Pierre Poilievre

[Assistance to Hepatitis C Victims, November 2nd, 2004]

Mr. Chair, it has not worked that way. The dollars were earmarked. They were specifically set aside for this purpose and they were redirected to other purposes. Those moneys have been stolen.

Let us not mince words. The moneys were specifically meant to compensate for the medical costs associated with this tragedy. It was not just an extra $130 million that the McGuinty regime could spend however it wished. It was $130 million to the province of Ontario to compensate for the medical costs associated with this tragedy.

It is interesting that the Liberal Party, which appropriates itself the moral authority to call itself the protector of Canadian compassion, has done nothing to ensure that those dollars arrived for those who were most in need. It is also interesting that their arch enemy, Mike Harris, was the one as premier who gave $25,000 per victim in compensation to those who suffered from this tragedy outside of the years 1986 to 1990.

The member knows that this has nothing to do with cooperative federalism. It is not cooperation when one level of government intentionally misdirects dollars from another level of government. That is theft. It is not only theft from the federal government, it is theft from the victims of this tragedy. If he and his party truly had the compassion that they so often brag about, then he would stand in the House of Commons right now and condemn the McGuinty government for failing to send those dollars to the victims. Will he?

[Assistance to Hepatitis C Victims, November 2nd, 2004]

This is federal money. This is money you paid.

[Assistance to Hepatitis C Victims, November 2nd, 2004]

Mr. Chair, in my constituency I have a number of citizens who have been afflicted with this terrible tragedy. I have visited them in their homes and they have been to my office. They have come to me to tell me their stories. That is why I felt it so important at this late hour to come to the House of Commons to tell those stories to all members.

I have seen how bright, vibrant lives have been reduced to misery by the government's failure to properly test the blood that was being injected into the veins of Canadian citizens, ultimately poisoning them with an irreversible disease with which they now suffer and from which many have now died.

That is why I find it so enormously frustrating to see the government's failure to compensate all victims of this odious tragedy. The government has failed to compensate those who do not meet a very specific and limited criteria. I reject the reasons that back up that decision.

It is clear that the testing was available before 1986. It is clear that the government should compensate those people who were relying on the government to protect them.

It is more agonizing to learn that the compensation that has been set aside and allotted to the victims outside the years 1986 to 1990 has not actually arrived on their doorstep. That money was meant to provide victims with largely the basic medical necessities that resulted from their illness. Yet we learn that over $100 million has not been passed on to those victims, that it sits in some provincial coffers, that it has been used for general revenues by the provincial government. Indeed, that is outrageous.

I want to know, will the hon. member stand in this House and offer a clear remedy on how he and his party will finally hold the McGuinty provincial government in Ontario accountable for the roughly $130 million that has not been allotted to the victims? The money came from the federal government and was meant for the victims, but was intercepted halfway by the McGuinty regime and has been directed erroneously to general revenues. What will the government do to hold the McGuinty regime accountable for intercepting the funds that were meant to go to the innocent victims of this tragedy?

[Financial Administration Act, October 26th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to broaden the context of our discussion to the overall matter of the public service and zero in on the comments the hon. member has made with respect to whistleblower legislation because I do not believe these issues can be discussed in isolation.

My understanding of Bill C-11, as it is currently written, is that the disclosure mechanism is not independent from the political leadership of the country. That is an essential problem with the bill. Furthermore, through order in council the cabinet can remove different branches of the government from the power of this legislation. That means that if the sponsorship scandal had occurred and this bill had been in place at that time, and the government had been interested in concealing information, it very easily could have removed any agency that was implicated from protection under the whistleblower legislation, thus removing the protections on public servants who wished to speak out against the corruption.

Those are two essential flaws that I see: the lack of independence and the fact that the cabinet can exempt certain bodies of government.

Due to the fact that we now have a minority government, and that the majority of members in this chamber and in the government operations committee are in the opposition, that is the majority support true whistleblower legislation, does the hon. member believe that we can use this coalition of opposition members to put forward the necessary amendments to strengthen this bill, give it teeth, and give it meaning to our public servants and taxpayers?

