Jean Chrétien

[Government Programs, September 18th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the member is saying that the NDP are so impressed with the Liberal Party that I am afraid they will want to join us very soon.

[Voyageur Colonial Pension Funds, September 18th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the problem has been looked at by public servants who are responsible for an organization that did not come directly under the administration of the Minister of Finance. He had delegated this to his secretary of state. All applicable rules were followed. Moreover, inquiries were made of the ethics commissioner, whose response was that he had not been able to identify any conflict of interest.

[Voyageur Colonial Pension Funds, September 18th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, this file had been delegated by the then minister of finance to the minister for financial institutions. He had already delegated the authority to make decisions to the secretary of state.

[Voyageur Colonial Pension Funds, September 18th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the OSFI is a completely independent organization of the government that supervises the activities of the pension plans of different companies. There was in that case no complaint of any intervention by anybody. I do not know why the opposition keeps trying to throw mud rather than respect the normal operations of the government.

[Agriculture, September 16th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I have been extremely active with this file. We have put in more than half a billion dollars to help the farmers who are affected by this ban of the export of beef and we are doing our best with the American government. Ministers raise that all the time. I did that all the time.

I talked with the ambassador here about it many times. The Canadian ambassador in Washington raises this matter all the time. Ambassador Cellucci has said, “The relationship is in very good shape. We are working each and every day. We are making progress”. When the ambassador says that we are working well with them on all the files, I think that this--

[Agriculture, September 16th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I have always done that with the President and other people at the White House with whom I have had the occasion to meet. I think that I will have occasion to meet with President Bush. Whenever I talked with him he had always said and agreed with me that this had to be based on a scientific basis.

I wish to report that the only country that has managed to go back into the American market after having a case of mad cow is Canada. The beef has started to move but not fast enough and we are keeping the pressure on the American government.

[Government Contracts, September 16th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, there is a law and it is the role of the police to investigate theft. That is the case in all jurisdictions, and that is exactly what the police are doing at this moment. The police have the authority to act when there are charges of theft.

[Government Contracts, September 16th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, there are two investigations under way, one by the RCMP and one by the Auditor General. These agencies are both completely independent of the government. So far, they have been doing very good work. There is no reason to change the policy adopted by this government a very long time ago.

[Government Contracts, September 16th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I must go back to my role as a professor of law and tell the hon. member that when there are prosecutions under the Criminal Code in one province it is the attorney general of that province who lays the charge, not the Attorney General of Canada.

[Government Contracts, September 16th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is the Solicitor General and not the Minister of Justice who is responsible here. The hon. member ought to find out who is responsible for what before standing up in the House. It is a bit ridiculous not to know that the RCMP is under the jurisdiction of the Solicitor General.