Gerry Ritz

[Supply, June 4th, 2002]

Madam Chairman, Communication Coffin is another name, one of the advertising subcontractors that has popped into disrepute in the last little while. It is also known as 2794101 Canada Inc. Communication Coffin has been awarded some contracts. Has business also been done or subcontracted from Coffin to the numbered company?

[Supply, June 4th, 2002]

Madam Chairman, it may be a couple of weeks when all of this gets tabled.

The minister said earlier tonight that he has not signed any cheques or contracts in his nine days on the job. He has not done that. I have a flow chart here of public works and I have another one of Communications Canada. Business goes on. I am wondering who on those flow charts that came out of the main estimates is authorized to sign cheques and okay contracts and for what amount?

[Supply, June 4th, 2002]

Madam Chairman, I am wondering how the minister can explain that Lafleur Communications, which did not make that short list of 10, received a contract to take some money in a briefcase down the street to VIA Rail and got $120,000 for doing it. I am wondering how it got into that competitive bidding process when it was not one of the 10.

[Supply, June 4th, 2002]

Madam Chairman, the minister could table it to save time.

[Supply, June 4th, 2002]

Going back to the auditor general's report, on page 5, point 22, she said that the government ran a competitive process in March 1997 to identify 10 firms that were pre-qualified as suppliers and selected Groupaction from that list for the second and third contracts. I am wondering who was the first choice. Who was number one?

[Supply, June 4th, 2002]

Madam Chairman, in the spirit of the work that was done here tonight, as the parliamentary secretary talked about, as parliamentarians we are here doing a job for our electorate and they expect us to be here. However, we have a tremendous amount of staff who have hung in here with us tonight, the pages, the clerks, the Speakers, the security guards. They deserve a round of applause. We could not do it without them.

[Government Contracts, May 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the list grows. Week after week and day after day we see more and more things hitting the RCMP. I hope it has enough members and budget to take it all in.

It does not take a rocket scientist to see that giving huge commissions to Liberal friendly ad companies is just bilking the taxpayers for more money. It is greed and corruption: no reports, no files and verbal contracts, just cancelled Liberal donation cheques, which is really all we can go on.

All these ministers were sitting in cabinet when this scheme was hatched and implemented. How can they not see that it will take an outside independent public inquiry to clear the air?

[Government Contracts, May 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal scheme for doling out taxpayer money by passing it through the sticky fingers of their friends is truly unacceptable to Canadians. Lafleur Communications, a fishing buddy of the justice minister, donated $57,000 to the Liberals after receiving a $120,000 commission for taking $1 million in a briefcase down the street to VIA Rail.

When we see options like that out there in front of taxpayers, what they are crying for is a truly independent public inquiry. When will the minister set one up?

[Government Contracts, May 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, whether the proposal is accepted or not is irrelevant. It has no bearing on the facts. Did the minister specifically point out to the RCMP commissioner that Holland College, where the president is his brother, or did he actually say, would be a great place for this thing to go if they were going to do it? Yes or no.

[Government Contracts, May 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, at least now we know why the Prime Minister went to Rome. It is going to take an affidavit from the Pope to help out the solicitor general on this one.

Did the solicitor general specifically speak to the RCMP commissioner in regard to a $3.5 million program? Yes or no.