House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2021, with 50% of the vote.
Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply April 11th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, the member across the way is using unparliamentary language, language that is not befitting of this House, language that is not appropriate in front of an honoured Speaker such as yourself. He accused other members of the House of having told lies. That is explicitly forbidden under the Standing Orders. I would ask that you instruct the member to retract those statements.
RESUMPTION OF DEBATE ON ADDRESS IN REPLY April 10th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, we have very clear provisions in Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms that prohibit discrimination on the basis of age. I note that the member made very specific reference to one of my personal qualities being--
RESUMPTION OF DEBATE ON ADDRESS IN REPLY April 10th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, in reality, however, the fact is that the previous Liberal government did not create one solitary child care space. The Liberals have stood up in the House of Commons and have accused us of taking spaces away but we cannot take away that which does not exist. Thirteen years; zero child care spaces; billions of dollars spent; no results achieved.
We have endeavoured, before the House and before the Canadian people, to invest in a plan that puts dollars directly in the pockets of parents and then they can decide if they want to use the schemes of which that member spoke. They can take those child care dollars and put them to work in the various child care options that may exist in her riding.
If they choose to stay at home, they will still get the money. If they choose to have a family member take care of a child, they will still get the money. We are giving parents that choice instead of having government rob them of their options.
I will conclude on one note. If the Liberal government had continued with its plan, which we intend very proudly to cancel, that money would have been enough to perhaps provide a child care space for maybe 1 in 20 or 1 in 25 children. Our plan flows money to every single child. Why is the hon. member against a universal system that gives money to every child?
Resumption of debate on Address in Reply April 7th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member is referring directly to the Prime Minister by name. He should show some respect for that office and some respect for the House by following--
Resumption of debate on Address in Reply April 7th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member failed to discuss at any length the accountability act that will be the toughest anti-corruption law in Canadian history. Among other things, it will create an anti-corruption watchdog who will protect whistleblowers against bullying. It will end the revolving door between lobby firms and ministers' offices. It will give the Auditor General the power to shine light in every dark corner in her hunt for waste, theft and corruption. The member's party is familiar with all of those things.
Finally, it will ban big money and corporate cash from political campaigns altogether. These are concrete steps that will form the basis for the toughest anti-corruption law in Canadian history.
Why did the member not take at least a few moments to acknowledge those steps? Could it be that his party is shaking, that his party is terrified about the implications that those tough measures will have on the practises and modus operandi of his organization, the Liberal Party of Canada?
Resumption of debate on Address in Reply April 7th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, I am a bit surprised that the member has not talked much about the accountability act, which was a key part of our throne speech.
The accountability act will be the toughest anti-corruption law in Canadian history. It will bring in a watchdog that will protect whistleblowers against bullying. It will give the Auditor General the power to shine light in every dark corner in her hunt for waste, corruption and theft.
This law will extend access to information right into all the crown corporations. It will ban corporate cash and big money from political campaigns all together. This is one of the most consequential pieces of legislation ever passed. In fact, it is the toughest anti-corruption law in Canadian history. Why did the member not focus more of her attention on that law?
Agriculture April 6th, 2006
Mr. Chair, I would like to congratulate the member on his appointment as agriculture critic. I am sure he will execute his duties with great conviction.
In my constituency I have a number of producers, all across the old Osgoode and Rideau townships in South Gloucester and South Nepean, and I can tell members that the situation is really bad. People are really hurting. There is genuine desperation.
I had a number of my constituents on the Hill for this recent rally and I can tell members that they are not taking this much working time out of their day for the fun of it. They are spending a lot of gas and a lot of time coming all the way up here because the situation is really genuinely bad. It is getting desperate.
I have a few comments to make and I want to see how the hon. member responds.
First, I believe that we have to be careful in this country, because over the long term we have seen that supply management is slowly dying the death of a thousand cuts. One exception here, one loophole there, and before we know it, the quota system that has made supply managed sectors the only profitable ones in this country is being whittled away. I believe we need to make a vigorous defence of it and reinforce our efforts to defend the system of supply management that has preserved and strengthened those sectors.
Second, we need some sort of risk management mechanism to deal with the ups and downs of revenue and prices for our farmers, because the CAIS program is just not working.
