Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, it is mid-December and there are still no public accounts. There are disturbing stories that the Liberal government has actually reopened the audited public accounts and changed them for political gain. Earlier this week when we asked about this, the President of the Treasury Board refused to answer, so I will ask about it again. Did the government reopen the public accounts and alt…
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Madam Speaker, I wonder if it is normal to reopen the public accounts and doctor them. The public accounts are audited financial statements of the government, yet the Liberals are delaying the tabling of these accounts. We have out-of-control Liberal government spending, yet no accounting of over $600 billion of taxpayers' money. Why has the government not yet tabled the public accounts? Is it bec…
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Mr. Chair, could the President of the Treasury Board confirm that the bill is in its usual form?
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Madam Chair, will the President of the Treasury Board resign her position if it turns out she has misled the House on this issue of whether the government has reopened the public accounts to add in more costs for political gain?
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Madam Chair, is it true that the public accounts were signed off on by the comptroller general, deputy receiver general and the Auditor General in the fall and then reopened to backload costs in order to make next year's budget numbers show a smaller deficit and a reduced debt-to-GDP ratio?
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Madam Chair, this is a very straightforward question and can be answered very simply with a yes or no. Is it true that the government has reopened the public accounts to make changes to them for political gain?
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Madam Chair, is it true that the government has reopened the public accounts to make changes to them for political gain?
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Madam Chair, have the public accounts been signed off yet by the comptroller general, deputy receiver general and the Auditor General?
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Madam Chair, I congratulate my colleague on her appointment as President of the Treasury Board Six hundred billion dollars was spent, with little or no oversight from the government. The Public Accounts should have been released in October, but still nothing from the government. When will the Public Accounts be tabled?
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Madam Chair, have the comptroller general, deputy receiver general and the Auditor General signed off on the public accounts yet?
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Madam Chair, the homeless rate in Edmonton is up 60% since the Liberals took over, yet Edmonton received just $15 million for the rapid housing initiative. How does it in any way make sense that Edmonton's homeless would get $15 million, but the government has $7 million for a book fair in Frankfurt?
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Madam Chair, the estimates process is for Parliament to approve money before spending it, yet there is $7 million for an event that has already happened. Does the President of the Treasury Board approve of the process of bypassing Parliament to spend money before being approved?
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Madam Chair, I have read the estimates. There is a quarter of a billion dollars just for DND. Also, the government has not set zero tolerance as a goal. It has set 12% as a goal. Last night in her speech on the estimates, the Treasury Board president read right from the estimates documents that the estimates are seeking Parliament's approval for spending, yet the estimates contained $7.1 million f…
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Madam Chair, if we wish to avoid harassment, we do not set a goal that 12% of staff can be harassed. We set a goal for zero tolerance. How much is in the estimates to settle class action suits against the government from its employees for harassment issues?
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Madam Chair, the minister's own departmental plan, signed by the previous Treasury Board minister, sets a percentage for public service employees who indicate they have been a victim of harassment. The goal is to have 12%. The goal is one out of every eight people. Why is the goal not zero tolerance for harassment?
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Madam Chair, the Information Commissioner has stated that the disastrous ATIP mess long preceded COVID, so it is not an excuse. Will the minister commit to zero tolerance for not delivering on what is in the legislation regarding ATIPs?
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Madam Chair, the minister's own departmental plan shows that the goal is to violate ATIP legislation 10% of the time for ATIP requests. Why is the government setting a goal for the legislation to be ignored for one out of every 10 ATIPs?
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Madam Chair, the legislation says 30 days. That is the law. The minister should know that. How many ATIPs are past the 30 days allowed by the legislation?
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Madam Chair, the minister has staff here right in front of her. I am sure they can look at that information and get back to us, and I will ask the question again. What is the legislated number of days allowed for answering an ATIP?
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Madam Chair, the departmental results reports are ready. From the government's own internal emails, they were ready November 2 and sent to the Treasury Board. The Information Commissioner, Caroline Maynard, has blamed the government's failure regarding the access to information system on the “culture of secrecy” that exists. What is the average number of days for completing an ATIP?
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Madam Chair, the question is about the departmental results reports. The TBS website states that the departmental results reports “inform parliamentarians and Canadians of the results achieved by government organizations for Canadians.” We have an internal email that the departmental results were finalized and submitted to government on November 2, but the government has not tabled them yet. Why i…
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Madam Chair, the timeline is in October. I have an email from the executive assistant, Treasury Board Secretariat. It is a call letter telling the departments that the departmental results reports are due October 13 to Treasury Board with a date to publish and table in the House November 2. I know that the information has been loaded into the government's database and so it is ready to publish. Wh…
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Madam Chair, the public accounts are normally tabled in this House in October. It is now mid-December. What is the government hiding? Why has it not tabled the public accounts yet?
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Madam Chair, this is frightening. There is $600 billion in spending and the Liberals will not answer the simple question if the public accounts have been signed off on. Have the public accounts been reopened to have more money put in by this government?
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Madam Chair, at $24,000 per employee, who is providing these rapid tests? Is it SNC-Lavalin?
