Hansard excerpts-QP- Oct 3,2005

Hon. Stephen Harper (Leader of the Opposition, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I will tell the House what one investment planner told me. He said, “One of the few good things this government has done is income trusts and now they have undone it”.

[Translation]

While this government cuts back on retirement funds for the aged, and thousands of workers in the textile industry are unemployed, it still has time and money available for David Dingwall.

Can this government explain why it is negotiating a half-million-dollar arrangement for David Dingwall?


Hon. John McCallum (Minister of National Revenue, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, let us be clear. It is a legal matter, not a political one. The principle is quite simple. The government will pay Mr. Dingwall only what he is legally owed and nothing more. Nonetheless, I want to assure this House that, although Mr. Dingwall stresses that he always acted appropriately, the government will require every dollar to be paid back should an independent review of his expenses raise any problems.

[English]


Hon. Stephen Harper (Leader of the Opposition, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I am going to dispute the law and the facts here. This government, we will recall, in fact did not give a severance to Alfonso Gagliano, but neither did he keep his mouth shut. That is really the issue here.

The government is negotiating a half million dollar payoff for Mr. Dingwall after he left his job voluntarily. Will the government simply admit that the real reason for this severance package is that it is hush money for David Dingwall?


Hon. John McCallum (Minister of National Revenue, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, it seems the Leader of the Opposition did not hear my answer in French, so I will repeat it in English. This is a matter of law. It is not a matter of political discretion. The government will pay to Mr. Dingwall only what it is legally required to pay and not a penny more. Moreover, if the independent investigator finds that any of his expenses were inappropriate, the government will retrieve those expenses, dollar for dollar.


Mr. Brian Pallister (Portage—Lisgar, CPC): Mr. Speaker, how is that working with André Ouellet? It is a year later and there is not a dollar back to taxpayers.

David Dingwall has already gotten money for nothing and his Chiclets for free. Now the Prime Minister is offering Dingwall a fat severance as a final perk for his short stint at the Mint.

The fact of the matter is that we have accessed his remunerations agreement. We know it clearly establishes that there is no obligation whatsoever on the part of the government. This is purely discretionary. Will the Prime Minister admit that this severance package is nothing but a pathetic Liberal damage control deal?


Hon. John McCallum (Minister of National Revenue, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member must have written that question before I gave my answer and did not make any change. As I just explained seconds before he stood up, this is a matter of law. The government will pay the minimum that it is required to pay under the law. To the extent that independent investigation demonstrates that Mr. Dingwall made charges inappropriately, the government will retrieve those funds dollar for dollar.


Mr. Brian Pallister (Portage—Lisgar, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the minister obviously did not hear my question. I am asking him to prove his prudence with André Ouellet.

The minister tries to spin this as normal. This is not normal. David Dingwall resigned. This is not standard. If it is not negotiated in our agreement, tough luck. It is not fair. David Dingwall jumped out of the Liberal patronage plane and Canadians do not deserve to pay for a golden parachute. In fact, they would rather see him land without a parachute.

Are these people so far up the ivory tower that they can no longer see the ground where Canadians live, work and pay taxes?

¸ (1425)


Hon. John McCallum (Minister of National Revenue, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I can only repeat what I now have said three times, that the government will pay to Mr. Dingwall a severance that is the minimum required by law. On this side of the House we believe in rule of law. We believe in a rules based system. My colleague at the Treasury Board has been working to improve those rules and has had great success. Mr. Dingwall will receive the minimum that is required by law.....

Mr. James Rajotte (Edmonton—Leduc, CPC): Mr. Speaker, former Liberal cabinet minister David Dingwall received a kickback of at least $350,000 as a reward for securing a Technology Partnerships Canada grant for a biotechnology company, despite the fact that kickbacks are against the guidelines. The company, Bioniche, is considering going after Mr. Dingwall to recover its success fee, but the government refuses to go after Dingwall and is instead offering him a golden handshake.

Why is the government not putting taxpayer money first? Why will the industry minister not force David Dingwall to pay back his contingency fee?


Hon. David Emerson (Minister of Industry, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, we are recovering all the money from Bioniche. It will deal with Mr. Dingwall on the recovery of those funds.

