Judy Sgro

[Prisons And Penitentiaries, October 4th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I think all members of the House know that drugs pose a real problem in our prison system.

I would like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Solicitor General just what are you doing to help deal with this problem and prevent drugs from entering our prisons?

[Crime Prevention, September 22nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, safe communities and safe streets have been the Liberal government's priority from the beginning of our election. Canadians asked us to firmly respond to the serious crimes and we listened.

In this session alone our government has introduced legislation to toughen sentencing provisions for home invasions. We have introduced legislation to strengthen the current animal cruelty laws. We have toughened impaired driving provisions of the criminal code. We made legislative amendments to strengthen the voice of victims of crime within the justice system.

We have made sure law enforcement has the tools to do its job too. Last year we provided $115 million to the RCMP to modernize the Canadian Police Information Centre. We provided another $15 million to the RCMP to fight organized crime in our nation's airports. We have increased the total RCMP budget by $584 million over the next three years to modernize computer—

[The Late Louis Quilico, September 20th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, today I would like to pay tribute to a great Canadian opera singer, the late Mr. Louis Quilico who passed away at the age of 75 last July 15 from a heart attack. Mr. Quilico was one of the most celebrated baritones of his generation.

Born in Montreal of a Quebecois mother and an Italian father, Mr. Quilico made his first foray into opera at the Opera Guild of Montreal and spent 25 years at the Metropolitan Opera in New York as well as other great stages of the world.

He is recognized for the exceptional quality of his performances and the strength of his voice.

In addition, Mr. Quilico taught music at the University of Toronto and the University of Montreal where he also taught Gino, his son, who would later play in many operas with his father.

In 1974 Mr. Quilico was named Companion of the Order of Canada. Last year he received a Governor General's award in the performing arts.

Mr. Quilico contributed in an extraordinary way to Canadian music and to opera as a whole. On behalf of the Government of Canada, I would like to thank Mr. Quilico and offer my sincere condolences to his loved ones.

[Scientific Research, June 9th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to mention two important initiatives taken by the government in my riding of York West.

Just recently York University received a $14,000 grant under the northern scientific training program. Since its inception in 1961 this training program has played a key role in supporting the development of scientific expertise in northern research and in promoting the vital and growing role of Canadian universities in this field. Without this support, many of these initiatives would be very difficult to promote.

The second initiative is part of the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, which is an $11.8 million investment aimed at strengthening the research capacity of 28 Canadian universities. Under the new opportunities fund, York University will be able to finance a new scientific research facility.

York University and its students are an integral part of my riding. I am very glad to see that the government recognizes the vital importance of funding such research initiatives.

[Supply, June 6th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I would point out as a member of the committee that the committee held many, many meetings and heard lots of witnesses. We recognize that the recommendations in the report came from all of us; that we look at finding a way to make the department slightly smaller, modernizing the department and streamlining it. It is a very big department and it deals with huge amounts of money. All the recommendations in the report are there because we, the government, also wanted to see some change and some opportunities to stay on top of some of the issues. Those are the recommendations that came out of the HRDC committee.

[Supply, June 6th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, my opportunity to sit on the HRDC committee and hear from the various agencies the great things they did with the help of HRDC grants flies in the face of the comments of the hon. member.

We all know that the intention of our government, the Government of Canada, and Canadian taxpayers is for people to be helped in society. Cutting taxes is not supposed to be the primary goal for anybody; it is to provide good services to the people of the country. That is exactly what we were doing with the HRDC grants.

[Supply, June 6th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I would remind the hon. member that one of the roles of HRDC is to get people off unemployment and back into the workforce, as well as to ensure that opportunities are there for the disabled, the handicapped and many other Canadians who look forward to a positive future.

The unemployment rate was reduced from 11% to 7% as a result of the work done through HRDC. I think that is very important.

[56Th Anniversary Of D-Day, June 6th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, on this day 56 years ago, young men from across the country and part of the Third Canadian Infantry Division were landing on Juno beach in Normandy, many of them never to return home.

Today, names like Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword Beaches are but briefly mentioned. We often forget that each and every one of these men had a family, a story and dreams for the future.

Although many of them perished on those bloody beaches, some like Dr. Bernard Laski are still with us. On June 6, 1944 Dr. Laski was with the troops in Normandy. After the war he chose Toronto as his home and has since been a devoted and well respected pediatrician.

Today we pay tribute to those who fell and gave their lives, but we should also take a moment to say thanks to all the veterans who are still with us. Today we must all remember them.

[Supply, June 6th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to offer my comments on the opposition motion calling for an independent commission of inquiry into the grants and contributions activities of the Department of Human Resources and Development.

I am pleased to participate because it seems to me that after so many months of relentless attack from the other side of the House it is about time for some sanity to prevail in this debate.

This latest motion is little more than a vain attempt by the opposition to try to keep the issue alive and in the press for a few more hours or days. The old adage, if a story is repeated long enough and loud enough, maybe enough people will believe it. That has certainly been the tactic of the opposition parties.

Day after day in question period they say the same things. Day after day they repeat the same old questions: Where is the billion dollars? How come the minister will not resign because she has lost a billion dollars or more, and so on. Over and over they ask where the billion dollars is that is missing.

