Gerry Ritz

[Government Contracts, June 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the minister of public works pledged that under his tenure his department would be open, transparent and accountable.

Those are lofty ideals. It did not happen. It was just the same old talk.

We have not been able to count on the minister to answer even the simplest question, like how many files has he referred to the RCMP? He is scared to do that.

In light of that, could the minister assure the House that the companies implicated in the files that he referred to the RCMP have been frozen out of any more government money?

[Government Contracts, June 10th, 2002]

Another referral is great, Mr. Speaker, but where is the money? Why is the government not demanding the money back if it did not buy the services that were offered?

Canadians can no longer trust the government to help clean up this mess. We need a full blown public inquiry. When will the minister announce one?

[Government Contracts, June 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, thanks to a diligent Globe and Mail reporter and not the questionable internal audits at public works, we learned that the government shelled out $330,000 for a fish and game show that never took place and it never demanded the money back. It is still sitting there.

It is becoming clear that the entire Liberal cabinet sat by while taxpayers are on the hook for another outrageous abuse of their money. If, as the minister says, he is truly serious about accountability and transparency, will he stand up today and tell us which of his cabinet colleagues on his committee signed off on dirty deals like this?

[Government Contracts, June 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, someone took those contracts because they paid the bill. I guess that means they accepted them.

Claude Boulay was right when he stated that it helps to be a Liberal in order to win these big government contracts. In 1997 Groupaction gave $49,000 in donations to the Liberals. Public accounts at the same time show that Groupaction was awarded $10 million in business for that $49,000 investment. Good return. In 1998, the next year, it donated half the amount of money and received half the amount of contracts. There is the linkage. It is there.

Is it not true that the more one gives, the more one receives?

[Government Contracts, June 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, according to public accounts, it pays to donate to the Liberal Party.

Groupaction received over $26 million in business contracts but only since its Liberal friends came to power in 1993. The Liberals claim this is a reputable company but the auditor general says Groupaction's photocopying is substandard. Besides that the report is still jammed in the photocopier because no one can find it.

How can the minister justify that winning big contracts is directly tied to donations back to his party?

[Government Contracts, June 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Groupaction file is just the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot more lining up and we know they are all bad.

The minister claims he is going to be transparent and accountable in his new role. He has become so transparent we can see right through him. It is a different face but the same old game.

How does the minister think that justice will be served when the very people who signed off on all of these bogus contracts are the ones now doing the review?

[Government Contracts, June 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the minister of public works claims that he decided to keep the money flowing to the Liberal bagmen at Groupaction because of natural justice. He is a prairie boy and he knows that is natural hogwash.

It is indefensible that the minister uses a lawyer's dodge to justify this overpriced photocopying. When will he stop all business dealings with Groupaction, all of them?

[Government Contracts, June 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, those are the new rules that came in a week ago Monday when the minister took over. These are under the old rules. Let us go back there and check that out.

The treasury board rules are crystal clear. If any contractor commands more than 25% of the business, and this is its rule, remedial action will be taken to eliminate market dominance. It is concerned about this, but the Liberals are not. The Liberals did nothing while Claude Boulay piled up 75% of Liberal advertising and sponsorship moneys.

Did Mr. Boulay's Liberal donations have anything to do with the government's refusal to enforce its own rules?

[Government Contracts, June 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, one of Claude Boulay's companies of convenience, Media IDA Vision, controlled 75% of all government advertising contracts last year. At the same time, Media Vision, another of Mr. Boulay's shell companies garnered 75% of Communication Canada contracts. The treasury board clearly states that any one contractor cannot control more than 25%.

Why does the government continually ignore the rules on market dominance for its liberally connected friends?

[Supply, June 4th, 2002]

Mr. Chairman, we have seen a pattern here. There has been no oversight on performance. Did the taxpayers get a bang for their buck?

We have reports that are missing or non-existent. We have analyses of reports that are missing and yet someone got paid for them. We have no contracts or verbal contracts only. We have a Prime Minister who said that we have lost a couple of million dollars and asks: What is the big deal? Does the minister agree with the Prime Minister's analogy that it is only a couple of million dollars?