The use of the language “kickback” is an affront to civilized debate in the House. It suggests illegality. It is illegal to be an unregistered lobbyist. It is not illegal to receive a contingency fee. It is against government policy. It was etched into contracts with companies. Those contracts were breached and we have corrected those breaches.


Mr. James Rajotte (Edmonton—Leduc, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the Liberals may not like the language but that is the truth. It is against Technology Partnerships Canada's own guidelines to receive contingency fees. These companies have to sign it upfront knowingly and are giving contingency fees. That is wrong. It is against the government's own guidelines.

The fact is David Dingwall is not alone. Up to 15 lobbyists may have received kickbacks for securing TPC grants. The industry minister has admitted that Dingwall is guilty and this problem is growing. Why is the industry minister refusing to go after the lobbyists who have received these kickbacks and make them repay the money they have defrauded from Canadian taxpayers?

¸ (1435)


Hon. David Emerson (Minister of Industry, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, disgusting maliciousness is what it is. There were breaches of contracts entered into by companies. We are correcting those breaches. Those companies have recourse to lobbyists. Wherever a lobbyist is not registered, it is being referred either to the RCMP or the registrar of lobbyists. We are correcting the breaches. All they are doing is muckraking because that is all they know how to do.

[Translation]


Mr. Michael Chong (Wellington—Halton Hills, CPC): Mr. Speaker, Raymond Chabot reviewed 33 randomly selected companies that had received funding under the TPC program. Eleven have violated the rules to the tune of $2.4 million. The minister was advised of this on September 16.

In order to lend credibility to his fight against corruption, when will the minister make public the names of these 11 companies? Is Mr. Dingwall involved?

[English]


Hon. David Emerson (Minister of Industry, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I did undertake to give information to the House with respect to the audits being undertaken under the old TPC program. I am disclosing the information as we are able.

There are privacy laws in the country. There are access to information laws in the country. I am observing those laws. I am working with the companies. As soon as we have factual information that could be put on the table, I am presenting it to Parliament.

Again, it is a vicious guttersnipe over there.


Mr. Michael Chong (Wellington—Halton Hills, CPC): Mr. Speaker, that answer is a smokescreen. The fact is last election day the previous industry minister was informed that four companies violated the rules by making illegal payments from TPC. Those names were made public.

On September 16 the minister was informed that 11 companies violated the rules by making $2.4 million in illegal payments, yet he refuses to make these 11 public. The TPC lobbyists' list reads like the who's who of the Liberal Party, but even that list is unreliable since Liberals like David Dingwall did not even bother to register.

When will this minister release the 11 names and the illegal amounts involved?


Hon. David Emerson (Minister of Industry, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, as he crawls through the gutter alleging illegal payments, these are breaches of contracts. They are not illegal payments, they are breaches of contracts. They are being corrected and the money recovered.

Mr. Gary Lunn (Saanich—Gulf Islands, CPC): Mr. Speaker, clearly the Minister of Public Works is trying to hide something as he continues to claim that the RCMP took a single invoice during a raid on September 14 of the Public Works office in Gatineau, Québec. Sources indicate that 150 boxes of documents were seized, not a single piece of paper.

Why will the minister not come clean and tell the House what the RCMP took from his office? What is he trying to hide?


Hon. Scott Brison (Minister of Public Works and Government Services, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the fact is that Public Works, in fact the entire government, cooperates fully with the RCMP in any investigation and we will continue to d Mr. David Anderson (Cypress Hills—Grasslands, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the $1 billion gun registry is back in the news again.

In 2001, to save money, the government switched from plastic registration cards to paper certificates which just made it easier to forge registrations.

Now taxpayers are amazed to learn that the government allowed a website offering fake gun registrations to operate a year after it knew about it.

Why are security measures still so sloppy that anybody, any gang member, any violent criminal, can type up their own registration certificates?

¹ (1500)


Hon. Anne McLellan (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member probably is aware, that is not true. In fact, there are many security features built into the documents that the firearms centre issues.

The other issue to which the hon. member referred in relation to a website out of the United States, I have in my possession a letter sent April 15, 2004 from the firearms centre asking for the shutdown of that site. I have a response from homestead.com in which homestead.com said the following, “Based on your complaint, we have terminated the account in question”.

o exactly that...





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