TRGO Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Standing Committee on Transport and Government Operations

COMMITTEE EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, February 19, 2002

Á

1110

The Chair (Mr. Ovid Jackson (Bruce--Grey--Owen Sound, Lib.))

Mr. Ghislain  Lebel (Chambly, BQ)

The Chair

Mr. Lebel

The Chair

Mr. Ghislain Lebel

Á

1115

Á

1120

Á

1125

Á

1130

The Chair

Mr. Mario Laframboise (Argenteuil--Papineau--Mirabel, BQ)

The Chair

Á

1135

Mr. Pankiw

The Chair

Mr. Reg Alcock (Winnipeg South, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. Pankiw

The Chair

Mr. Pankiw

Mr. Reg Alcock

The Chair

Mr. Pankiw

The Chair

Mr. Ghislain Lebel

Á

1140

The Chair

Mr. Paul Szabo

The Chair

Mr. Ghislain Lebel

Á

1145

The Chair

Mr. Ghislain Lebel

The Chair

Mr. Ghislain Lebel

The Chair

Mr. Paul Szabo

The Chair

The Clerk

Mr. Paul Szabo

The Clerk

Mr. Szabo

The Chair

Mr. Ghislain Lebel

The Chair

Mr. Mario Laframboise

Á

1150

The Chair

Mr. André Harvey (Chicoutimi--Le Fjord, Lib.)

The Chair

The Chair

Mr. Pankiw

Á

1155

The Chair

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CANADA

Standing Committee on Transport and Government Operations

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NUMBER 050

l

1st SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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COMMITTEE EVIDENCE

Tuesday, February 19, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Á  (1110)  

[English]

    The Chair (Mr. Ovid Jackson (Bruce--Grey--Owen Sound, Lib.)): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I think I see a quorum, so I'd like to start the proceedings.

    The order of the day is to address a number of motions. I'll move right to Ghislain Lebel, who wants to move the first motion.

    Please, Ghislain.

[Translation]

    Mr. Ghislain  Lebel (Chambly, BQ): You are going to study my motion if I understand correctly, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

    Motion No. 1 concerning Michel Couillard:

That the Standing Committee on Transport and Government Operations summon Mr. Michel Couillard, former Vice-President and General Manager of the Canada Lands Company, to appear before the Committee and explain the pressures he may have been subjected to by the Honourable Alfonso Gagliano, former Minister of Public Works and Government Services, Mr. Alphonso Gagliano, and his Chief of Staff Jean-Marc Bard, to hire persons close to the Liberal party of Canada and to award contracts, thus confirming the serious allegations of patronage, favouritism and interference in the Canada Lands Company.Mortage and Housing Corporation.

    Mr. Chairman, would you like me to read all my motions one after the other, or shall we discuss this one first?

[English]

    The Chair: No, we'll deal with one at a time.

[Translation]

    Mr. Ghislain Lebel: Fine.

[English]

    The Chair: Okay, you've heard the motion, ladies and gentlemen. Let's begin discussion on it.

    Monsieur Lebel.

[Translation]

    Mr. Ghislain Lebel: Today, in Montreal and Quebec newspapers generally, it is said that Ottawa must do some housekeeping in its Crown corporations. I think these are very timely remarks. This is what is being said:

The Chrétien government must do some in-depth housecleaning in the 41 Crown corporations, to put an end to the favouritism that has led to the appointment of incompetent administrators, according to a federal report to be published today. The Public Accounts Committee, made up of representatives from all parties in the House, will unanimously recommend a series of measures aimed at improving the quality of management in these Crown corporations.

    According to confirmation obtained by Le Journal de Montréal:

...the report will recommend a series of criteria to guide the government in the appointment of Crown corporation administrators.

This recommendation follows upon a damning report by the Auditor General--

    It is not myself and my party saying these things, it is the Auditor General, who concluded a year ago... And for those who might be skeptical, the person who was Auditor at that time was not in conflict with the Liberal Party of Canada nor with the government, and he had not left office when he prepared this report. So contrary to Jon Grant who was discredited here 15 days ago, Mr. Desautels, the Auditor General appointed by Parliament, had tabled a report a year ago in which he said:

...that several federal Crown corporation managers are simply incompetent. Some even have no experience in management, deplored Denis Desautels.

I repeat that he was the Auditor.

