David Anderson

[Agriculture, April 13th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, all day today we have heard about broken Liberal promises. I want to deal with another one. The CAIS program is such a disaster that two weeks ago the government was forced to make an announcement in which it pretended it was going to give new money to agriculture. That was not true.

We find out now that much of it is just going to offset CAIS payments that farmers were already receiving. How much of the promised money will be clawed back through lowered CAIS payments?

[Standing Orders and Procedure, April 11th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to this week. If we are this sensitive on Monday, it will be interesting to see what transpires throughout the rest of the week.

I would like to ask my colleague if he would be willing to elaborate on some of the points that he thought were important to this discussion. I look forward to hearing that right now.

[Standing Orders and Procedure, April 11th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to ask the member a question. I was disappointed that our Bloc colleagues did not want to hear what he had to say, but I would certainly be interested in the other three or four points that he wanted to make. I wonder if he could begin to expand on some of those.

[Question No. 110, April 11th, 2005]

What was the name of the company commissioned by the Canadian Wheat Board to hire Avis Gray to the position of Senior Advisor, Government Relations, and what were the names of the other candidates considered for the position?

[Sponsorship Program, April 7th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, Jean Brault, the former head of Groupaction Marketing, has testified that the scheme to funnel taxpayers' dollars to the Liberal Party in the 1997 and 2000 federal election campaigns continued until as recently as 2002. He said, “If it wasn't for our contributions to the party, we never would have had such a big piece of the sponsorship pie”.

Will the government now finally admit that this was just a systematic scheme to take taxpayers' money from them and get it back to the Liberal Party?

[Committees of the House, April 5th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Selkirk—Interlake.

The member opposite raised the issue of global warming and asked Mr. Murray whether he could deal with that issue and whether he had a proper understanding of it, which is why we are here today. The motion from the environment committee is due to the fact that Mr. Glen Murray has insufficient experience in environmentally related fields of study. The committee has called upon the Prime Minister to withdraw Mr. Murray's appointment to the national round table on the environment and the economy.

The committee's concern is that Mr. Murray does not have the understanding necessary to deal with the issue of global warming. As we heard earlier this morning, members are concerned that he does not have the experience to deal with the issue of Kyoto. The government has manipulated that file in many ways and, from what we heard this morning, we do not have confidence that Mr. Murray has the ability to see through the manipulation that has surrounded that file.

After listening to the presentation by the member for Red Deer, it is clear that in his interview Mr. Murray did not have an understanding of carbon sequestration to adequately discuss the issue at that time. As I mentioned before, I am from a rural area where carbon sequestration is a huge issue. Farmers need to be confident that they will get paid something for the carbon and the carbon sequestration framework that we are setting up.

We are not at all confident that Mr. Murray has the ability or experience to deal with the manipulation that has taken place in the budget that was presented by the government where it has tried to slide environmental issues in under the radar in order to bring about huge change for Canadians in their tax structure and the amount of taxes that they will be paying.

It is clear that Mr. Murray, as he actually said himself at committee, realizes he has huge inadequacies. We just believe that those inadequacies are large enough that he should not be appointed to this position. We need a clear process for nominating someone who does have the experience to deal with those issues.

[Committees of the House, April 5th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, we are glad to be here to speak today. After hearing the discussion this morning, I think it sounds like Mr. Murray has about as much chance of success as a one-legged grasshopper in a chicken coop, but we will see what happens if the Prime Minister continues and is bound and determined to stay on the track he is on.

I am starting to understand the frustration and the annoyance of the environment committee. We have heard very clearly this morning from all the opposition parties about their frustrations in dealing with the Prime Minister's interference and involvement with them.

Through the last election campaign and actually prior to that when the Prime Minister was campaigning himself and was campaigning for the leadership, we were led to believe that he was going to make some substantial changes, that he was going to make some real changes to the way things were done and the way things were done in Ottawa.

Unfortunately that has not been the case, but he did make promises, especially to committees, that they would be much more involved and would have substantial and real input into the appointments that were made.

I guess we expected the Prime Minister to keep his word. Maybe we were naive, because we can see that this is not the case. One of the first indications, the first real evidence that he is not interested in following through on his promises, was shown in the appointment of Mr. Murray and the whole situation involving him.

Just to rehash it again, we want to talk a little about the process that took place. The environment committee believed that it was going to have substantial input into the appointment of the chairman of the round table on the environment. The Prime Minister came forward with Mr. Murray's name.

As we heard this morning from my colleague from Essex, who did a good job of pointing this out, there really was no nomination process at all to pick a chair for this committee. There was no place where people could apply for the job. Rather, as Mr. Murray apparently testified, he got an email. That was basically the first contact he had with the government about the job. I guess he expressed interest in it and then really the only follow-up was a phone call letting him know about the schedule and the arrangement to show up at the committee.

