share of the contracts, hence the problem. Such undue influence can be seen particularly in the Department of Public Works and Government Services. What is disappointing unfortunately is that Bill C-52 in no way addresses these issues which are vitally important in Canada, since, as everyone knows, our country is faced with some serious debts.

Nor does the bill contain provisions to curb lobbying, another big concern for Canadians. We know how lobbyists have control over the contracting process when big government contracts are involved. But then, for God's sake, with Bill C-52, why does the government not take the opportunity to deal with some major public concerns, like waste, patronage and lobbying? Nothing in this bill addresses these issues. In fact, this legislation does nothing to improve openness in the allocation of contracts for the Department of Public Works and Government Services, for telecommunications or for translation. That is the main problem

with this legislation. It is also the main problem with the current government. It is the main problem facing Canadian politics.

Basically, the government has a serious credibility problem. Of course, it did not start with the current government. The Conservatives before them had the same problem. This is an image problem. Elected representatives and the government are accused of mismanaging public funds. Canadians accuse them of waste and patronage and they are right, since the national debt is reaching the $600 billion mark and the deficit exceeds $40 billion.

Besides, the government has a serious debt problem, so much so that the International Monetary Fund is about to intervene. From a debt and deficit point of view, Canada is in a critical situation. Bill C-52 gives us a great opportunity to reduce waste in the thousands of contracts that are granted in Canada and, in doing so, to reduce our debt and deficit. But we do not take advantage of it.

As everybody knows, we are faced with a very serious problem, which affects politics in general. Politicians themselves have lost most of their credibility with the public at large, precisely because of this loose management of the public funds, which conjures up stories of patronage, abuse and waste. It is not surprising that Canadians call us hypocrites, crooks and liars and accuse us of not doing our job as their elected representatives.

It is a serious problem because that loss of confidence by the people in their elected representatives challenges the very basis of our democracy. When the uncertainty and the lack of confidence felt by Canadians is such that it weakens our democratic institutions, then it becomes a serious problem.

The government could have seen Bill C-52 as an opportunity to address these concerns, to show Canadians that it is taking action to reduce waste and overspending, but it has not done so.

This bill could have been used to make the government more open, which is essential if we want members of Parliament to regain some credibility. I think that openness was one of the first concerns expressed by the government when it was elected last October. The Liberals promised Canadians that there would be a certain level of ethics within their government, and that is why the Prime Minister appointed a former Liberal minister to see to it that his ministers follow this code of ethics. Openness is mentioned in the red book, although not on the first page. I will read to you an excerpt from page 95 of the red book that most Liberal members are very familiar with. It says: "We will follow the basic principle that government decisions must be made on the merits of a case rather than according to the political influence of those making the case. We will take an approach of openness in decision-making. A Liberal government will not allow the public agenda to be dominated by lobbyists as it has been since the Conservatives took office".

The Conservatives are being accused of patronage and lack of openness, but we see no change. The present government is not doing anything to address the problem and does not even seem willing to do something about it. Bill C-52 is a perfect example of this unwillingness on the part of the government. The Liberals could have given some teeth to this bill to put an end to the waste and misuse of taxpayers' money, but it has not done so.

It is disappointing because today, as I said earlier, the general public has grave doubts about the effectiveness of its elected representatives and the federal system. In fact, that is one of the reasons why Quebec wants sovereignty, and will become sovereign, because it looks like the federal system is unable to adjust.

Government members show no indication that they want to improve the system. Consider lobbying, for instance, where there has been considerable abuse. This week, the government which, as I just mentioned, said in the red book that it wanted to restrict the influence of lobbyists, again gave in to the lobbyists, who scored at least two points on the restrictions the government wanted to impose on them. The lobbyists managed to avoid having to disclose their fees, and corporations may deduct lobbyists' fees from corporate income tax. This is one more example of a government that lacks the political will to deal with the real problems.

We had a whole series of events just this week which clearly reflected the government's lack of concern for the problems of Canadians. Yesterday we found, for instance, that the Prime Minister had purposely withheld information about federal compensation for the cost of the 1992 referendum in Quebec. The government has shown a preference for secrecy and an utter lack of transparency.

Consider the Pearson Airport controversy. Granted, the government cancelled this contract or attempt at privatization because it had to stop this kind of abuse, but it is trying to ensure that the parties concerned receive quite substantial compensation. The government is compensating lobbyists. It is compensating private interests. Even the Senate, in this particular case, suggested paying up to $45 million to the people involved in the privatization of Pearson airport, which is abuse of public funds. The Senate itself is another case of this kind of abuse, of wasting taxpayers money: we have 104 senators sitting around doing nothing, who are paid $70,000 a year, spend $500,000 each and as a result cost the public Treasury a total of $50 million. This is a horrific waste of money in a country that is already carrying an extremely heavy debt load. We know the senators are just

another kind of waste, another form of patronage, because they are all-

[Immigration Act, September 22nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, to give the member for Halifax a chance to redeem herself, I would like to ask her essentially the same question that my colleague from the Reform Party just asked her, which she did not answer. Would she be so kind as to tell me how this bill will deal with a case like the one I mentioned before?