Ralph Goodale

[Government Contracts, October 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, with the former member for Windsor West within earshot, I must make the point that I thoroughly reject the premise of the question that has been put on the floor of the House of Commons.

I do not know where the hon. gentleman got the figure of 80%, but he is dead wrong.

[National Defence, October 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is confusing two quite different transactions. In the case of the Challengers, it involved two planes. The value was $100 million or less and there was one possible supplier.

In the case of the maritime helicopter, it is a fleet of 28 helicopters at a price of some billions, not millions, and the involvement of several multinational consortia. The two are quite different transactions.

[Sponsorship programs, June 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman is, I am afraid, drawing some nonsensical conclusions. I fail to see how having an internal audit is somehow an act of secrecy, how calling in the auditor general is an act of secrecy and how referring files to the RCMP is an act of secrecy. They are exactly the contrary. They are acts of transparency.

[Sponsorship programs, June 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, quite the contrary. This whole matter arose because of an internal audit that was conducted by the officials in my department in the year 2000, the results of which were posted on the Internet. That is hardly a demonstration of secrecy.

Following that, further information was reported upon in the Globe and Mail . The work that the auditor general did was reported upon publicly. We have been very forthcoming in indicating to Canadians that we intend to get to the bottom of what went wrong and to ensure it does not happen again.

[Sponsorship programs, June 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I would urge all members in the House to be careful with their language. The business with respect to some of the firms to which the hon. gentleman referred has been referred to the police. That is not the case with respect to all of the firms to which he referred, but I would reiterate this point. Wherever there has been a police reference, there is no more business.

[Sponsorship programs, June 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, just to be precisely correct, the moratorium that I announced some four weeks ago remains in effect. We are examining the ways in which we can move forward for the balance of the current year.

Before the moratorium came into effect, about half of the program already had been administered for this fiscal year. Obviously that is work that already has been committed. However for the balance of this year, the remaining half, it is indeed my hope that we can administer that without the assistance of commission agents.

[Government Contracts, June 20th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the audit was conducted in the year 2000. The report was released in the latter part of the summer, the early part of the fall. It was posted on the Internet in October. Reports about it appeared in the Globe and Mail the very next day.

An action plan was developed by the appropriate officials to implement the recommendations that came from the audit report. Through the rest of that year and the year 2001 the implementation action was in fact taken. In the spring of this year we sent the auditors back in to confirm that the action had been taken.

[Government Contracts, June 20th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, we have done a tally on the questions with regard to this matter and I think the hon. gentleman would find that over the last four weeks, not including five hours in the committee of the whole, we have answered more questions with respect to the department of public works than at any period of time before in history.

[Government Contracts, June 20th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the foundation document in this matter was the internal audit. That was posted in October of the year 2000 on the Internet, together with the action plan to indicate how the errors disclosed in the audit would in fact be corrected. There has also been a running tally on the Internet of the actions taken to implement the recommendations of the internal audit.

This has been a very transparent process, fully exposed through the rules of transparency that apply to parliament, including the Access to Information Act, which has been very useful.

[Government Contracts, June 20th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, surely in terms of matters related to financial propriety the very best authority is the auditor general. She herself, using all of the powers available to her under her legislation, has indicated that she will be conducting a government-wide examination of everything having to do with advertising and sponsorships. Surely in matters related to legal issues, the best authority is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

We are engaging the services of both.