I do not think there are too many Canadians left who think the opposition really wants any answers to anything. They are ignoring Abraham Lincoln's famous script “You can fool some of the people some of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time”.

Canadians are very smart and astute people. At some point the truth does comes through. This latest ploy to call for an independent commission of inquiry is not about the real issues that play to Canadians, it is about nothing other than cheap politics. What the opposition does not tell people is that we already have an independent review going on right now by an officer of parliament.

The Office of the Auditor General of Canada is on this case. It is working closely with the Department of Human Resources Development to address the issues. Who does the auditor general report to? He does not report to the minister or to the Prime Minister. He reports directly to the House, to all of us in the House. He reports to me and he reports to the opposition. He is independent of government. He is an independent officer of the House. He says what he wants to say. He investigates what he wants to investigate. He will report in the fall.

Does the auditor general sound the alarm? Is there a clarion call for the immediate suspension of all government operations and the appointment of a 10 year long royal commission into everything? Not at all.

Here is what the auditor general's officials had to say about the new regime HRD has put in place to rectify the current situation. They said that in their opinion the proposed approach represented a thorough plan for corrective action to address immediate control problems. They also said that some longer term actions were also included that would further strengthen the approach.

Those are the words of the people charged with the responsibility of auditing government programs and reporting this audit to the House.

However, that is not good enough for the opposition. It wants somebody's head on a plate. Solutions do not make headlines, only problems make the headlines. As we and the minister have all acknowledged, it was not an insignificant problem. In fact, it was the minister who brought this problem to the attention of the House. It was the minister who stood in her place and said that books on grants and contributions needed to be fixed because an internal audit showed that the procedures were not followed properly, that complete records were not kept and that forms were not filled out in the entirety.

What was the bottom line? After all the sound and fury from opposition benches about billions of dollars gone missing and after the department reviewed an audited 17,000 additional files, what was the result? The result was that $6,500 remained outstanding, not in money but in documentation for $6,500. All the boondoggle that continues to be talked about was never a boondoggle to begin with.

What is particularly important is that the minister and the department, rather than responding to the great controversy over the way the records were kept with a kind of easy response, a kind of grants and contributions chill that would have seen hundreds of excellent and worthwhile projects go waiting for funds, took steps to rectify the situation which balanced the need for grant recipients and the need for proper accountability and financial controls. In other words, they took the difficult plan. They rolled up their sleeves and got down to business.

Where the audit said that the paperwork was unacceptable, they set about to put it right and to get the right forms in the right places. That was what this is all about. Where the audit said information was missing, it was obtained. Where approvals were not recorded or were carried out incorrectly, they were corrected. Where further monitoring work was called for, it was done.

However, let us remember again what the audit said. The audit said that important paper was missing, not money. In response to that, it went through one file at a time to ensure that everything was done exactly right.

Despite the repeated claims of the members opposite, that has not been the issue since day one. The Canadian public was clearly misled. If that is the role of the opposition, then at some point they owe an apology to the Canadian public, as well as to the minister.

As the minister has said, the paperwork is central to the accountability of her public funds. What is also central is the fact that these programs are there for a reason. They are not just political window dressing, as many of the critics claim. These are programs that help people; programs that members on both sides of the House have long agreed are both necessary and worthwhile; programs that help people get and keep jobs; programs, for example, that have helped reduce the unemployment rate from 11% in 1993 to below 7% today; programs that have contributed to the fact that over two million jobs have been created since 1993; programs that focus on the needs of individuals in all regions of this country and create practical and results oriented ways to help them become productive and contributing members of society and the economy.

The members opposite can sneer at these support programs and how they are administered and they can try to turn Canadians to their real agenda, which is that government should abandon those in need and provide more tax concessions to those better off in our society. I do not believe their plan will work. I do not believe the majority of Canadians would agree with that narrow vision.

The vast majority of Canadians believe in helping our fellow citizens when they are in need. The vast majority of Canadians believe in a sane and levelheaded approach to how we provide that support. I think the vast majority of Canadians will see this motion for what it is: Just another attempt by the opposition to grab some headlines; just another attempt by the opposition to undermine a whole series of worthwhile programs.

I sincerely hope that the House will reflect the opinion of the majority of Canadians and reject this motion.

I just want to say something about the comments made earlier by some opposition members about those of us on the government side being whipped into supporting the motion. I will not be supporting the opposition motion that is before us. I sat on the HRDC committee and listened to all the allegations from the opposition. I listened to the staff and the witnesses. I will be voting against the motion because the work has been done and the corrections have been put in place.

[National Cancer Survivors Day, June 5th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, Sunday, June 4, marked the 13th anniversary of National Cancer Survivors Day. Cancer touches all of us either directly or indirectly since approximately one in three Canadians will be diagnosed with cancer during his or her lifetime.

On Sunday survivors were honoured, those who are living with and beyond cancer. We also recognize the important role that family members and friends play in the life of the many survivors. We also want to thank the many health care professionals and researchers who devote their lives to finding a cure or to making life more comfortable for people faced with this disease.

Last year over 700 communities across North America celebrated National Cancer Survivors Day. On Sunday several of us participated in the events taking place in our communities to ensure the ongoing success of this very important day.