Peter MacKay

[Citizenship and Immigration, December 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it is an immigration exodus on the government side of the House.

Yesterday, a new deputy minister was appointed at the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. The government did not wait for the ethics report. This morning the minister's chief of staff took an extended leave of absence. The government did not wait for the ethics report. The government did not wait for the ethics report to manoeuvre in this area and other areas of the department, except when it came to the minister.

The government has reshuffled the public service and turfed the chief of staff. When will the minister join this exodus, simply take responsibility for her actions and resign?

[Sponsorship Program, December 2nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what we are talking about. We are talking about the documents. We are talking about the Prime Minister's commitment last February to lay everything on the table with respect to the sponsorship scandal of the government. We know the documents on the table have been edited and the chief counsel for the Gomery commission says the Liberal government is going back on that commitment.

This is not a procedural question. This is about openness, transparency, promises. Justice Gomery says they want to get to the bottom of the sponsorship scandal. The minister has said it. The Prime Minister has said it.

Who edited these files? Why were they sanitized? Who did that?

[Sponsorship Program, December 2nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the government has gone back on its promise of transparency by touching up the documents at the Gomery commission. The lawyer for the commission, Bernard Roy himself, has revealed that this has happened to key documents.

Can the Prime Minister tell us who was authorized to censor the documents and on what kinds of subjects?

[Agriculture, December 1st, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, nothing has been accomplished.

While the Liberals have been wining and dining, they have been feeding the farmers with nothing but empty promises. The Prime Minister has come back from Halifax with an equally empty plate. The Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food has no control whatsoever over how long the opening up process will take.

Can he tell us whether he has obtained any assurance on the specific date the ban will be lifted? We want a date, Mr. Minister.

[Agriculture, December 1st, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, speaking of work, while Canadians welcomed the U.S. President to Canada, what Canadians do not appreciate is the failure of this government to get any substantive movement on the BSE or softwood files. The softwood lumber dispute is into its fourth year. It has been almost two years since the border was closed to Canadian livestock.

The President and the Prime Minister have met face to face on at least four occasions prior to yesterday. A mutually beneficial partnership should result in results for Canadians. Why do Canadian producers continue to suffer while the Prime Minister focuses more on photo ops than substantive results for producers?

[Sponsorship Program, December 1st, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, today the chief counsel to the Gomery commission complained that the government was editing and deleting sections of documents required by the commission. The Minister of Public Works has repeatedly implied that documents were limited to the public accounts committee because it did not ask the right questions. It appears that documents are now being sanitized before being released to the commission.

Can the Deputy Prime Minister tell us what the government is trying to hide? What happened to the repeated promises of openness and transparency from the government?

[Softwood Lumber, November 30th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, in spite of the WTO and NAFTA decisions in our favour on the softwood issue, the Liberal government has failed to get the borders reopened. John Manley said that a good relationship is essential in order to resolve disputes.

Did the Prime Minister succeed in convincing Mr. Bush to put an end to protectionism?

[Agriculture, November 30th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, no one is disputing that, least of all the Conservative Party of Canada. We have to support our armed forces.

The American border has been closed now to Canadian cattle for over 18 months. Farmers are desperate. The best assurance program that the government can give would be to announce a firm date when the border will be open.

On Sunday the Minister of Foreign Affairs told us that President Bush would be proposing a timetable with clear commitments to open the border. Later, the minister's aides tried to retract that commitment.

Could the Prime Minister affirm whether there is in fact a fixed timetable to reopen the Canadian border so that cattle can get in to the United States?

[National Defence, November 30th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, Thomas Axworthy, former aide to former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, says that “while Americans continue to like us, they no longer respect us”.

Among other things, Canada shares with the United States the defence of North America and a commitment to fight terrorism. Yet Mr. Axworthy notes that the government's under-spending on the military has now reached a crisis level and that within five years we will have no usable armed forces left.

How does the government expect Canada to positively influence our American neighbours when we continually fail to pull our weight in continental and world affairs?

[Citizenship and Immigration, November 26th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre has raised a number of questions with respect to the expense accounts of the minister's office. He has asked why there were expense charges in one city while a staff member was actually in another. The member has asked as well why the website documenting this inaccuracy of expenses was changed.

The minister has stated that the Prime Minister is totally supportive. Can the minister clarify this to mean that the Prime Minister is totally supportive of bogus expense claims and cover-ups?