Jean Chrétien

[Auditor General, September 19th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, we have committees of the House of Commons that look at reports from a lot of officials from many important sectors of public administration.

When the committees meet, the duty of the members of Parliament is to look into the report and express their point of view about it. We have different parties in this House and sometimes the parties do not agree.

We are not about to ask the committee to meet and not to look and not to report. They are there to do just that. Now the report will be studied by the Minister of Finance. There are in this report suggestions by the people from the government side, people from the Bloc and from Reform. We will look at all the suggestions, take the good ones and reject the bad ones.

The committee members have to do their work, to study the report and have the honesty to report to the House what they believe should be reported to the House.

[Somalia Inquiry, September 19th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, we have an inquiry that is doing the job it was asked to do. We would like to have the results as quickly as possible so we can deal with the matter efficiently.

In the meantime, I urge everybody to let the commission do its job, let General Boyle run the armed forces and let the Minister of National Defence do what is needed in national defence to give it some stability and the political leadership that is needed. In the previous nine years, in the previous administration, the department had seven ministers. There was no connection between the political needs and the administration. The stability that is needed is being established at this moment by the good work the Minister of National Defence is doing.

[The Somalia Inquiry, September 18th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, they really deserve the support of the third party for the very good job they are doing today in the former Yugoslavia, the job they are doing today in Haiti and in other places in the world. They are doing a good job.

It is because I have a lot of respect for them that I decided it was not to be a revolving door for the political leadership of that department. I gave them an experienced politician and a good administrator to do the job, to stay there and do what is needed to have the most modern armed force available that is possible at this moment.

[The Somalia Inquiry, September 18th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, of course I knew of Mr. Boyle because I had studied the files of many candidates and I had some recommendations. But I did not know him personally.

When he came I interviewed him, but I knew a lot about him and it was rather good. But I had not met him. Sometimes we know a lot about candidates in many fields without meeting them. I do that regularly in appointments. Because we receive recommendations and we name somebody, that does not mean that we had a beer with the guy the day before. That means that we looked at his cv, the recommendation, the abilities and we made a decision.

After I met General Boyle-he was on a short list-and I knew at that moment that he could fill the bill. Let him do his job. When the inquiry is done we will have the results. The sooner the better because yesterday the leader of the third party was afraid that the report would come after the election, so he should ask them to do it as fast as possible to have it before the election.

[The Somalia Inquiry, September 18th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I guess the leader of the third party needs a new speech writer.

I said earlier in French that we instituted the commission because we wanted to get to the bottom of the Somalia affair and receive recommendations so that we can change what has to be changed. When we were in opposition we did ask for a commission like that. We established that commission and we would like to have the report as quickly as possible.

The leader of the third party yesterday asked if we wanted to have the report before the election. I would be delighted to have the report tomorrow so we could act. We are not trying to cover up anything. We instituted the inquiry and we want the result in the shortest term possible so that we can have a report.

To please the party of the Leader of the Opposition, who wanted to have it before the election, I do not know when I will have an election. If I were him I would not hope for a quick election.

[The Somalia Inquiry, September 18th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the minister has been in his portfolio for three years. Yesterday I indicated that I had decided very early on in this administration to have a minister of defence who would remain in his position for a long time, in order for there to be an authority in place capable of making decisions.

I must apologize for saying in the House that there had been six ministers in nine years under the Conservatives. I was wrong, there were 17. Under the circumstances, I feel that the minister's job is a very difficult one.

He is working under even more difficult circumstances than his predecessors, because we are obliged, in the interests of good administration and deficit reduction, to reduce defence spending, to reduce staff and to reduce the number of bases.

The minister has accomplished all of those difficult tasks, and now he, like all the rest of us, is awaiting the commission's report, which we hope to see as soon as possible in order to take the required action.

[The Somalia Inquiry, September 18th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, we are going to wait for the Commission report. Let us allow it to finish its work. The sooner we get the report, the better it will be for everyone, for we will then be able to react accordingly. That is what I want, that is what this House wants, and I am sure it is also what the Armed Forces and the Canadian public want as well.

[The Somalia Inquiry, September 18th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, we want to find out the truth, and that is precisely the reason we set up such an inquiry. We want the results as soon as possible.

Why? Because the Armed Forces and the Department of Defence are somewhat on hold, as long as the inquiry is still going on. We would like to have the inquiry's conclusions as promptly as possible, so we may take the appropriate remedial action.

This commission was set up in order to determine what happened during the former government's involvement in the Somalia operation. We are most anxious to find out whether changes need to be made in the command process in order to avoid a repetition of such incidents.

[Somalia Inquiry, September 17th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I think that the leader of the third party needs more than a new haircut.

Of course when the report is finished, the report will be tabled. I think the way the leader of the third party is acting in the House today, he will be competing very closely for the same level of votes in the next election as another reform leader in the United States, Mr. Perot, of 5 per cent.

[Somalia Inquiry, September 17th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the commission has been sitting now for seven or eight months. It has asked questions day after day on national TV. Lawyers are asking questions. They are grilling public servants as if they were almost criminals. Everything is out in the open. We could not have a more open government. The three commissioners have been named. I know only one personally. One of them is a judge who I guess was appointed by a government other than ours. I do not know him at all and have never met him. No one can say that it is not an inquiry which is independent, open and has all the resources. In fact it is getting very expensive to look into the problem.

We wanted to look into the Somalia incident as this House was committed to do. It has now taken seven months and it will probably take many more months. Even the Watergate affair in the United States was settled in six or seven weeks.