Stephen Harper

[Government Contracts, May 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the minister should be responsible for the contracts in his department. The transaction he should have participated in was paying for that chalet himself right off the bat.

It is clear the minister acted inappropriately, whether by incompetence or by design. We should not have been led into believing the stay at the chalet was an upfront commercial transaction when it was not. Canadians deserve better.

My question is for the Prime Minister. When did the Prime Minister learn that there was actually no transaction between the minister of public works, the Boulay family and the chalet? Was the Prime Minister misled by the minister or did--

[Government Contracts, May 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I will just ignore the sounds of violins for a second.

I want to be clear. The minister received a favour from a government contractor. Subsequently, his company received three-quarters of a million dollars in contracts from the minister's department. The minister of public works then tried to convince this House and the public that he had paid the contractor for the service. That proved not to be true. No transaction actually took place until yesterday.

Does the minister not understand why the right thing to do is to resign?

[Government Contracts, May 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the minister of public works has gone from the rat pack to the mousetrap. Whether this particular mess is a case of deception or bungling, the minister of public works no longer has the credibility to clean up the mess in his department.

Under the circumstances, I want to know if the minister of public works has done the honourable thing and offered his resignation, and has the Prime Minister done the right thing and accepted it?

[Supply, May 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. This is a very important issue. The Prime Minister has come here to address the House. A representative of the Progressive Conservative Party has not had an opportunity to ask a question of the Prime Minister. I would ask for unanimous consent, and ask for the Prime Minister to instruct his people to allow that unanimous consent, to take questions from all quarters.

[Supply, May 23rd, 2002]

I have a question, but I have important information to bring to the attention of the House to enhance the Prime Minister's ability to answer the question. On June 16, 1994 the Prime Minister said in the House:

There can be no substitute for responsibility at the top. The Prime Minister sets the moral tone for the government and must make the ultimate decisions when issues of trust or integrity are raised.

My question is simple. What has happened over the past few days to lead the Prime Minister to come here today in this great ministerial rally? What specific ethical problems is the Prime Minister here to take responsibility for today?

[Supply, May 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister got up today and made passing reference to mistakes. He then proceeded to give us 20 minutes of self congratulation backed by virtually the whole cabinet. We have some 20 ministers here. We have problems with trade, agriculture, the Canadian dollar and the health care system but most of the cabinet is engaging in a self congratulatory rallying around the ethical dilemmas of the government.

Let us be clear what about we did not get from the Prime Minister. We did not get any kind of ministerial statement or ethics package. He talked about his plans. What we got is typical. It was not a solid policy or plan to deal with the problem. It was the beginning of a month long communication exercise. It began today with the speech, the leaks in the papers of the various content, and the floating of the trial balloons. There is one thing we in our party are looking forward to. When the package finally gets released and promoted we will want to see who gets the advertising contract.

We have a minister of public works and, as we all know, some ethical dilemmas and scandals. We have no answers. There was not even a mention of it in the statement by the Prime Minister today. I and others have made demands for information concerning the problems in public works and in advertising and sponsorship. The government claims it is dealing with the issue, yet it will only be forthcoming with the information through access to information requests, auditor general's reports and police investigations. Otherwise it will not be made available.

What we have seen, particularly in the speech and in the last few days, is an incredible attempt to justify all this. The Prime Minister stood today and defended it in the interest of national unity. The Prime Minister is the only person in the country who believes federalist corruption in Quebec somehow enhances the image of Canada in that province. Wrapping himself in the flag is not enough.

I was here Tuesday when the government discovered a great defence in the issue of family values and all the great family relations of the Boudria clan were discovering family values. Now the government has moved on to discovering traditional religion and religious authorities as its sanctuary. It is only a matter of time before these guys become full fledged social conservatives.

I will get to my specific question. The Prime Minister said--

[Government Contracts, May 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I provided a request right here and a straightforward Prime Minister will provide me with the information.

I have a last supplementary question. During an interview, Claude Boulay, the president of Groupe Everest, said that it definitely helps to be a Liberal when negotiating with this government.

Since it is Mr. Boulay who rented a cottage to the public works minister, will the Prime Minister agree that all discretionary spending for advertising must be frozen during the auditor general's investigation?

[Government Contracts, May 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, we expect open and honest information here, not to have to make 58,000 access to information requests.

Canadians deserve to have the air cleared. One Quebec based advertising executive said that he was told he lost out on government business because his donations to the Liberal Party were not generous enough. Another Ottawa based advertising executive said that he was pressured for donations and free ad work for the Liberal Party.

In order to assure Canadians that he is not running some kind of cash for contracts policy, will the Prime Minister provide the list and show that he has nothing more to hide?

[Government Contracts, May 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I asked the Prime Minister to table a complete list of the government's advertising and sponsorship contracts. With each new document and with each new piece of information we learn more about how the government is abusing, squandering and wasting taxpayer dollars.

It is not acceptable to wait until an auditor general's report in late 2003 to get some answers. Canadians deserve better. I ask again, will the Prime Minister table the list and, if not, why not?

[Government Contracts, May 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I think we are all tired of getting this information through access to information and through the media, through all these other channels. We would hope the Prime Minister would do the right thing and make this information immediately available.

Today's reports on Groupe Polygone deal with an internal audit that found problems two years ago. This is the same outfit that hugely overspent tax dollars on l'Almanach du peuple . Now it seems that this audit found the government paid a grossly inflated amount to sponsor a hunting and fishing show.

Could the Prime Minister explain why this mismanagement was kept quiet for two years and why it always takes an access to information request or an auditor general's report--