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Madam Chair, significant new spending has to go through the Treasury Board process. In the Treasury Board estimates there is $82 million for a COVID policy for public service. TBS officials told us it was for rapid testing purchases and distribution. The Treasury Board website shows there are 3,400 unvaccinated employees seeking accommodation. That works out to about $24,000 per employee for rapid…
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Madam Chair, it is remarkable that the former Treasury Board president fails to answer that because in committee he told us that the tens of billions of dollars for the wage subsidies did not even go through the Treasury Board process before the money went out the door, which is how we saw it go to hedge funds and multinationals. They are going after seniors by clawing back the GIS. How much is ge…
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Madam Chair, my colleague would know that I do know this, and the government is giving only twice as much for 2,800 homeless people in Edmonton as it did for a book fair in Frankfurt. We have seen the government claw back GIS benefits from seniors who received COVID support. How much has been clawed back from the tens of billions given to profitable multinationals and hedge funds for the wage subs…
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Madam Speaker, we need to do more. A lot of it is provincial jurisdiction. The member talks about funding, and I believe there is funding available. I looked at the wage subsidy, and the billions upon billions that were given to wealthy hedge fund managers and other corporations. That money could have fairly—
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Madam Speaker, what a joy it is to be back in the House and be here for the rare occurrence of hearing the member for Winnipeg North speak. It happens about as often as a full eclipse of the sun. It is amazing. I am going to tell my grandkids that I was here to hear the member speak. It is actually disappointing that the Liberals have so many new members, yet time and again it is the same chap who…
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Madam Speaker, I am disappointed with that question. I have respect for some of the interventions my colleague has made today. We are talking about trying to bring Canadians together and not politicizing the issue, and that is what we are hearing with this question. Our party has been very clear that vaccines are the best way to get us out of this pandemic, not continuing to try to divide us polit…
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Madam Speaker, I do not recall reading a single National Post or Globe article stating that the Conservative Party was pushing misinformation or using it for political divide against the Prime Minister. I just read verbatim from a National Post article. It is disgraceful that gentleman would misinterpret, purposely perhaps, my speech. Nowhere did I say that anything the Prime Minister did justifie…
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Mr. Speaker, the member was speaking earlier about transitioning, but Bill C-2 does not have a transition for hotels, restaurants, or the arts and culture industries. It is just more subsidies. Where is the government plan to get tourism going again, to get people into our restaurants, to get people into our theatres and into our concert halls? These companies and organizations cannot just live on…
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Mr. Speaker, congratulations to my colleague on her 10th or 11th time here. She gave a wonderful, very heartfelt speech. I thank her for spending so much time at the beginning of her speech talking about her constituents and those in need. I compliment all my colleagues on both the Liberal side and this side for having the class to not interrupt her or call for a point of order on relevance. I wan…
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Madam Speaker, we have heard a lot from the Liberals asking us to hurry up and get the bill through. I would ask my colleague what he thinks about the pressure to push it through immediately after they waited two full months to bring Parliament back.
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Madam Speaker, as this is my first speech in the 44th Parliament, I beg the House's indulgence to allow me a few minutes to thank some folks. First of all, I want to thank the good people of Edmonton West or, as I call it, “Edmonton West Edmonton Mall”, for sending me to this place for the third time. Each time I have been elected has been as special as the first, so I thank them very much. I am v…
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Madam Speaker, it is linked. Perhaps the member opposite could stop interfering. That gentleman has been here long enough and knows the rules of the House. I beg him to stop interfering and just allow me to give my speech, like an adult. As I mentioned, this is about blocking accountability. We saw it at the operations committee, where ministers could not log on. Even after a year of having a hybr…
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Madam Speaker, I will remind my hon. colleague from Kingston and the Islands that those votes were done on division. We also recognized at the time that urgent action was needed. Did the government provide urgent action? One of the problems was that it rolled out CERB, and the wage subsidy came later. It was so poorly put together, and there was no oversight. The government shovelled money out to …
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Madam Speaker, Bill C-2 is very much a missed opportunity. It does not provide the proper targeting we believe is necessary. There will be people in need who fall through the cracks. One of the issues we have been talking about for a year and a half now is with respect to the companies that opened just before COVID happened. It is by no fault of their own. Perhaps they started building a month bef…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague from the Bloc talks about cultural and independent workers, but this also covers a lot of other workers who could fall through the cracks. The problem with this bill, and with the government, is that it lacks a plan to get us past this. I used to run a hotel that had one of the most successful dinner theatres in the country. These folks do not want to be on government a…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague and I have had the pleasure of serving together on the government operations committee for six years. I hope to see both of us again on OGGO, despite what he may wish. My colleague probably knows that the last time around with the wage subsidy, we had a lot of criticism, as it was going to wealthy hedge fund managers, big corporations and Chinese communist state-owned com…
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Mr. Speaker, congratulations on your election as Deputy Speaker. I want to thank my colleague for Carleton for drawing the direct correlation between the massive spending and our out-of-control inflation. The government likes to pretend that it is a global issue, but I would point out that we have the second-highest inflation rate in the G7 and we are third highest for food inflation, so I do not …
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