Paul Martin

[Government Contracts, April 20th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member made a reference to leadership money. The hon. member knows that at that period of time there was no leadership race. In fact, the leadership race did not occur for another six or seven years.

What the hon. member omitted to say is that every single penny I raised in the leadership race has been fully disclosed. It is all in the public record. The question is, since I have fully disclosed, why have the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Central Nova not made full disclosure of their leadership funds?

[The Prime Minister, April 20th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member obviously must know, the planning for yesterday's presentation of the international policy review has been done for quite some time. It was very important that following the presentation I take the opportunity to meet with a number of key ambassadors so the message would go back to their capitals, and that is exactly what I did.

I would like, however, to take this occasion to congratulate the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of National Defence, the Minister of International Trade and the minister responsible for overseas aid. I must say that yesterday was a very successful day for Canada.

[Sponsorship Program, April 20th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's statement is not true, it is completely untrue. There has never been any intervention in the awarding of contracts. All I wanted as minister was an open competition, as did my assistant, Ms. O'Leary, the deputy minister and the finance department. That was what we proposed from the start.

[Sponsorship Program, April 20th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, first, Ms. O'Leary corresponded with the Ethics Commissioner; as a result of this correspondence, she declared her status, and then she followed the Ethics Commissioner's recommendations to the letter.

Second, Ms. O'Leary stated unequivocally that she had never interfered in the awarding of any contracts. Her answer is clear: never. She made this statement under oath.

[Sponsorship Program, April 20th, 2005]

First, Mr. Speaker, the minister answered the Leader of the Opposition's question quite directly. He said, “no”, and that no means no.

Second, as with all ministers, an examination of their background, skills and experience was undertaken both by the government and by the RCMP. I have to say that no one has ever questioned the integrity of the Minister of Transport.

[Sponsorship Program, April 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have already answered this question many times. Lucie Castelli was responsible for selling tickets to the big Liberal Party fundraising dinner in Montreal. That is what she did.

[Liberal Party of Canada, April 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, first of all the member of Parliament apologized for making the statement, and that is what is important. The statement was simply unacceptable and the member of Parliament recognized that.

In terms of the use of the notwithstanding clause, while I disagree with him, the hon. member was very honest in his position, unlike those of the official opposition who refuse to accept the fact that the only way a decision of the courts could be reversed is by the use of the notwithstanding clause. If what the member wants to do is talk about what is ethical behaviour in Parliament, it is in fact to tell Canadians the truth about the policies one has.

[Sponsorship Program, April 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc did not share my opinion when I said, right from the start, that the Liberal Party was prepared to pay back 100% of funds received inappropriately.

[Government Contracts, April 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, every minister will know that the advice that he or she is given comes from the minister's own department. A minister follows the advice of the deputy minister. In my case, I had three deputy ministers of finance. I followed their advice as to the way in which one should proceed.

[Government Contracts, April 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I most certainly did receive advice from the Department of Finance. The Department of Finance's position on contracting was exactly the same as mine, which is that all contracts should be open to open bidding and that there should be competitions in every case.

In fact, what makes the hon. member's question all the more ludicrous is that one of the first contracts that we sought to open up to open bidding was one from Groupe Everest and Mr. Boulay.