Serge Ménard

[Foreign Affairs, June 2nd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, if I understand correctly, having had relationships with members of organized crime a few years earlier is not considered a security concern.

The Prime Minister maintains that he only learned about the disappearance of the classified documents on the Monday when the member for Beauce resigned. Given the strict rules about such documents, it is completely impossible that the Prime Minister would not have questioned the former foreign affairs minister about this.

Will the Prime Minister admit that he showed a lack of judgment and transparency by hiding the truth for partisan purposes?

[Foreign Affairs, June 2nd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the Carcajou squad investigated biker gangs from 1995 to 1999, at the same time Julie Couillard was associating with two criminals linked to the Hells Angels. She was even arrested and held for interrogation by squad officers. So the SQ and the RCMP knew about her troubled past. It is impossible that the Prime Minister did not know about it.

If the Prime Minister knew, why did he hide this information at the expense of the public good?

[Foreign Affairs, May 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the government is certainly responsible for much of the five weeks it took to realize they had been lost.

Not only should the former minister of foreign affairs have been aware himself that he had mislaid documents, but the Prime Minister’s Office should have been too. Is the truth not rather that it was when they knew that Julie Couillard would be disclosing it that very evening on television that they decided to act?

Is the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons going to admit that the Prime Minister knew about the document being lost and admit that the government tried to conceal it to serve partisan interests?

[Foreign Affairs, May 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, we are told that the Prime Minister’s Office only learned on Monday about the loss of sensitive documents. So for five weeks no one was concerned about where they were. It was only when a lawyer told them about it that someone got worried. Everybody knows that the Department of Foreign Affairs has the most rigorous system for tracking sensitive or confidential files.

Is the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons going to deny that such a system exists?

[Foreign Affairs, May 27th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, this is a serious matter. The government has taken it too lightly up until now.

I am therefore asking the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons to solemnly swear, from his seat, that the Prime Minister's Office was never informed before yesterday that the former foreign affairs minister had lost these documents.

[Foreign Affairs, May 27th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, also highly implausible is the fact that the Prime Minister told us that he only learned yesterday that the former foreign affairs minister left secret documents at Julie Couillard's home five weeks ago. Given the department's strict rules and the sensitive nature of some of these documents, it is impossible that the Prime Minister's Office was not informed prior to this.

Will the government admit that it was Julie Couillard's interview that forced it to make public the former minister's serious mistake?

[Public Safety, May 26th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, that does not answer my question, so I will try to ask another.

We know that the Minister of Foreign Affairs' former girlfriend's business venture was not selected for a sensitive transportation security contract.

Can the government tell us if that business' bid was rejected following security screenings, and can it explain why the government failed to conduct a detailed security screening of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and his then-girlfriend?

[Public Safety, May 26th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, since the Minister of Foreign Affairs' former girlfriend's shady past was brought to light, the government has been downplaying the threat the relationship posed to public safety. Today we learned that Ms. Couillard was involved in a security company that had access to strategic airport security documents belonging to the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority.

Can the Minister of Public Safety tell us whether security screenings are conducted before giving strategic documents to possible bidders on airport security contracts?

[Minister of Foreign Affairs, May 15th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, if such rules are needed for these workers, then certainly they should apply all the more to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who has access to information that is much more strategic, especially when his new flame has a shady past and insists on attending confidential meetings.

Under the circumstances, how can the government claim that there was no investigation of Ms. Couillard? It certainly seems as though the government has something to hide.

[Minister of Foreign Affairs, May 15th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, under security rules announced in November 2006, people working in ports under federal jurisdiction who have access to designated strategic areas must provide the date and place of birth of their spouse and any former spouses within the previous five years for verification.

Can the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities confirm that these rules exist?