Charlie Angus

[Access to Information, September 15th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that the DPP has been put on ice ever since the Conservatives got into power, but let us look at the Conservatives' ongoing attack on Canadians' right to information. It has gotten so bizarre that apparently now the spending on Viagra in the military has become a state secret. I want to talk about dysfunction here, but we are talking about ethical dysfunction of the government.

Do they not understand that government spending is the spending of public money, and the reason we have the Access to Information Act is to be able to have Canadians hold the government to account? Why are they obstructing the Access to Information Act again and again and again?

[Ethics, September 15th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the Director of Public Prosecutions was created in the wake of the Liberal sponsorship scandal to ensure independent justice when the Prime Minister's own office is involved. Now tomorrow, Mike Duffy is going up on 30 charges, including receiving a bribe, a bribe that involved the Prime Minister's staff, yet the Director of Public Prosecutions was not consulted.

The DPP's mandate says intervening and advising law enforcement agencies on matters relating to prosecutions and advising the RCMP. Does the minister agree that the Nigel Wright case would be within the mandate of the Director of Public Prosecutions?

[Speaker's Ruling, September 15th, 2014]

And forward.

This is about the Conservatives searching out the hidden Liberals underneath the bedcovers. This is about attacking the fundamental merit-based system that we have for approving the officers of Parliament.

One would think that there is some kind of problem that they were responding to, but no. Other than Conservative smears against the Elections Canada office, there has never been a case that has ever shown that the people who work in the access to information commission or the privacy commission, the officers of Parliament, have ever done this in a partisan manner that needed investigation. In fact, they are already covered under part 7 of the Public Service Employment Act, the Political Activities Regulations, and the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Sector. We are talking about some of the most qualified and highly credible people in our system, but the government is saying we cannot trust them.

Therefore, we have a situation in which a bill is being brought forward that allows the Conservatives, when they are under investigation, to say that nine years ago a secretary in someone's office was on a riding association and there must be some kind of political skulduggery, because she also had a sign on her lawn.

This is about undermining a credible system that is in place.

Viewers back home should always remember this: the role of government is to be accountable to the Canadian people, and there are institutions that hold government to account. The Conservative government believes that it is accountable to no one and can undermine the basic rules of parliamentary process so that they can hold the people who are supposed to be investigating them to account.

We have sat through the discussion on this bill. The Conservatives have brought forward no witnesses. We have seen nothing credible. They have absolutely no basis for this bill. It has been called a despicable witch hunt, which it is, and now it is just an non-credible witch hunt. The fact is that the government had to basically strip its own bill down to nothing.

Let us save the member for York Centre further embarrassment. Let us kill this bill now and stop this spineless attack on the institutions that hold Parliament accountable.

[Lobbying, June 19th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, watching the government stand up for ethics is like watching a wrestling promoter stand up for good, clean, honest fun.

We know what the oil lobby bought when the government gave it northern gateway. Let us look at what the member for York Centre's tickets bought for these lobbyists: access to the government House leader, the Minister of State for Democratic Reform, and the Minister of International Development.

My question is to the government House leader, who attended this event. Does he stand behind these kinds of secret deals with lobbyists? Does he stand behind that?

[Lobbying, June 19th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, while the member for York Centre was launching a full-out assault on the independence of the offices of the ethics and lobbying commissioners, he was using his presence on the finance committee to fill his electoral war chest by hitting up lobbyists who were trying to influence him. He cannot do that. Section 14(1) of the Conflict of Interest Code is clear. Members cannot accept financial gifts in the form of tickets to fundraisers from lobbyists when they knock on their doors.

The member was paid by lobbyists for the petroleum, financial, and car industries. Did he recuse himself from any of the meetings in the finance committee that dealt with these interests?

[Privacy, June 18th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, Liberal senators failed to stand up for the privacy rights of Canadians in their review of the snooping provisions in Bill S-4, and the Minister of Justice stands in the House and tries to tell Canadians that the Spencer decision last Friday was somehow a validation of the government's attack on privacy.

The Supreme Court was clear. Obtaining private IP information on Canadians without a warrant is illegal. Why is the Attorney General, the man entrusted with upholding the Constitution, standing in Parliament and misrepresenting the conditions decided by the Supreme Court in order to support the Conservatives' attack on the privacy rights of Canadians?