I wonder if the hon. member would rise in his place and tell me what he thinks about these ideas. I know that he has been studying and researching quite intently. I invite his comments.
Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply April 6th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, the member has worked very hard in developing whistleblower protection in this country and I look forward to continuing to work with him on this.
He first asked what powers the Auditor General currently did not have that we would like to extend her way. To begin with, she may not audit foundations. Billions of dollars of public money flowed from the previous government into public foundations which are dedicated to obscure causes. She does not have the legal authority to conduct audits of them. Nor does she have the ability to follow the money. We promised during the last election that the Auditor General would be allowed to carry out audits of grant recipients, those who receive public dollars in order to ascertain whether or not those public dollars are being put to wise use. Those are just two examples of how we will empower the Auditor General to go further in her hunt for waste and corruption.
Second, he spoke of the issue of rewards. He is correct in pointing out that the previous committee rejected rewards for public servants. I am talking about an entirely separate notion that would empower private citizens, deputize private citizens to bring legal actions in civil courts the same way as exists in the United States against companies which are defrauding the government.
For example, just last month two whistleblowers at a military contracting firm caught serious defraud of the American government where $3 million was stolen. They spoke up and were fired. They then took their action to court under the informers act. They were able to recover $3 million for the American treasury. The justice department in the United States would not participate in the action because it did not want to embarrass the administration and its goals in Iraq. Without giving private citizens the ability to take forward these actions, that $3 million would never have been recovered and in fact the American government would still be paying it out.
We have seen far greater and more spectacular examples of fraud in this country under that member's government. We saw it with the ad scam where his government did not bring forward legal action against the firms that defrauded the Canadian government until well after it was in the public eye and until it was far too late. To date, the Canadian government has not recovered one nickel of the money that was stolen during the Liberal ad scam.
We look at the gun registry. How many contractors have benefited from this massive overspending? How many of them have failed to repay the money that they spent without any result for the Canadian taxpayer? The billion dollar boondoggle at HRDC? The previous government proved it was totally incapable of recovering stolen--
Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply April 6th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, I would first of all like to congratulate you on your new responsibilities. I am very proud to be your colleague, here in Ottawa, and I hope to work with you in the future.
I would like to begin today in this my maiden speech in the 39th Parliament by thanking my constituents who have vested in me the trust and the opportunity to represent them here in this House of the common people. The House of Commons exists precisely to serve its namesake, to be a chamber of the common people who work hard, pay their taxes and play by the rules. My constituents have made me their representative in this chamber and I will not let them down.
I would like to thank my friends and family and all the volunteers who helped me get where I am today. In particular, I recognize my mother Marlene, my brother Patrick and mon père Donald.
The reason that we saw such a dramatic change on January 23 of this year was that Canadians wanted to turn the leaf, to see a change in this country and to see the restoration of accountability. That is why I have been working with numerous colleagues to introduce what we will see in the House of Commons in the coming weeks, the accountability act.
The accountability act is the toughest anti-corruption law in Canadian history. For example, it will bring in a corruption watchdog to protect whistleblowers against bullying. It will end the revolving door between lobby firms and ministers' offices. It will give the Auditor General the power to shine light in every dark corner in her hunt for waste, theft and corruption. It will ban big money and corporate cash from political campaigns. It will end the culture of entitlement which flourished under the Liberal government and replace it with a new culture of accountability.
I would like to recognize some fellow members of Parliament, including the President of the Treasury Board, the member for Repentigny, the member for Ottawa Centre, the member for Winnipeg Centre, among others in the House, who have worked diligently from various partisan backgrounds to provide input and to move forward the accountability agenda.
I reiterate that this law will be the toughest anti-corruption measure in Canadian history. It will bring in a corruption watchdog to protect whistleblowers against bullying. It will end the revolving door between lobby firms and ministers' offices. It will give the Auditor General the power to shine her light in every dark corner in her hunt for waste, theft and corruption. It will ban big money and corporate cash from political campaigns. It will be an historic step forward in the accountability of this country.
I would like to talk more about the accountability act.
The accountability act will change the political culture in Canada by removing the influence of rich donors, prohibiting large donations by individuals and corporations to political parties, and implementing stricter rules.
