Gerry Ritz

[Government Contracts, May 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, in response to a question earlier from the member for Calgary Southwest, the Prime Minister said that changes would be made so that the errors of the past would not be repeated. However, nine years went by and nobody over there said a word.

The minister's new five point plan that he has just implemented really puts the onus on the contractors to lower themselves to the standard the government asks them to go.

Will the minister admit that the whole problem begins and ends with the corrupt practices of the government?

[Government Contracts, May 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the minister of public works has announced that he will be selecting new communication agencies this June. It sounds like a little more damage control is going on.

The minister is doing his darndest to deflect blame onto his previously hand-picked agencies for the gross mismanagement of the sponsorship advertising programs. However, Groupaction, one of the outfits, points out that it “provided adequate services that correspond to the communication and political objectives of the government of Canada”

Will the minister stand up today and admit that the whole darned fiasco begins and ends with the questionable ethics practised by his department?

[Government Contracts, May 9th, 2002]

Thankfully, Mr. Speaker, the auditor general is going to dig a little deeper than the minister did in his own department.

The problem with these types of contracts is blatantly clear. A five point plan or a fifty point plan will not change the fact that $500 million has disappeared down this Liberal sinkhole in the last nine years. There is a pattern here.

How can Canadians even begin to trust the Liberal government to change the way it does business when it is clear that its idea of financial fundamentals is to line its own pockets?

[Government Contracts, May 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the auditor general looked at a scant three contracts out of the thousands this past month and, surprise, surprise, all three were a blatant waste of taxpayers' dollars. According to the auditor general, the Liberal government consistently breaks the rules: business as usual.

Will the public works minister announce right now that all discretionary finances and advertising for these guys on the front row over there will be suspended today?

[Government Expenditures, May 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, Canadian taxpayers truly appreciate the efforts of Sheila Fraser and her hardworking crew at the auditor general's office. Unfortunately today's report offers scrutiny in only one small area of corruption.

Public works is only the latest department from over there where the Canadians see hard evidence of waste, incompetence and political interference at the expense of taxpayers.

Will the Prime Minister send one of his new $100 million Challengers to bring Alfonso Gagliano back here to answer for his questionable record at public expense, I mean public works?

[Government Expenditures, May 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the prime Minister called home today and said that if there was any wrongdoing then those people would face the justice.

The auditor general has found plenty of wrongdoing: inflated contracts, contracts with no receipts, unqualified sole sourced contractors, all wrapped up with contributions back to the Liberal Party. All Canadian taxpayers demand justice on the mess the Liberals have made of their politically driven handout programs.

Will the Prime Minister allow his exiled crony in Denmark to come home and face the music or will the new public works minister take the fall?

[Supply, May 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it was interesting to listen to the member's comments which went round and round in a self-serving way. There was a bit of a diatribe and rant on the darn old Americans who dare to implement these types of things.

The problem I have with that is it was a five year agreement. Five years ago we knew this was going to come to a head, that something had to be done. Guess what happened? Nothing. Guess who did not do it? It was his government.

For the member to say that the Americans are terrible for implementing this and so on, I find a little hard to take. He talked about the symptoms but not about the cause.

The cause is that nobody got off their duff here in Ottawa and took to heart that the agreement had to be renewed in five years. Two years ago it was pointed out again and again by members of all the opposition parties that the government had better negotiate with the Americans. It did not happen. Now we hear that type of speech by the member. Why did he not have that speech two years ago? Why did he not press his government to come to grips with this issue then?

[Government Expenditures, May 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, these guys handle more pork than Maple Leaf pork packers. When the government gets a report it does not like from the auditor general, it sits on it. Yesterday the public works minister said:

Certainly, I have the intention of doing everything to follow the auditor general's recommendations to have the greatest transparency possible.

Would the Liberals please wire a return trip ticket to the exiled Alfonso Gagliano so he can answer for these mistaken, outrageous abuses of taxpayer money?

[Government Expenditures, May 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, even the Prime Minister's own hand-picked Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs disagrees with his party's propaganda program. It is absolutely laughable that separatism was somehow averted by slapping a federal logo on every flea market and fishing tournament after the Quebec referendum in 1995.

In 1993 the Prime Minister bragged that he would take a pencil and write “zero helicopters”. Why will he not take that same pencil and write “zero pork”?

[Supply, May 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I just realized I will not have to do much in the way of fertilizing this year. I will just scatter the member's Hansard record on the field and I will have a bounteous crop with the fertilizer he just spread.

He went on and on about how the Liberals are taking their time to come up with sound policy that will benefit the future of farming and that farmers will be better off in the future because of the sound policy. What about the present? These folks have to get through this year. They have come through three or four bad years.

There are programs that the government did implement and AIDA and CFIP, the son of AIDA. The member talked glowingly about the $1 billion that went in. Of the farmers in Saskatchewan that I represent, nobody qualified. Most of it was eaten up in administration. The problem we are running into now is that the people who did qualify for a few nickels and dimes in 1998 are having it clawed back because the rules were changed arbitrarily. It is being clawed back plus interest and penalties.

I would like the member to explain to my farmers why when they finally received a few nickels and dimes from the government, the rules were changed arbitrarily, retroactively. It is being clawed back plus interest and penalties. Anywhere else that would be called loansharking.