[Privacy, June 17th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government's inability to balance reasonable legislation with respect for the Constitution and the privacy rights of Canadians is getting embarrassing. The Conservatives ignore legal experts, reject amendments, and end up banging their heads against the Supreme Court, as they did last Friday, when the Supreme Court had to remind them that snooping on Canadians without a warrant is illegal. Well, quelle surprise.

This brings us to the cyberbullying bill. Why did the minister not listen to the experts, separate the cyberbullying provisions so that it would be passed through this House, and then allow us to amend the clearly unconstitutional parts of the Conservatives' agenda for snooping on the private rights of Canadians?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, June 16th, 2014]

With regard to on-reserve educational facilities for First Nations in Canada: (a) what requests for capital building expenditure funding for the purposes of acquiring, building, expanding, improving or replacing educational facilities have been made from 2008 to the present; (b) which of these requests have been granted by the government and why; (c) which of these requests were denied and why; (d) which of these requests were delayed, by whom (i.e. government or band council), by how long, and why; (e) what funds have been committed by the government for capital building expenditure for the purposes of acquiring, building, expanding, improving or replacing educational facilities on-reserve in each fiscal year from 2008-2009 to 2013-2014; (f) what on-reserve educational facilities projects are currently underway; (g) in each year since 2008, what projects have been delayed or postponed, and, if any, what were the justifications for and lengths of these delays; (h) what projects are slated to begin work in the 2014-2015 fiscal year; (i) what portion of the total cost of these projects is being funded by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) through capital building infrastructure; (j) how many projects included additional money from a First Nation to complete the construction or for the equipping of an educational facility; (k) what on-reserve educational facilities projects are slated to begin work beyond the 2014-2015 fiscal year; (l) how many communities with projects identified by INAC as priority capital projects have had letters of approval issued to them; (m) since 2008, what amounts from the "Community Infrastructure" line item have been reallocated either within INAC or to other government departments; (n) with regard to capital building expenditure funding for the purposes of acquiring, building, expanding, improving or replacing educational facilities built on First Nations Reserves for each year from 2008 to the present, broken down by (i) year and (ii) community, how much money was planned but not spent on schools and why?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, June 16th, 2014]

With regard to access to information requests to government departments, institutions and agencies for each year from 2003 to 2013: (a) how many requests were made in total, broken down by department, institution, or agency, (i) what was the average number of days taken to process these requests, (ii) what was the method by which a delay to a request was determined, (iii) is there a formula by which the number of days of delay is quantitatively determined, (iv) what was the number of requests signed by the Minister before being sent out, (v) what was the number of days delayed per request waiting for the Minister’s signature, (vi) what was the number of requests that ministerial staff questioned, requested or demanded modifications to to the Access to Information and Privacy Directorate (ATIP), (vii) what was the number of requests modified after questions, requests, or demands by staff in the Minister’s office, (viii) what was the average delay per request due to questions, requests, or demands by staff in the Minister's office; (b) of those requests identified in (v) and (vi), how many have been reported to the Office of the Information Commissioner, broken down by department, institution or agency; (c) do policies exist to minimize delays, broken down by (i) department, institution, or agency, (ii) are they formal or informal policies, (iii) were there cases where these policies could not be applied and, if so, how many, (iv) of those times in (iii), what was the reason, (v) of those in (iii), what was the length of delay; and (d) did weekly meetings organized by the ATIP Directorate occur, broken down by department, institution, or agency and, if so, (i) did staff from the Minister’s office attend, (ii) did staff from the Minister’s office play an active role, (iii) did staff from the Minister’s office flag files in any capacity and, if so, on what basis, (iv) did staff from the Minister’s office ask questions, make requests or demands to the ATIP Directorate?

[Committees of the House, June 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the folks back home, what kind of mailings have they received from the Conservative Party? Those ridiculous, crazy attack mailings about the NDP and its carbon tax, the NDP breaking up the country, and how the NDP is a threat to life itself. The folks back home should think of all the crap they have received from the Conservative Party paid for by the taxpayer and then look at the members on the other side. Do they trust them? I would not.