The Auditor quoted an experienced Crown corporation administrator who estimated that 25% of the boards are completely overwhelmed today, because political criteria are being applied to their selection instead of criteria related to the activities concerned.

And I will continue, Mr. Chairman:

All of this business is occurring just when former managers of a Crown corporation, the Canada Lands Company (CLC)--

This is the corporation I mentioned in my motion today.

...claim that pressures were exerted upon them to hire friends of the former minister, Mr. Alfonso Gagliano.

    So as you can see, these are the current events being discussed in Quebec at this time.

    And last week, a certain Mr. Couillard,who was vice-president and general manager of the Canada Lands Company, was facing criminal charges. I know that my friend from Chicoutimi opposite me here will say that this is a man who has lost all credibility because he is facing criminal charges, which is true. However, Mr. Couillard wrote a letter in 1998 while he was solidly in the saddle, occupying his position as vice-president and general manager of the Canada Lands Company, a letter in which he complained to his chair, Mr. Erhard Buchholz, about the undue pressure that was being exerted upon him by Minister Gagliano and his right arm, a certain Mr. Bard.

    This is not new to the committee; the committee was made aware of this business not too long ago. However, I believe that the committee refused to see this clearly or admit it. People say that no one is as blind as those who will not see. I believe unfortunately that this was the case with the members of the committee.

    I urge my friends across the way, now, and I'm giving them every possible opportunity to redeem themselves to take action through the motion I am tabling and to ask Mr. Michel Couillard, former vice-chair and chief executive of the CMHC to appear before the committee to come and describe to us the atmosphere that reigned there.

    There are just a number of things, Mr. Chairman, that Mr. Couillard could tell us. He could tell us firstly how he felt as vice-chair of the CMHC. He could also list his competencies. In the newspaper it is said that a lot of people who work in administration at crown corporations have no such competencies. The Auditor General said this, not myself.

Á  (1115)  

    So, firstly, we could see whether Mr. Couillard was competent and learn a little more about the way in which he was appointed; we could also ask Mr. Couillard to explain what he says in his letter and to tell us whether there was any follow-up to it and whether indeed what he was denouncing--

    Several examples could be quoted. There is the Martineau Walker legal firm in Montreal for whom the Canada Lands Company was a good client. We saw through communications or letters circulated internally that people were being asked that everything be withdrawn from Martineau Walker and sent to an organizer friend of Mr. Gagliano's, a brilliant lawyer, no doubt.

    Since this was done with complete disregard for the proper management of projects that were already underway, we have to know whether our Crown corporation and all taxpayers were penalized when a certain number of files were transferred from the Martineau Walker firm to the Guy and Gilbert firm where his friend Tommy worked... I don't remember his name, exactly.

    There were also other allegations: allegations that concerned architects and project managers at Benny Farm, for instance. Benny Farm was, it seems, a big real estate project built with federal funds. Here, people were asked to withdraw supervision and management of the project from those who had it, because they had made successful bids, I presume. One always presumes good faith. So they obtained this contract through legal means and had the carpet yanked out from under them in favour of a friend of the regime, a certain Emmanuel Triassi, who later was also appointed president of the Royal Canadian Mint.

    Mr. Triassi's competencies are not at issue here. Nor his capacity to execute the contract. But before doing that, should it not have been proven that those who had the contract at that time were incapable of honouring it and carrying out the work? None of that was proven or even allegated. We are simply told that through political interference someone who had the right to earn a living, to earn their daily bread, had a contract taken away in favour of a friend of the regime. Would that not already be sufficient, Mr. Chairman, to have us immediately summon Mr. Couillard?

    But there is even more. There are demolition and construction companies—who have probably demolished all the credibility of this department with regard to the management of Crown corporations—and a host of persons, Mr. Chairman, who were introduced to Mr. Couillard. People were imposed on him. I will name some of them.

    For instance, there was Tomasso Nanci, a Montreal lawyer and former organizer for the minister. Tomasso Nanci was the lawyer who worked for a legal firm which competed with the Martineau Walker firm. There is also Emmanuel Triassi, whom I mentioned earlier, who was later appointed chairman of the board of directors of the Royal Canadian Mint by, as it happens, Alfonso Gagliano:

...the minister wanted that the construction or management of the Benny Farm apartment building project in Montreal be entrusted to--

He specifies:

It was requested that the call for tender and bid process be avoided to ensure that... the Emmanuel Triassi construction company obtain the contract--

    Mr. Couillard stated that he refused to do so, but did someone do so in his stead, later? That we do not know. But I presume that my friends across the way would like to know.

