Paul Martin

[Sponsorship Program, February 18th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, there is no contradiction. The hon. member can read what I said; I said that there were rumours at the start of 2002, that questions were raised in the House, and there was an article in the Globe and Mail on this issue.

On January 15, I think it was, a new minister was appointed. Later, the Globe and Mail published an article on Groupaction. Following that, the Auditor General's report and confirmed everything.

I have said repeatedly and everyone knows that questions were raised in the House and there were newspaper reports in the early part of 2002.

[Sponsorship Program, February 18th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, this kind of activity taking place within the political process is a breach of trust and nobody supports it. It has happened elsewhere in this country, unfortunately, and we must do everything possible to ensure that it does not happen again.

However, what is very despicable is when the hon. member singles out a province and then the rest of her colleagues stand up to applaud the fact that they are engaged in Quebec bashing. Let us not have any more of that here in the House of Commons.

[Sponsorship Program, February 18th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I was very clear when I gave my answer. In fact, I asked all the ministers around the cabinet table, and I do not really think that we should be singling out Quebec ministers. The fact is that I asked all of the ministers, and all of the ministers said they had no knowledge of those activities.

[Sponsorship Program, February 18th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that we all have to avoid in the House is deliberately setting out to destroy the reputation of any single person.

It is perfectly valid for the hon. member to pursue a line of questioning, but when he deliberately seeks, by association, to damage somebody else's reputation, a public servant who is not here in the House capable of defending himself, it really is despicable.

[Sponsorship Program, February 18th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Laguë did not work for Mr. Gagliano. He was the secretary of the cabinet committee on communications. That is a cabinet committee.

[Sponsorship Program, February 18th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, as part of the ministerial swearing in ceremony on December 12, the ministers were asked whether there was anything in their past that should be discussed with us.

Moreover, I have asked each and every one of my cabinet ministers whether they had any knowledge of inappropriate activity in the sponsorship issue. Rest assured that in each case, the answer was no.

[Government Contracts, February 18th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would be delighted in fact to have that memo tabled. What it said was that it agreed with the suggestion from someone else and then went on to say that we wanted it all to be on a competitive basis, we wanted everything to be tendered, and there was a list of other companies that we, the government, wanted to see on that list. I would be quite happy to table that memo.

[Sponsorship Program, February 18th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, documents of this kind belong to the previous government and it is only up to the previous government to see if permission can be given.

We have sought that permission, which is why I was able to answer in the affirmative to the hon. member's question, and I am certainly prepared to seek that permission. As far as this government is concerned, we are prepared to be totally open, totally transparent, and to lay everything on the table that can be laid on it.

[Sponsorship Program, February 18th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly prepared to enquire. The use of the word “pertinent” was that I thought there was a specific issue the member was directing himself to. If he would like, I will ask if we could have documents related to the first and the second world wars and the Korean war.

[Sponsorship Program, February 18th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the government is quite prepared to have those cabinet documents pertinent to this matter released.