Paul Martin

[Government Contracts, February 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the sponsorship program was brought in publicly by the government in order to provide Canadians with an understanding of what their government was doing when it was supporting festivals. It was discussed quite generally. It was hardly a secret. That is not where the problem lay.

The problem did not lay with the concept of the sponsorship program, although some approved of it and some did not. The real problem was what happened to certain people who got their hands on the money. That is where the problem lay. That was at the heart of the problem.

[Government Contracts, February 12th, 2004]

No, Mr. Speaker.

[Government Contracts, February 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member does not play phony indignation very well.

The fact is what I have said is that there was a small group of people, and associated in the whole act of complicity, according to the Auditor General, were certainly a number of crown corporations. In addition to that there is a group of people who must have given the orders.

The reason we have called for a public inquiry is to make sure that that small group of unidentified people is brought to justice

[Government Contracts, February 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker--

[Government Contracts, February 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member ought to begin now, after three days of this debate, to deal with the fundamental issues of how we deal with it, who are the guilty people and where do we go from here.

There is a problem which is that the role of the comptroller general, as an example, was eviscerated. The comptroller general did not have the capacity of going to the department. Under the delegation of authority, departments had the complete right, once they were allocated the envelope, to spend the money as they saw fit. That was the problem.

We have said we are going to fix it. We are talking about what we are going to do in the future. Where is the hon. member and his party?

[Government Contracts, February 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, there is a collective responsibility that cabinet assumes and we have all assumed that collective responsibility.

At the same time, there is a collective responsibility to make this right and that means to find out the guilty people and to bring them to justice.

It means that we put in place the measures that would not allow that to happen and this cabinet and the government also accept that collective responsibility.

[Government Contracts, February 11th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I announced that a complete review of the governance of crown corporations will be undertaken by the President of the Treasury Board. I have also asked him to, on an accelerated basis, meet with the crown corporations in question, to talk to their boards, to talk to their executives, to determine exactly what the facts are. I have then asked him to recommend to me, on an accelerated basis, the course of action the government should follow.

[Government Contracts, February 11th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, what happened--I said this yesterday--was unacceptable. It was intolerable. There is absolutely no excuse. There is no excuse for what happened. Those people who took that money should be punished.

Let us understand that the end never justifies the means. National unity in this country is going to be protected by thousands of Canadians who stand up for their country. It will not be protected by people who violate the laws of this land. This government will find out what happened and it will be made public to the Canadian people.

[Auditor General's Report, February 11th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would simply suggest to the hon. member that he read the Auditor General's report. She is the one who talked about the little group.

[Auditor General's Report, February 11th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, she did not say “ministers”. The Leader of the Opposition could at least tell the truth in the House.

Second, clearly the little group involved hid what it was doing. Eventually, there were rumours. When these became known, there was an internal audit; after that, the matter was handed over to the Auditor General, who took action. We also took action, first on December 12 and then with the plan announced yesterday.