To resolve the lobbyist problem, we will change the system by granting certain powers to officers of Parliament, such as the Auditor General, and by protecting whistleblowers, so that our public servants may speak openly of the corruption they witness in their workplace.
Once again, this would be the toughest anti-corruption law in Canadian history, but the work of this government to clean up corruption and end years of entitlement will not stop with this act.
The Prime Minister and the President of the Treasury Board have both authorized me to champion a greater cause, and that is to move ahead with a bill that would similarly reflect what exists south of the border in the informers act, or the false claims act as it is often called.
The Canadian government, at least under the last 12 years, has suffered from the parasitical virus of fraud. Over the last five years alone there have been spectacular examples of blatant waste and mismanagement such as the ad scam, the gun registry and the billion dollar boondoggle at HRDC. In all cases we saw crafty contractors and grant recipients take delicious advantage of unguarded public loot.
The government has proven to be wholly impotent in cracking down on these thieves. It is time to arm citizens with the legal authority to do the job. It is done south of the border through the informers act, which is based on the ancient British principle of qui tam. Qui tam is Latin for “in the name of the King”. It means that a citizen can take actions to protect the public good or enforce the law. We have citizens arrest in Canada, which is predicated on exactly the same principle.
Here is how it works. South of the border, Joe Citizen has the legal right to launch a civil action against any company that he suspects of defrauding the U.S. government. The case is heard before a trial judge and the government can decide whether to join the action. If the judge finds that there has in fact been a fraud, the guilty must pay back as much as three times the money that was stolen. A commission of up to 30% of the money recovered by the government is then paid to the citizen whistleblower.
I know what hon. members are thinking. What about abuse? What about citizens who would come forward with litigious actions simply out of a hope of making money? That is a fair question. However, we rely on judges to decide whether or not those actions are frivolous and if they are, they can be dismissed. Furthermore, if judges find that the accusations put forward by the citizen whistleblower are false, they will merely be thrown out of court and that citizen will l have to pay the legal costs in our loser pay system. In other words, there is a significant financial disincentive for abusing the system.
Some will say that there is a moral hazard in paying people to blow the whistle. “Is virtue not its own reward?”, the argument goes. We pay people such as police officers, auditors, soldiers, Crown prosecutors to do all sorts of noble things. All of us in one way or another pay these people to tackle, in many cases, the bad guys. They get paid for it and none of us would consider that to be a problem.
Furthermore, we have systems like Crime Stoppers where we pay people to inform about potential criminals. Just yesterday the police in the city of Ottawa offered a reward to capture a killer who has wreaked havoc on my neighbourhood.
I would argue that the real moral hazard is letting stolen money stay in the pockets of thieves. I would rather pay a reward to a whistleblower, a private citizen who comes forward with a legal action against fraudsters, than I would to leave the stolen money in the pockets of the people who stole it.
In the United States this system has resulted in the recovery of $10 billion in stolen money. That is $10 billion the American government can spend on productive projects. That is $10 billion that would otherwise be in the pockets of thieves.
This is a bold new idea of significant magnitude that would help to end the parasitical virus of fraud that has been undermining the past government and the country for far too long. I ask for all members to support this concept and support true accountability.
Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply April 6th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments and congratulate him on his re-election. However, I note that throughout his entire discourse, when he laid out very clearly the problems of productivity and demographics that haunt our nation, he failed to offer a single, solitary solution to those problems. He ranted about the Speech from the Throne and his displeasure with it. He complained that it was not of the sort that his former government would have written, almost omitting January 23, election day, from the history in his mind.
The reality is that under his past Liberal government our productivity fell further and further behind. The Irish economy grew its productivity at five times the rate of Canada under the last year of the Liberal government. The average Canadian worker has to work five hours to achieve what an American worker achieves in four hours. Those are simple economic productivity data.
That all resulted from 12 years of Liberal government, so why will the member not now join with our agenda of cutting taxes on capital gains, reducing the GST to encourage more consumer spending, and using tax incentives to get more apprentices into the trades? All of these steps, driven by a small, focused government rather than large fantastic multi-billion dollar schemes, are aimed at creating a more productive economy. Why will the member not join us in that enterprise?