Monique Guay

[Employment Insurance, May 20th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, despite the 28 recommendations on employment insurance made by the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development, the government is still refusing to respond to Quebec's interests by implementing the improvements proposed by the committee, while more than half the unemployed have no access to EI benefits.

Does the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development intend to make some adjustments, improve the program and create the independent EI fund as recommended by the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development?

[Government of Canada, May 13th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is well aware that one of our Conservative members is scheduled for surgery on Wednesday.

How can the Prime Minister defer confirmation of the confidence vote to Thursday with a clear conscience, when the first vote was held three days ago, and he must now submit this matter to the House as soon as possible? Why Thursday?

[Government of Canada, May 13th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, Marc-Yvan Côté has confirmed it: there were well-stuffed envelopes of dirty money handed over to Liberal candidates. The sponsorship money went to every region of Quebec.

Will the Prime Minister, whose government is so greatly tainted by a scandal of such severity, give in to the evidence and propose a confidence vote as soon as possible, that is on Monday?

[Sponsorship Program, May 6th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, with that kind of attitude, the Liberals will lose their confidence vote on May 18.

Michel Béliveau has said that he obtained, at the very least, $300,000 in dirty money from Jacques Corriveau and another $121,000 from Alain Renaud. This money was used for partisan purposes in complete violation of the Canada Elections Act. And the meter is still ticking.

Does the government intend to respect the will of the House and immediately create a trust fund for the dirty sponsorship funds?

[Sponsorship Program, May 6th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, after the testimony given by Michel Béliveau, the former president of the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party of Canada, we learn that the meter is still ticking and that the amount of dirty, illegal Liberal money used for election purposes has now reached over $2 million.

Given the mounting revelations, what is the government waiting for to create this trust fund, which the House voted overwhelmingly in favour of on April 19?

[Sponsorship Program, May 5th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I think this issue very much relates to the government.

Another case was mentioned at the Gomery commission. It appears that the deputy government whip and member for Beauséjour intervened regarding two or three sponsorship projects in the riding that he had his eyes on.

How can the Prime Minister justify appointing the member for Beauséjour, when we are hearing that he too was immersed in the sponsorship scandal and in dirty Liberal money?

[Sponsorship Program, May 5th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Honoré-Mercier worked as president of the Liberal Party and as a very active organizer during the 2000 election campaign, including when his salary was paid by the Gervais Gagnon agency. On the one hand, Gervais Gagnon was paying on behalf of the Liberal Party, while on the other hand, the agency was collecting contracts from the government and crown corporations through the current member for Honoré-Mercier.

Is this not dirty Liberal money?

[The Liberal Government, May 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, midnight last night was the fateful hour, the deadline for filing our income tax returns.

No doubt, Quebeckers and Canadians took a few moments to wonder what the Liberal government, awash in scandals, will do with our tax dollars. There is the human resources scandal, in which the government wasted nearly $1 billion; the firearms scandal, in which the government ran through nearly $2 billion; and the sponsorship scandal, in which this government used public funds to try to buy the conscience of Quebeckers, while filling the pockets of its cronies who paid it back in spades.

Paying taxes is already hard enough. It is discouraging for taxpayers to see how this government is wasting their money.

Without a doubt, at the stroke of midnight last night, these disturbing facts must have left more than one person angry.

[Sponsorship Program, April 7th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Transport is not being very subtle in trying to place the blame on a so-called parallel group.

Can the minister deny that the parallel group to which he is referring did not consist of anonymous actors, as he would have us believe, but rather very public Liberal Party members who were in the highest echelons of that party?

[Sponsorship Program, April 7th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, Minister of Transport and Prime Minister's lieutenant for Quebec has tried to distance himself from the sponsorship scandal by stating, “These people had no official position in the Liberal Party of Canada”.

How could the minister make such a statement when we know that those soliciting donations on behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada were Benoît Corbeil, Joe Morselli and Jacques Corriveau, all senior officials with the party's Quebec wing?