Peter Van Loan

[Government Appointments, June 17th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated, all government appointments are fully qualified. In the case of appointees for positions, such as the EI chairperson, which, in the case of Madam Bellemare, was her appointment, they are required to demonstrate knowledge of employment insurance, as well as knowledge of the geographic area to which they are appointed, which, in her case, was St. Jérôme. In her case, she matched those qualifications. She has a record in the area of several hospitals where she has worked, the St. Jérôme hospital foundation and the St-Eustache Hospital foundation. As in the case of all our nominations, she is qualified.

[Government Appointments, June 17th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, Diane Bellemare was appointed in 2007. She had previously been employed by the Fondation de l'Hôpital régional de Saint-Jérôme. She was responsible for managing and coordinating fundraising activities and communications. All government appointees are qualified, as is the case with Ms. Bellemare.

[Motor Vehicle Safety Act, June 17th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, consultations took place with the parties, and I am expecting unanimous consent for the following motion: “That, notwithstanding any standing order or usual practices of this House, Bill C-60, An Act to amend the National Defence Act (court martial) and to make a consequential amendment to another Act may be called for debate today; a member from each recognized party may speak for a maximum of 10 minutes, after which the bill shall be deemed concurred in at the report stage on division, and deemed read a third time and passed on division.”

[Canada-U.S. Relations, June 16th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the difficulty and the problem was the document was circulated by an official at foreign affairs to over 200 email addresses, many of which were outside the foreign affairs department.

What the report did was make very significant suggestions on how the processes could be improved, on how documents should have the appropriate classification and how circulation should be a little more tight.

None of that has anything to do with the false allegations he has continued to make. I call upon him to apologize to the Prime Minister's chief of staff for repeatedly making those false accusations. He has never once even acknowledged they were false.

[Canada-U.S. Relations, June 16th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, this is a remarkable lineup that the Liberals have put up in question period. I do not know how many questions we have had and not a single question that touches on public policy.

We had a question that I thought for a moment might be about NAFTA and the importance of NAFTA to the Canadian economy. We know those members do not want to talk about a strong Canadian economy and they do not want to talk about their carbon tax. However, they should at least take the time to look at the report of the Clerk of the Privy Council on this, in which he has found there is no evidence that any classified information was disclosed by the Prime Minister's Office and that none of the concerns he raises repeatedly in the House on this matter have any basis. Not once has he apologized for his false allegations.

[Public Safety, June 16th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, again this is something that took place under the Liberal government, but I will advise the member, for his information, that CATSA performs security checks on companies that are awarded contracts and have access to classified information. Of course, the companies in question here were never awarded any contracts, and as a result, there are no security concerns of any type.

[Public Safety, June 16th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I will remind the House that the meeting that took place and the incident being discussed occurred under the previous government. That being said, I understand there was no contract issued in that regard so there is very little to be concerned about.

[Foreign Affairs, June 16th, 2008]

The hon. member asked a question. She does not appear to want to hear the answer. I will do my best to continue.

She would want to know I think that foreign affairs will be able to draw on the resources of what other agencies there are in government to make recommendations on any rules that may need to be changed and any practices that may need to be changed.

[Foreign Affairs, June 16th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, we have indicated a great many times, and I know they like to continue to talk about the issue, but foreign affairs will be looking into the question of the secure treatment of documents, what the rules are that apply to them now, what the practices are that apply to those documents, and determine if there are any other--

[Foreign Affairs, June 16th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the legitimate public policy concern that arose was one relating to the secure treatment of documents of a classified nature. That is an issue that actually led of course, as we know, to the resignation of the foreign affairs minister who took responsibility in a very proper way for his error in breaching the rules.

Foreign affairs is of course the most appropriate department to investigate that because we are talking about documents that were foreign affairs documents.