I am a little surprised at that. I would expect that for someone coming toward a position of such prominence as this one, where the position is basically directing the environmental direction of this country, there would be a real nomination process in place.

It actually reminds me of another area where the government is failing to really do due process. It is unrelated to this. It is in agriculture. Right now we have a process whereby there are 13,000 grain hopper cars that have been owned by the government for a number of years. Over the last seven or eight years the government has talked about disposing of those hopper cars. It has tried to come up with some way to do this. At different points, groups have expressed interest in those cars.

Over the last few months this issue has arisen again. As the government tries to deal with this, it has had to decide what it is going to do. Is it going to have a clear and open transparent procurement process here? What is it going to do?

This issue has been discussed at the agriculture committee and at the transport committee. The transport committee actually made a couple of good recommendations to the government. It said that first it wants the government to determine the maintenance costs of these cars so that everybody knows how much it costs to run them. Second, it said it wants a clear procurement process. It wants the government to be clear on how it is disposing of the cars.

Those seemed like pretty straightforward recommendations. It seemed that if they went to cabinet, cabinet should be and would be willing to adhere to them, but that was not the case. We come back and suddenly the transport committee's recommendations are being completely ignored by the transport minister. He has decided that rather than the recommendations he is just going to deal with one organization. That was all he was interested in. He is going to talk to one organization. About four or five organizations put forward proposals, but he said no, the government had the organization it would deal with picked out and it was not going to deal with any others.

This is actually a substantial investment. These cars are worth somewhere been $100 million and $200 million, but the transport minister said, “No, we are not interested in any kind of clear procurement process here. We are just going to negotiate a deal with one group”. That went on for about three weeks.

Now we have found out that there is another group behind the scenes which is being allowed to negotiate for ownership of these cars. While the minister has told farm groups in western Canada that he was sorry, but he was only dealing with one group, he has actually been dealing with two and maybe more behind the scenes. Farmers are beginning to ask the question, “Why is this government once again misleading us?” It has said one thing and it is doing something else, say farmers. Why is the minister not willing to do things in a clear and transparent way?

This comes back to the same issue we are dealing with today, that of Mr. Murray. The government is not willing to deal with these appointments in a clear and transparent fashion.

Changes are desperately needed. I guess the most important one would be to change the government and give us a chance to bring forward some of these measures that would clean up this corruption and pollution taking place in government today. Give us a chance to form the Government of Canada, I say.

It has to be frustrating for the environment committee to find itself in a situation where it is not able to influence this after the Prime Minister promised it. Basically, once the Prime Minister suggested that Mr. Murray was his choice without a nomination process, the committee rejected his appointment. In a seven to four vote, committee members said that this is not good enough, that this man is not qualified for the job. The Prime Minister turned around and completely ignored the recommendations of the committee and decided to appoint Mr. Murray to the position anyway.

The committee is interested in what is going on here. It has once again rejected Mr. Murray's appointment, this time in a nine to two vote. Via the member for Red Deer, the committee has brought the motion forward to the House today so that we are able to talk about this and let Canadians know what is actually going on in this situation.

We know it is frustrating for the committee. This whole aspect of patronage seems to go on and on and influences many different areas, not just the area of the environment. It also influences the area with which I have been involved, which is the Canadian Wheat Board.

It is interesting to note that the present Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board has a failed Liberal MP working for him. I was told at one point that he was going to be the minister's expert on the Canadian Wheat Board, but as it turned out, the member, who is from Ontario, has never had to deal with the Canadian Wheat Board and as far as I know he is unfamiliar with agriculture as well. Once again, that issue goes unresolved. Second, the Canadian Wheat Board, controlled by the minister, appointed the present Canadian Wheat Board minister's campaign manager as its government lobbyist.

When Canadians look to see what is going on after the election, they will see that not only are failed Liberal candidates being appointed to patronage positions, but some of the other people involved in campaigns have found themselves with positions serving government agencies as well. That is frustrating to all of us.

I should mention at this time that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Prince George--Peace River.

I would like to talk further about Mr. Murray and his fitness for office. It has been frustrating to listen to the debate this morning and to realize that this man is probably not qualified for this position. We know from his history that he was the mayor of Winnipeg and was picked as a star candidate by the Prime Minister to run in Winnipeg.

My first exposure to Mr. Murray was hearing news reports about how he was going to be a tremendous candidate. The impression was given that there was absolutely no way he would not be elected to the House of Commons. He was in a contested race with a Conservative member whom we know well because he won the seat and defeated Mr. Murray.