    Mr. Couillard adds that he was asked to cancel the contract held by the Benny Farm project architect to then give it to the Bertomeu and Ruccolo firm, which he claims to have refused to do. Minister Gagliano thus wanted the engineering firm of Pageau Morel and associates to have its share of the Benny Farm project. He added that the minister's son-in-law worked for the Pageau Morel firm.

Á  (1120)  

    And the list goes on, Mr. Chairman. There is also the engineering firm of Soprin-ADS, the Forlini demolition company, Michel Hébert, a Montreal consultant, and Robert Charest. The latter is reputed to have done some work. His name has come out and at Canada Lands Company, people cannot tell us about the scope and nature of the work Mr. Charest did, what he did or did not do. They are incapable of listing the work done by someone who nevertheless earned some $2,000,000 working for the Canada Lands Company. They are incapable of telling us what his work consisted of, what he did or did not do.

    There is another well-known liberal, Clément Joly, from the RCMP firm. He's responsible for the finances of the Liberal Party of Canada in Quebec. He is mentioned in the letter.

    There is also Tony Mignacca, a personal friend of the minister. We saw what Mr. Mignacca did: he was appointed to the Canada Lands Company as a manager. He was there close to a year and a half. Mr. Grant, whose credibility has been completely demolished, complained that Tony Mignacca had been imposed upon him.

    There are persons of unblemished reputation whose names have also been quoted, good friends of the party across the way. The world is very small. The world of patronage is smaller still. It can be reduced to a few people who come and blow the credibility of politicians out of the water, especially that of my friends across the way. They should feel even more concerned than I, because it is their gang, their friends we are talking about. I hope they are not personally involved, but it is this gang that has done this.

    Refusing to see and to try to throw light on all of this is to undermine completely the very raison d'être of this committee. It is sending a signal to these people with their machinations and maneuverings, who are nosing around in the trough, that the lid has been put on the pot and that no one is concerned, that they can do whatever they wish, that they can engage in fraud if they want to, that there will be no consequences to it and that the majority of government members on the committee will never bother them, since they do hold this majority.

    That is the tragedy in all of this. The credibility of politicians, which is already very much diminished, will not be improved because the friends of our friends are our friends, it would seem. The maxim has proved true in this case. They are refusing to throw light on this and want to protect their little friends, their little cronies, to the detriment of the dignity of politicians, if they still have any left, and I am referring to all parties.

    Mr. Chairman, that is the reason why I have tabled this motion. Mr. Couillard addressed this memorandum to his chairman at the time. There was God the Father, Mr. Erhard Buchholz, and Mr. Couillard was the second in command. So at that time at the Canada Lands Company, the Son of God, so to speak, the second in command, was turning to God the Father.

    Since Mr. Couillard no longer has the credibility we would like him to have, perhaps this famous Mr. Buchholz could at some point come and explain what was going on to the committee.

    I would like to remind my friends, especially my friend from Chicoutimi who is sitting across from me, that whistle-blowers can be discredited. It seems to be the first role of the people across the way to discredit everyone and everything which does not proceed from the Liberal Party of Canada. I understand that, these are political war tactics. However, there is a certain Mr. Basque in the Maritimes who has not done any jail time, is not facing any kind of charge, and who has said to the CBC French network, the SRC,on the Téléjournal—I saw it—that this is indeed how things are run in Crown corporations.

    The former Auditor General, Mr. Desautels, came here to tell us that that was precisely the case. The 41 Crown corporations are a boondoggle of incompetence. Our friends across the way say that everything is for the best in the best possible world, that there's nothing to worry about and that we should not be scrutinizing these things.

Á  (1125)  

    I would simply like to remind my friends across the way of the famous Jean de La Fontaine fable that is about animals sick with the plague. In it, he says: “They did not all die, but all were stricken”. I wonder whether this might not apply to my friends across the way. Finally, all the animals had to recognize that they were guilty of some sins to have the pestilence that was affecting all of them go away; the lion admitted having eaten the occasional shepherd. So everyone decided to confess, the lion stating that he had on occasion eaten a few sheep, and sometimes even the shepherd. But this was not considered very serious. For his part, the donkey confessed that he had eaten some hay, a patch about as wide as his tongue. He had eaten some hay in the neighbour's field. Now that was a catastrophe! The others, the lion and the wolf jumped on him and ate him.

