Gerry Ritz

[Government Expenditures, May 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, if the auditor general is really and truly an officer of parliament, why did the briefing this morning only include cabinet ministers from that side? How were we left out if she answers directly to parliament?

One of the especially odorous examples of the political manipulating under the sponsorship scheme involved the Deputy Prime Minister. He forced public works to spend another $150,000 to advertise how great the government is in Ottawa.

Considering the federal government is the biggest employer, the biggest purchaser, the biggest landlord and the all around biggest presence in the city, I wonder how the government can account for this decision other than to say it is political pork-barrelling.

[Government Expenditures, May 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I guess I would throw it back to the Prime Minister. If he wants to make those kinds of accusations, he can make them outside the House and then we will have some real fun with him.

Consistent poor management and political interference from the front bench of the Liberals have caused millions of tax dollars to be wasted, and it is all self-serving government grandstanding that is paid for. It seems that Groupaction is only the tip of the iceberg. Public works says it has solved the problem, but thanks to its track record nobody believes that line.

Will the Prime Minister listen to the advice of his own auditor general and call in the RCMP to clear up the mess?

[Leadership Campaigns, May 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is great to have guidelines but if nobody enforces them they are really just lines on a piece of paper that mean nothing.

The minister of fisheries made no apology for this blatant abuse of tax dollars. Here is what he told the Canadian press when they took him to task for using the DFO surveillance plane for his politicking. He stated:

I'm a politician and I'm campaigning all the time...I can't stop it. I'm always getting ready for the next election.

Will the Prime Minister stop floundering and just release his minister of fisheries?

[Leadership Campaigns, May 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, sadly, the promotion of partisan activity at taxpayer expense was not restricted to the industry minister, the finance minister or the heritage minister. Taxpayers were left on the hook yesterday when the minister of fisheries was caught poaching a DFO surveillance plane to attend a Liberal campaign rally.

Could the Prime Minister explain why his minister is trolling for votes at taxpayer expense?

[Mountain Pine Beetle, April 30th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, taxpayers sending in their cheques tonight so they will be on time, must be shuddering when they hear that this department, which sole sources contracts and which is in charge of $10.5 billion, cannot keep track of its day to day operations. They probably can hear the toilet flush as they send in their cheques.

The auditor general also made comments on the over $7 billion that slid into the wrong pigeon hole. I guess pigeon is not a good word to use around here right now. The department is not accountable to parliament or to the auditor general. She cannot get in there to do an audit.

The member made reference to the $550 million to set up the Canada Health Infoway a year ago. It has a fancy board of Liberal directors who have been drawing salaries for this past year, but nothing has been done with that $550 million. Canadian taxpayers are concerned about the condition of their water, sewers, highways and the high cost of health care and education. They must be concerned when they hear that $550 million has been squirreled away into an area that is unaccountable to parliament, unaccountable to the auditor general and unaccountable to taxpayers.

[Mountain Pine Beetle, April 30th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House and take another shot at the Liberals on their spending priorities.

This stems from a question that I asked on April 17. I asked the public works minister about an untendered contract, if I can use those terms, for Health Canada telecommunications training.

The contract was signed on March 31 which is the end of the fiscal year. To get that $300,000 contract in place the government had to really rush it through. The quirky part is that the training was stipulated to be delivered on that same day. That was physically impossible.

The public works minister said in his reply that this was not an outrageous abuse of taxpayers' money. That was my assertion. He said the government followed closely the rules in contracting and processing the payment and so on. However, the auditor general, in looking over that same program, said that the contracting process was not open, it did not qualify for any exceptions that would close the process as the minister was claiming.

Health Canada misidentified the requirement as R and D which it was not and thereby threw off any other bidders. Health Canada had no idea if it was going after any kind of value at all in that by delivering it in one day.

As a contracting authority public works was cited by the auditor general for indulging in split contracts on some other things, that it lowered contracts to the $25,000 no tender required system and slammed a bunch of those through.

In answer to my second question the public works minister stated that there was no overpayment and so on. That is not what we were citing. We were citing an abuse of taxpayers' money, $300,000. March madness spending during the last day of the fiscal year by ramming through a contract that had to be delivered that same day. As I said, it was physically impossible.

The public works minister said no overpayment was made in regard to that contract for $300,000, but then he failed to mention in that same report that in $6.5 million of contracts that his own department audited, $800,000 in overpayments was found out of $6.5 million.

Then we started to get concerned about that extra $300,000 that was not part of that particular go around. It made us scratch our heads as to where taxpayers' money was being spent with these guys.

In the second question, I asked the minister if there was a quote that the program did not address the requirement to properly control and manage government assets. The auditor general agreed with that in her response.

The minister in replying to that part of the question said that policies were followed very closely. The auditor general said no. He said his department followed the approved policy using the advanced contract award notice. The auditor general again said no, the 15 days were not posted.

In addition, and perhaps most important, there was no overpayment in this regard. We did not specify overpayment. The overpayment came out of the other $6.5 million in public works where there were overpayments of $800,000. It did not address the $300,000 at all.

The auditor general said that the advance contract award notice was not used, the 15 days did not happen, and Treasury Board guidelines were not followed. The auditor general called this another example of non-compliance with government regulations.

Taxpayers have a right to know where their money is going and why the Liberal government thinks it can get away with that type of expenditure at the eleventh hour of the last day of the budget year, and then not have any requirement that those goods were ever delivered.

[Government of Canada, April 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Prime Minister ranted and raved and tried to blame everyone else about his government's continued failings, but no matter how he rants and raves the public is no longer buying that self-serving Liberal spin.

Untendered contracts that clearly benefit Liberal friends is not a false impression, as the Deputy Prime Minister would have us believe, of any corruption.

When will the Prime Minister clean up his cabinet and rein these guys in? Who is in charge?

[Government of Canada, April 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, 70% of Canadians are openly condemning the Liberal government as corrupt. A litany of untendered deals. Contracts are missing. Liberal leadership candidates hide behind ethics counsellor's rulings but when we check them out, there are no rulings or no record of any discussions.

Is not the real issue here and the real problem the missing ethics of these guys on the other side?

[Supply, April 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, in his opening comments the hon. member for Scarborough Southwest said there seems to be an idea among opposition members that the government is dragging its feet on making changes to the legislation.

That is a reality. The Liberals have been in government for over nine years in which time the Internet has become a household appliance. This has exacerbated the problem. We are no longer talking about pictures in books. We are talking about things on the world wide web.

The government should have made changes years ago when the Internet became a reality in homes from coast to coast, but it has not done that. When we talk about dragging feet we are saying the government could have done that. It come have used the notwithstanding clause on the Sharpe decision. It was not done. When we say the government is dragging its feet it is grounded in reality.

[National Defence, April 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, according to the contract breakdown the minister tabled on Friday, the two new jets are budgeted for almost $10 million in special military instrumentation. According to DND's own reports, the existing Challengers have been kept up to date with this hardware.

Would Canadian taxpayers not be better served by transferring the existing instrumentation, or does the Liberal government intend to shelve it beside the $174 million satellite system it never used?