Preston Manning

[Public Inquiries, February 7th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the minister does not answer my question, but I believe he makes reference to my remarks to the Prime Minister when I asked him to guarantee that the results of the Somalia inquiry would be made available before the next election; not half a report, not a cover-up report, not a whitewash report but results that answer the questions.

Does the minister understand the word results: names, dates, times, acts committed, acts not committed by ministers, Liberal and Tory, deputy ministers, generals, high ranking officials who had anything to do with murder and cover-up in Somalia?

How can the minister guarantee that those results, the whole truth, will be forthcoming from an inquiry when government induced delays and political interferences are making it impossible for it to complete its work?

[Public Inquiries, February 7th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, there is a disturbing pattern emerging with respect to the government's handling of public inquiries into wrongdoing causing death.

When it came to the tainted blood deaths and the murder cover-up in Somalia, the Liberals were very eager to investigate Tory wrongdoing. However, when the inquiry started to get too close for Liberal comfort and too close to the top, there were government induced delays, government induced legal challenges, document tampering by government officials and political interference.

In the case of the Somalia inquiry, after the government had caused half of the delay, it tells the commissioners they are out of time.

What is the government going to do to ensure that Canadians learn the truth, the whole truth and not just the Tory truth about the tainted blood tragedy, the Somalia scandal and the botched airbus investigation?

[Public Documents, February 6th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the government's handling of evidence shredders and the

Deputy Prime Minister's answer is another indication of the government's double standard when it comes to ethics.

The RCMP have been called in to investigate Jo Hauser's destruction of the Canadian blood committee files, but it is unlikely that the RCMP will be able to get anywhere near the Prime Minister's friend Bob Fowler. What is more, the RCMP said yesterday that destroying such documents may not even be a clearly established offence under the Canadian Criminal Code.

My question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. What concrete action will the government take to ensure that people who destroy evidence required by public inquiries are held accountable for their actions?

[Public Documents, February 6th, 1997]

Therefore I assume the Deputy Prime Minister is saying that such activity is wrong, Mr. Speaker. If that is the case, then surely the Deputy Prime Minister also agrees that people who are guilty of such wrongdoing should be held accountable. The information commissioner thinks so, but he says that he has not been given the power to hold public servants accountable for improperly destroying public documents or records.

My question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. Is the government willing to give the information commissioner the power to hold people who destroy evidence required by public inquiries, people like Jo Hauser, Bob Fowler and John Anderson, accountable for their actions?

[Public Documents, February 6th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, Dr. Jo Hauser of the health department shredded some documents in 1989. They included documents going back to 1982 when the Liberals were in power. Those documents could have explained why the blood system became tainted.

In 1993 Bob Fowler and John Anderson shredded memos that might have pointed to a high level cover-up at the defence department. In 1994 more key documents that could have shed light on the Somalia scandal were shredded, altered or hidden.

My question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. It is a very simple one. Is the shredding, hiding, altering or destruction of public documents such as these right or wrong?

[Ethical Guidelines, February 5th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, we want truth before the election.

The Prime Minister's vague and confusing answers on ethical questions lead many of us to believe that there are no ethical guidelines.

Time and time again we have asked the Prime Minister to table those guidelines in the House and he has not done so. Perhaps, like his homeless friends, they are imaginary or maybe they got caught in the shredder somewhere. When he and Mr. Mitchell went up on the mountain perhaps they forgot to bring down one of the tablets, the one about accountability, integrity and responsibility.

How can Canadians trust the Prime Minister to enforce ethical standards for his government when the Prime Minister will not let the public see those ethical guidelines?

[Ethical Guidelines, February 5th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, in 1991 the Prime Minister did proclaim one of his ethical guidelines. He promised that every minister in his cabinet would assume full responsibility for any bungling in their departments.

How is letting the defence minister gag the Somalia inquiry assuming full responsibility? How is letting the justice minister go on a political witch hunt with the justice department assuming full responsibility? How is the Prime Minister's promising to scrap the GST and denying the promise was made assuming full responsibility for the commitment?

When the Prime Minister promised to hold his ministers responsible for any bungling, did he mean what he said or was this just another empty promise like killing the GST?

[Ethical Guidelines, February 5th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, when the Liberals came to power in 1993, the Prime Minister made a commitment to high ethical standards that would guarantee the integrity of his government.

On November 6, 1996 he said: "I have guidelines for ministerial conduct which have been transmitted to the ministers. They have read them and they follow them".

We are wondering what kind of ethical guidelines would allow denial of the broken GST promise, political interference in the Somalia inquiry, the use of the justice department for a political witch hunt and the stonewalling of the inquiry into tainted blood.

Do any of these activities violate the Prime Minister's ethical standards, or by his standards are all these activities ethically acceptable?

[Public Inquiries, February 4th, 1997]

When will this minister and this government start to respond to the tainted blood tragedy in a way that restores public trust rather than destroys it?

[Public Inquiries, February 4th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the minister gives an arrogant and an unfeeling answer to a question about tainted blood. It is the type of answer that got the Prime Minister into all that trouble on the TV town hall meeting. It is the type of response that is considered so clever in this House and applauded by members opposite but which if repeated outside this House to the suffering families of the victims of tainted blood would be denounced by every compassionate Canadian as callous, unfeeling and-