Jean Chrétien

[Ethics, June 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday's expenditures were paid by the Liberal Party of Canada.

I want to say that for years and years it was common for Prime Minister Mulroney to have dozens and dozens of people visiting every week. It was very well-known.

One of the complaints I have received is that I do not receive people from the business community at 24 Sussex often enough.

[Urban Affairs, June 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the municipalities have occasion to deal directly with some of the ministers on infrastructure, housing, homelessness and so on, but it is a fact of life that the Constitution of Canada dictates very clearly that the municipalities are under the responsibility of the provincial governments. I think that it is for the federal government to respect the Constitution of Canada in that matter, as we have done in the past and as we intend to do in the future.

[Urban Affairs, June 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance.

[Government Contracts, June 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, in October 2000, the minister changed the administrative practices in order to ensure that the abuses which had taken place in previous years did not recur.

He acted immediately. All this was made public within two weeks of our being informed. Journalists were already writing about it in October 2000, following the release of the report.

[Government Contracts, June 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, at the request of the opposition, we asked the auditor general to look into all these cases. A certain number of them were referred to the police by the auditor general and a few others by the department.

That was what the opposition requested and it is what we are now doing. When the then minister received the report in 2000, he immediately imposed new rules to ensure that what he had observed would not recur.

[Government Contracts, June 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, we are receiving letters, from members of different parties, to make sure that the sponsorship program comes back right away because there are hundreds and hundreds of organizations in the land that are waiting to have these programs this summer so there will be economic activities in all the ridings, especially in the rural ridings across the land.

[Government Contracts, June 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, when he talks about ethics he should report what I have said. I have always said that the program of sponsorship has been very, very important in Quebec to make sure that the people of Quebec know that the federal government is doing a lot of good things for the people of Quebec.

The minister acted immediately on the report. The report was made public on the website less than two weeks after it was received and there was an article in the

Globe and Mail.

He should have been awake that day.

[Government Contracts, June 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, there was a meeting at which two members of my personnel were there for five minutes. One stayed for the whole meeting.

As for the result of that meeting, less than two weeks after that everything was on the website. The day after, there was an article by a journalist, Mr. Leblanc, in the Globe and Mail. So much for secrecy. Right after that the minister introduced some reforms to make sure that the mistakes would be corrected in the future.

[Liberal Party of Canada, June 5th, 2002]

We will have a review in February, I am sorry, and at that occasion if money is being raised for that all the donors will be known by the people before the review.

[Liberal Party of Canada, June 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am not from the Alliance Party so I will not run to replace myself. On that score, I am not preoccupied with organizing a leadership campaign after I retire so I do not have this big problem.

There might be another problem, that if we have a review in February and if my--