In order to give the slot to Mr. Murray, the Prime Minister had to move one of his MPs right out of the position. That was another example of patronage. Mr. Harvard retired from his position in the House and was then appointed lieutenant governor of the province of Manitoba. Looking around the room today, I would say that those of us here would not have picked Mr. Harvard as the top candidate for that position, but nevertheless the Prime Minister was only too glad to give it to him.

Mr. Murray basically has no academic or professional qualifications for this job. He has little or no experience with global environmental issues or economic issues. His predecessor had a whole history of environmental issues and was able to lead the environmental round table with his experience. Mr. Murray does not bring that to the table.

He does not bring good judgment to the table. He attended the Liberal convention here in the spring of 2005 after the ethics commissioner clearly told people who had received patronage appointments that they should not do that. Mr. Murray also oversaw the second largest sewage spill to take place in Lake Winnipeg.

I would like to close by mentioning that the parliamentary secretary complained that we do not know Mr. Murray, but he also complained that the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia knew him too well. He was frustrated because he had come to the committee and revealed Mr. Murray's inadequacies.

I would like to conclude with the comment that the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia made during the campaign when he talked about Mr. Murray. He said that as far as he was concerned, it was better to be paralyzed from the neck down than from the neck up. I think that would summarize Mr. Murray's qualifications for this job.

[Committees of the House, April 5th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the member gave an excellent speech. He talked about a number of reasons why appointing Mr. Murray would be a real disadvantage. He talked about the fact that he had little confidence, little understanding of the issue and little vision.

I want to point out that on the environment the Liberals really have had no vision or have had a vision that has been very difficult to follow. They have misled Canadians regularly. In terms of Kyoto, they have not been clear with either the public or even with their own supporters.

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is addressed in Kyoto but it does not deal with the other pollutants in the country. Liberals have not been clear on that. They have not told Canadians that if we implement Kyoto, it will not deal with many of our pollution problems. They have not told Canadians the costs for Kyoto. Now we find out that gas could go to as high as to $3 a litre. If it gets that high, I do not know what will be left of the rural areas in western Canada in particular. Also, they have not talked clearly to Canadians about the fact that Kyoto will end up being a foreign aid program.

In light of the fact that the Liberals do not have a clear vision for environment, is it not even more important that they find someone with a strong background on environmental issues and a strong understanding of the issues, not someone who is a political patronage appointment?

[Committees of the House, April 5th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, earlier this morning I had a chance to ask the member for Red Deer a question about the government's motivation behind the appointment and I would like to follow up on that.

I talked earlier about how the government has a history of manipulation in so many areas. Apart from Senate reform, patronage appointments and its latest involvement in the Gomery inquiry, it has manipulated the environment file in many ways. After eight years of discussions, it still does not have a plan on the Kyoto file. We talked about carbon sequestration and how it has basically manipulated that away from the farmers and agricultural areas. We hope we can get that back so people in rural areas can actually benefit from Kyoto in some way.

The government has also manipulated the budget. I had a chance to be at the environment committee meeting just before the break.The member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley was very vocal about his concern that the government was trying to manipulate the environmental file by using the budget.

I also have a concern that the qualifications of this gentleman do not seem to be adequate at all. We have been told that he has no academic or professional experience in this area. His predecessor, who was an ADM in the Quebec government, had been involved with environmental issues for 35 years and was a member of the round table before he was appointed as chair.

There are also some questions about Mr. Murray's decision making and judgment abilities. The government was told that patronage appointments should not be attending conventions and that kind of thing but Mr. Murray had the poor judgment to show up at the Liberal convention in the spring of 2005. He also made a number of policy blunders as mayor.

I am interested to know if the member feels that the government is using the weakness of the candidate to further manipulate the environment file, which it has been so successful at manipulating in the past.

[Committees of the House, April 5th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I would like the member's comments on the position taken by the parliamentary secretary a little earlier. Consistently throughout his presentation and when he was trying to rebut the member for Red Deer, he said that the motion that was passed originally was passed with a vote of seven to four, that it went to the Prime Minister and in his words, it was then disposed of; it was dealt with; it was finished; it was done with, and he could not understand why it would come forward again.

A second motion came forward and actually resulted in the debate we are having today. That motion passed on a vote of nine to two. I understand that he and the member opposite, who happens to be related to the premier of Ontario, were the only ones on the committee who voted against that.

I would like the member's comments about whether he felt that the first motion dealt adequately with this subject. Why would the parliamentary secretary say that it was disposed of when the Prime Minister completely ignored the recommendations of the committee and basically made a patronage appointment for a failed Liberal candidate? Does the member think that was an adequate way of dealing with it, or does he feel that bringing it here was the proper solution to the issue?