[Health, October 26th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the Queensway-Carleton, a hospital in my community, is facing a funding crunch as it attempts to serve 400,000 people in our community. Yet, year after year the NCC charges this small community hospital tens of thousands of dollars in rent. There is about to be a massive rent increase which the hospital itself says could cost as many as 40 nurses.

Why does the government simply not resolve this problem by selling the land to the hospital for $1?

[Softwood Lumber, October 21st, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, we believe in supporting our softwood lumber industry, but rewarding Liberal friends is no way to do it.

The Prime Minister's deputy chief of staff, Ruth Thorkelson, got a $15,000 contract from the trade department, the same department she was lobbying.

What is more, André Albinati left the trade minister's office to become an Earnscliffe lobbyist. Only a week later, $800,000 followed him to the Prime Minister's favourite lobby firm.

Why are the Prime Minister's cronies making big bucks at the expense of our softwood lumber industry?

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 19th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I know the hon. member as my neighbour. She represents the constituency directly north of mine and I know her to be a very devoted member of Parliament, committed to her community and to her country.

She remarked on the issue of health care today. I would like to ask her a question that is of particular concern to our respective communities. When she remarked on health care, it turned my attention to a hospital that is in her constituency but services all of the western part of my constituency. It is called the Queensway-Carleton Hospital.

I have met with the hospital board members in the past and they have explained to me their concerns. They are continually obliged to pay lease payments to a federal organization called the National Capital Commission. The fact that the National Capital Commission owns the land on which that hospital operates is a hindrance, an encumbrance, to the hospital's plans to expand, provide new services and possibly sublease to family doctors and other medical practitioners.

As a result, I have met with the head of the NCC to discuss the idea of transferring that land over to our community hospital. I have put forward a motion, Motion No. 135, which would accomplish just that. For the price of a dollar, the NCC would sell the property directly to the hospital, in the same way that two other hospitals in the Ottawa area have received their property from the City of Ottawa.

Given her government's professed commitment to health care, I am wondering whether she believes that the Liberal government will support this motion. Does she believe that the Liberal government will call upon the NCC, through the Treasury Board, to sell the land to our community hospital so that every dollar the hospital has at its disposal can be used for patient care and every square foot of property on which the hospital operates can be developed to expand the services that are available to our respective communities?

[Sponsorship Program, October 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister does not need to wait for the commission to go further before he reveals what he already knows. When he was mad as hell, he called on anyone with information to “come forward and not wait to be compelled to do so”.

Yesterday the Gomery commission learned that the Prime Minister's office was fully involved in the sponsorship program. He knew what happened. Why will he not turn himself in to the Gomery commission without a subpoena and tell Canadians what he did with the missing millions?

[Sponsorship Program, October 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Gomery commission once again linked the Prime Minister to the sponsorship scandal. His office intervened to help his friends get up to $250,000. However, this did not prevent the Prime Minister, later on, from pretending to be outraged and suggesting that everyone condemn such practices.

When will the Prime Minister admit to the commission that these millions were used for partisan purposes?

[Agriculture, October 12th, 2004]

Mr. Chair, the member across the way raised the question of finding new markets. He was bragging about his government's efforts in Russia, China and most recently Japan in order to discover new markets for Canadian beef. That is generally good in the long, long term, but let us acknowledge the reality here.

Canadian beef is not going to go to Russia or Japan or anywhere else outside of North America unless it is in a box. Until such time as we can kill the cattle and pack the stuff, it is a red herring to say that we are solving the problem by looking for new markets in far-off lands. Our number one objective needs to be the continuation of providing killing capacity here at home, because right now there is a domestic demand that our cattle producers cannot even meet because they cannot get through the bottleneck that is the slaughterhouse capacity.

Does the hon. member agree that while this is a nice, long term objective and that it may be important 10 years from now, in the immediate term we need to acknowledge the fact that we scarcely have the slaughterhouse capacity to service even Canadian retail demand?