Ralph Goodale

[Canada Revenue Agency, March 9th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, duck, deny, delay, divert. The government's stonewalling just reinforces suspicions of thousands upon thousands of good decent Canadians. It tells us to follow the money, so I will turn to the Minister of National Revenue.

Taxpayers are reporting that Revenue Canada is now using telephone call centres to bombard people with warnings that quarterly tax instalments are due, as if hefty late payment penalties are not warning enough. Will the minister identify what call centre she is using, how it got the contract and how much it is being paid?

[41st General Election, March 9th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, a Conservative staff member in Ottawa lost his job because of the telephone election fraud scheme in Guelph. That former staffer has confirmed that, indeed, such a scheme existed. In Thunder Bay, employees at a Conservative call centre admit they gave false information about where to vote. In other words, they lied. In Edmonton, court documents zero in on Conservatives as suspects in the election fraud investigation. On it goes: Winnipeg, Vancouver, Toronto, Nipissing.

Does it not trouble the government that the common thread here is the Conservative campaign?

[41st General Election, March 7th, 2012]

You have no evidence.

[Rail Transportation, March 6th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the federal rail service review began in 2008. The Conservative hand-picked panel reported in 2010, calling for legislation to offset the abuse of market power of the railways. In March 2011, the government agreed. Last October, Jim Dinning was appointed to develop the template, but that process is going nowhere fast.

All the data is now four years old. What will be done to update the facts and figures? Will the minister guarantee his promised legislation will be tabled in the House before we adjourn in June?

[Points of Order, March 1st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, pertaining to matters that arose during question period, there was a fair bit of confusion, indeed obfuscation, about a company called First Contact. In fact there is a Canadian telephone company by that name that does business entirely in Canada. That is the company that was engaged by Liberals and Liberal candidates across the country. There is, unfortunately, another company by exactly the same name that does business in the United States. That company, the Liberal Party did not do any business with.

[41st General Election, February 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, former chief electoral officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley says that this current investigation of election fraud is absolutely unprecedented.

The Conservative sacrificial lamb, Michael Sona, has confirmed that there was indeed illegal behaviour.

Conservatives spent over $2 million on at least five robocall companies, and the Prime Minister surely knows what they were doing.

Will he stop starving Elections Canada and table the logs that show what Conservative calls were made and what Conservative scripts were used in those calls? He has that information. Will he produce it?

[National Defence, February 16th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the government is reneging already.

On another matter of transparency, or the lack of it, the government's position on F-35 fighter jets is imploding. There are now only two possibilities: either the government will completely blow through its budget for fighter jets, or it will fail to get the minimum number the air force needs.

I have simple questions for the Prime Minister. How many planes will he buy? At what price per plane? When will Canada take delivery? How many, how much and when?

[Public Safety, February 16th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the government confessed it was wrong to try to track without warrant every use of email, cellphones and the Internet, but Canadians will be forgiven if they do not trust the government.

Would the Prime Minister guarantee today that he will refer the subject matter of Bill C-30 to a parliamentary committee for full reconsideration, without the limitations of Standing Order 73(1), without time allocation or closure and without secret proceedings behind closed doors? Will the Prime Minister commit to that transparency?

[Public Safety, February 15th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the government said the anonymous long form census which never had a security breach was too intrusive, but now, without due process, it wants every Internet transaction recorded. It wants access to every BlackBerry and cellphone. However, it denies access to the secret machinations of Conservative MPs behind closed doors in parliamentary committees.

The Prime Minister implied a few moments ago that he would entertain amendments to Bill C-30. Do we have his guarantee that amendments will in fact be welcomed in the parliamentary committee?

[Petitions, February 13th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition to file today signed by a significant number of people across the central part of Saskatchewan expressing their concern for Canadians who are suffering from chronic cerebral spinal venous insufficiency.

The petitioners call upon the Minister of Health to consult with experts who have the necessary background in this field. They urge the Minister of Health to proceed with phase III clinical trials on an urgent basis. They also urge the minister to require follow ups of patients so that their actual experience can be tracked.

What these petitioners are calling for is very much the same sort of issue that is contained in Bill C-280, which is presently before the House in the name of the member for Etobicoke North. I hope the House will receive this petition favourably and also receive the bill favourably because that bill is headed in the right direction.