House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2021, with 35% of the vote.
Festivals and Special Events May 28th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Canadian Heritage had a very simple task: to make sure funding would be available for summer festivals. But as a result of her interference and incompetence, summer festivals will not be receiving the promised funding and will suffer the consequences. It is still possible to fix this debacle.
Will the minister get to work, meet with festival organizers and make the $30 million available now?
Business of Supply May 16th, 2007
Mr. Chair, I would like to ask her about cultural spaces. We had seen that it was at 14% nearing the end of the fiscal year. I talked to people in cultural space organizations across Canada who were saying that they have had program grants approved and nothing has flowed out of heritage. They waited and waited.
I would like to ask the minister, does she still review every single grant and send all the Quebec grants out for translation so she can decide personally to replace the role? Is that what is holding up the incredible gap between when these grants go in and when people actually get the money?
Business of Supply May 16th, 2007
Mr. Chair, the heritage buildings tax incentive that was in place helped to rebuild Barrington Street and was used in Victoria at the Gooderham and Worts. It was a program that everyone across Canada said was an excellent program. Yet, it was cut.
What is the minister's explanation for cutting a program that was so valuable? Heritage communities across this country said it worked. It was a private sector initiative, and yet was another one that was wasteful and inefficient and out of touch?
Business of Supply May 16th, 2007
Mr. Chair, would the member be quiet while I ask the minister a question?
I want to know why the minister allowed a program to be cancelled, when the finance minister stood up and told Canadians that he was going after programs that were wasteful, inefficient, and out of touch with Canadians.
Yet, we find that the summative evaluation of the community participation program that was done under her ministry was buried. The Conservatives did not release it publicly because it contradicted everything that party said.
It said there was a program in place that implemented in a manner designed to increase the likelihood that Canadians would get full value for tax dollars spent. It said that the volunteer sector was under increasing and considerable stress. Yet, the only thing it could find in the summative evaluation for why this was cut was because it did not fit the government's priorities.
Why did the minister stand back and basically allow a fabrication to be put out that the volunteer sector organizations were wasteful and inefficient when her own reports contradicted that?
Business of Supply May 16th, 2007
Mr. Chair, the volunteer initiative was cancelled when the government said it was going after wasteful, inefficient--
Business of Supply May 16th, 2007
Mr. Chair, the minister had to bring her gang with her to back her up because she did not want to come in here on her own.
A week ago I was approached by someone in the festivals program who wanted me to tell them that the Minister of Canadian Heritage was not pretending in the House of Commons that a sidewalk sale was a festival.
I would like to ask her again. Under what criteria would she think in any God's universe a sidewalk sale in her riding would fit in? She said it was a legitimate festival, yet her own newspaper contradicted her. Where does she think that would fit in? What kind of criteria?
Business of Supply May 16th, 2007
Mr. Chair, she says that it is our role as MPs to partake in this, when the summer jobs program has just announced that MPs are not going to be involved anymore. That is being taken away from MPs.
The fact is that the minister does not understand her office. It is not her job to send personal emails to MPs asking for pet projects when there is no criteria and no application. It is not her job to usurp the role of the ministry.
When she was caught giving the Conservatives a head start, she tried to implicate the rest of us members of Parliament to partake in this by bringing our little goodie bags as well. I think she should explain that to the House. Does she not think that is a misuse of her office, when the role of the minister is to set policy and let her bureaucrats establish the criteria and accept the funding projects?
Business of Supply May 16th, 2007
Mr. Chair, why did the minister not tell the House that week that she had sent him a buzz off letter saying she had no idea about any festival funding and that he should go to a charity. She did not tell the House that. Then we find out that that very week she was at the Lake Scugog council where she told it to get its ideas together because the fund was coming. That week she was telling her own riding that it had a chance at this program, but she did not tell that to the member for Windsor West.
In fact, when she was asked about that, she said there were lots of festivals and that MPs know about all kinds of festivals. She mentioned midnight madness and yet her own newspaper said that midnight madness festival does not exist, it is not a festival. Under what criteria would she think a midnight madness sidewalk sale is a credible festival?
Business of Supply May 16th, 2007
Mr. Chair, it is interesting that she cannot come up with that figure because a member of her party, my dear friend from Abbotsford, had the numbers of how much the Liberals did not spend under the MAP. He had that at his fingertips, but she does not have that here with all her stuff.
I want to take the minister back to the interesting week of April 14 to 23 when she sent the memo to all Conservative Party members inviting them to respond to her personal email for the summer festivals program. When I asked her a question, she stood up in the House and she mentioned that the member for Windsor West had contacted her. I would like to ask her why she mentioned his name?
Business of Supply May 16th, 2007
Mr. Chair, would the minister then be able to tell us, if she has done her due diligence, how much of the money that has been promised has actually been spent out of her department?