James Moore

[Sponsorship Program, November 28th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, what we have said is that the Liberal approach to cleaning up the sponsorship mess has been more talk than action. The Liberals talked about paying back the stolen money. Justice Gomery said that $40 million was stolen. The Liberals say they have paid back $1 million. Only the most blind Liberal partisan can believe that Liberal math.

The Liberals said that they were going to go after the people who got the stolen money, but the Prime Minister has not held accountable any one of the eighteen Liberal candidates who in 1997 got illegal, stolen sponsorship cash. Why has the Liberal approach to the sponsorship program been so much talk and so little action? Do taxpayers not deserve better?

[Sponsorship Program, November 28th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Public Works and Government Services wants to convince us that the Liberal Party of Canada has paid back to the taxpayers every red cent that was illegally received. According to Justice Gomery, however, $40 million is still missing, and no one knows where it is.

The election is approaching. A Conservative government will doggedly pursue the Liberal Party in order to recover the millions of dollars that have disappeared from the public purse. Why does this Liberal government not manifest that same desire?

[Transportation Amendment Act, November 28th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster has a lot of complaints about the bill, but he has not made it clear whether the New Democrats will actually be voting in favour of or opposed to the bill. If he can make that clear, it would be much appreciated by the House.

I was not planning on asking a question, but for a New Democrat from British Columbia to get up in the House to lecture any political party on either transportation policy or fiscal and economic policy is laughable.

When the New Democratic Party was in power in British Columbia for a decade, it took us from the fastest growing province in Canada to a have not province. From being a have province with everything booming and growing, coming out of Expo 86, growing in the late 1980s, growing into the 1990s, what happened in British Columbia? We elected New Democrats and our economy went south, and it went south in a huge way.

We became a have not province. We ended up being on the receiving end of benefits from Ottawa and that was because of New Democratic fiscal and economic policies. New Democrats are in the House and have the gall to lecture any political party in the House on fiscal and economic policy. It is laughable.

Given that we are debating transportation policy, I want to say to the member, who delved into provincial politics for 90% of his speech, that the New Democratic Party, his party, was in power in British Columbia for 10 years. There were only two transportation policies even remotely on the radar screen in British Columbia at that time. One was the Island highway, but because of NDP dropping the ball, bungling, scandal and pathetic management, it caused that highway to be twice as expensive as it would have been, which would have freed up hundreds of millions of dollars for other projects. However, his party failed to do the proper homework in developing that project.

The second transportation project in the entire decade of NDP rule in British Columbia was the fast ferry fiasco, the joke, where over $400 million went to ferries that did not work at all. They were an environmental disaster, a mechanical disaster, and turned out to be a fiscal and economic disaster for taxpayers in British Columbia. That was $400 million that could have gone to substantive policy changes including: the Kicking Horse Canyon and the lives that have been lost there; improvements to the problems with the Sea to Sky Highway; the problems in the northeast sector; rapid transit; and all the things he is talking about. He is great at pointing out all the problems, but when it comes to New Democrats having the opportunity to solve problems, his party failed miserably in British Columbia.

Would the hon. member stand up and explain why his party was so pathetic in government?

[Sponsorship Program, November 24th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, Judge Gomery said $40 million is still missing. We are trying to find it. We are trying to encourage the Prime Minister to go after his own party and to stop stealing money from Canadian taxpayers.

Receiving dirty sponsorship money is a crime. It is also a violation of the Elections Act. Liberal Marc-Yvon Côté admitted to giving stolen tax dollars illegally to 18 candidates in the province of Quebec. The Prime Minister has failed to name the 18 ridings, failed to get the money back, and failed to sue the Liberal Party and defend taxpayers.

We want to know on behalf of taxpayers, what more does the Prime Minister have to know to go after his own party, stop stealing money, and pay the money back to taxpayers?

[Sponsorship Program, November 24th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, at the Gomery inquiry, the chief Liberal organizer, Marc-Yvan Côté, admitted that he handed out dirty money to 18 Liberal candidates in Quebec during the 1997 campaign. The Liberal party swears up and down that no one is above the law, but all the facts show that the law never applies to Liberal criminals.

When will the Prime Minister release the list of the 18 ridings that broke the law by accepting dirty money?

[Transportation, November 23rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Auditor General criticized Transport Canada's mismanagement of the Quebec bridge file. Only 40% of the work has been completed, and more than $60 million has already been spent. Transport Canada and CN cannot agree on who is to foot the rest of the bill. We are talking about a historic site here, and a vital infrastructure.

Why can the Minister of Transport not come to an agreement and meet the expectations of the City of Quebec?

[Points of Order, November 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I did use the word “bandit” in French, which of course means thief, but I was not specifically describing Jean Pelletier. However, if I did use language that was unparliamentary I withdraw it.

[Government Appointments, November 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I will take another run at it and perhaps the minister will answer my question this time. Mr. Pelletier is currently suing the federal government and VIA for $3.1 million. The Liberal bungling of his file now lets him claim another $400,000 in back pay and benefits for 20 months because the Liberals did not fire him properly the first time. His potential pay out for this Liberal fumble is $3.5 million, more money than many Canadians will make in their entire lifetime.

Why is it that when everyday Canadians lose their job, they have to rely on EI and their savings? When a Liberal loses his job in disgrace, it is like winning the lottery.

[Government Appointments, November 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, if the Liberal auto strategy was working so well they would not be firing thousands of people.

The government is telling us that it wants to fire Jean Pelletier from VIA Rail. At the same time, the Liberals are informing us that Jean Pelletier has proceedings before the Superior Court of the Province of Quebec and is asking for a huge severance pay. Moreover, because of the Liberal incompetence, he could get retroactive wages totalling $400,000 for the period of 20 months between his first firing and his second one.

Why can the Liberals not fire their bandit friends without giving them money?

[Government Appointments, November 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, in the great taxpayer rip-off in the David Dingwall affair, Mr. Dingwall is negotiating hundreds of thousands of dollars in severance for quitting a job that paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Now the Prime Minister and the transport minister are saying that they are still going to fire Jean Pelletier.

The question taxpayers want to know is a simple one. Which of these two Liberals, David Dingwall or Jean Pelletier, is going to get the biggest severance for leaving office in disgrace?