Peter MacKay

[Sponsorship Program, November 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, obviously the ad scam was all about the theft of public money. Campaign war chests of Liberal riding associations were bolstered in previous elections with stolen Liberal ad scam money. The Prime Minister promised he would get all the facts. He said that people would be held to account for their breach of the public trust, and that did not happen. He refuses to identify the Liberal riding associations that used the illegal kickback cash.

Again another election is looming. Why is the Prime Minister refusing to say which riding associations received the illegal money, and when will the Liberal Party just pay back all the money it stole?

[Sponsorship Program, November 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, Marc-Yvan Côté, former chief Liberal organizer for eastern Quebec ridings, admitted to distributing at least $120,000 in cash to help Liberal candidates illegally win their elections.

Can the Prime Minister guarantee that no Liberal candidate currently slated to run in the next election pocketed or used dirty sponsorship funds?

[Sponsorship Program, November 16th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, that is another non-answer from one of the turncoat, twin towers of virtue on the Prime Minister's ad scam defence team.

Mr. Chrétien said he was told by the Treasury Board members that there were no problems with the program. The current Prime Minister, as Treasury Board vice-president, would have to sign off on that response. In reference to the Prime Minister's knowledge, Mr. Chrétien said, “He was aware like I was aware”.

Was Mr. Chrétien correct in his assertion that the current Prime Minister was “aware like I was aware”, or does he need more proof of the truth to be proven?

[Sponsorship Program, November 16th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, in reference to ad scam the Prime Minister said, “The problem did not lay with the concept of the sponsorship program”. That concept, according to cabinet material examined by Justice Gomery included, “strengthening of the organization of the Liberal Party of Canada in Quebec”.

The Prime Minister, as finance minister, sat in the cabinet that discussed the creation of the program. He sat as vice-president of the Treasury Board that reviewed the audits of the program. In his leadership lust, he took over the machinery of the Liberal Party.

Does the Prime Minister now realize that Canadians do not believe his ongoing claim that he knew nothing of the wrongdoings in the Liberal Party's sponsorship program?

[Sponsorship Program, November 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, they are sensitive over there.

The Prime Minister has kicked 10 people out of his party as a result of the Gomery report and only four public servants actually were given oral reprimands. This is the sum total of the consequences for Liberals in the worst modern political scandal in Canadian history.

The Prime Minister has refused to identify any of the ridings that received ad scam money, yet he has referred it to the police. Can the Deputy Prime Minister tell us if there are any RCMP investigations actually under way to identify who stole the money?

[Sponsorship Program, November 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, fancy that: that member talking about party loyalty.

The Prime Minister kicked 10 people out of the Liberal Party as a result of--

[Sponsorship Program, November 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is in the report and it is in evidence.

Despite the Prime Minister's pre-election vote buying budget, his attempts to change the channel on the Liberal corruption will not change Canadians' impression of his party's entitlements. The Prime Minister refuses to launch a lawsuit against the Liberal Party to recover the full amount of money stolen through ad scam.

In fact, the justice minister has said that the government has made the determination of what his party owes. In other words, the party who stole the money decides how much it will pay back. The government only acts decisively when it is caught or when it is in its partisan interest.

When can Canadians expect the recovery of the full amount of money that the Liberal Party stole from Canadian taxpayers?

[Sponsorship Program, November 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, Justice Gomery's report tells us that $8,000 was paid to a volunteer in the riding of Louis-Hébert for the election campaign. The former director of the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party himself has testified to this.

The candidate, Hélène Scherrer, is now the Prime Minister's principal secretary. The dirty money from the sponsorship scandal went toward campaign expenses.

How can Canadians have any expectation that the Prime Minister will clean up the sponsorship issue when he has not even cleaned house in his own office?

[Sponsorship Program, November 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, Justice Gomery reports that over $40 million is still unaccounted for. The Prime Minister nor his justice minister cannot credibly say that the agreement between the Liberal Party and the Liberal government to pay back the paltry $1.14 million, to which they have committed, was all the stolen money that came from Canadian taxpayers, stolen by his party.

When will the Prime Minister sue the Liberal Party of Canada to get a judicial determination of the full amount that his party stole, pay back every red--

[Sponsorship Program, November 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the member might want to learn that he has to answer questions in the chamber. There is nothing like the enthusiasm of a recent convert.

Justice Gomery's report says that there is over--