    This is similar to what happened to Mr. Couillard. Yes, it is true that he did some things that may not have been quite honourable as manager, but it seems to me that his position is much closer to that of the donkey in the fable than to that of the lion. I think the lion was sent to Europe. Perhaps we should bring him back or delay his departure and have him come here to explain to us with his vice-president what happened in these Crown corporations.

    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Á  (1130)  

[English]

    The Chair: Merci beaucoup, Monsieur Lebel.

    Is there any further discussion?

    Mario.

[Translation]

    Mr. Mario Laframboise (Argenteuil--Papineau--Mirabel, BQ) Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    The fact remains that our committee, which deals with transport, also deals with government operations. We must understand that we are accountable to the citizens. We are not here for the simple pleasure of our respective political parties. Government operations are made up in large measure of the expenditures that come from our fellow citizens' income tax. It is all well and good to reject presentations offhand and to see the Liberal Party react whenever we want to summon witnesses that could compromise them, but I hope that they have some sensitivity and enough political smarts to defend the interests of constituents. The taxes and income tax of citizens throughout Canada, and especially those in your ridings, are being defended here at the Transport and Government Operations Committee.

    We can always decide to not throw light on the situation, but what would we be protecting by doing that? The honour of the Liberals? I think it has been tarnished for life. I reiterate that you have everything you need, all of the necessary officials to be able to call these witnesses. And if they are not right, I am convinced that you will saving the honour of your party. If you do not save the honour of your party, at least save the honour of the Canadian men and women who pay taxes and income tax.

    Once again, that is why we have been appointed to this committee, to throw light on a whole array of topics: transportation, government operations. So, is this the situation: when things run the risk of compromising the Liberal Party a bit too much, nothing will be brought to light? We are only going to discuss things that interest you and suit you, but never that which might be of real interest to our fellow citizens, those whom you and I represent.

    Somewhere, I repeat, government operations concern us. If you did not want to deal with them, it was up to you to create an independent committee. It is not that our colleague did not ask you to do so. You, as representatives of the Liberal Party, did not want to. You who are here and who sit on this committee are concerned with government operations. You should have declined the offer and said that you only wanted to deal with transportation and that an independent committee should be struck to deal with government operations, so that someone else would do that.

    The fact remains that we have a responsibility here. It is too easy to say no, these are not good witnesses. It is not we the members of the Bloc Québécois or of any other opposition party who are raising the issue of these witnesses, it is the international press who raises the issue every day in its pages. So I think it is honest for us to ask you to summon witnesses to throw light on the way in which taxpayers' money was spent, the way in which the taxes of Quebec and Canadian men and women have been spent. We would like to know what happened with this money, since our committee is supposed to deal with government operations.

    I think you have a responsibility here. You can always choose to refuse it, but be honest enough to say to your fellow citizens, to the men and women you represent, that you did not want to deal with government operations because in this particular case it threatened the fortunes of the Liberal Party and you did not feel comfortable doing so. And if this does not suit you, resign. Withdraw from this committee, go and sit on another committee. I have no problem with others replacing you who would be willing to do the work.

    That's twice today. Once again, Mr. Chairman, I don't want to prejudge the results of the vote—you will have the opportunity of voting in a little while—but the time has come to throw light on this issue, and I am convinced that, I repeat, you have all the experts, all the documents needed to help us try to clear up this matter. And if there are people who made false declarations, untrue statements, you will have the opportunity of introducing evidence to save their honour, that of your party, and by the same token, your own, Mr. Chairman.

    Thank you.

[English]

    The Chair: Thank you, Mario.

    Are you ready for the question?

    Yes, Jim.

Á  (1135)  

    Mr. Jim Pankiw (Saskatoon--Humboldt, PC/DR): I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

    The Bloc member here just alluded to presuming the outcome of the vote. I think we should cut the crap. We all know what's going on here. I think the representative from the Liberal whip's office should be asked to leave the room so each member here can vote their conscience. The stench of corruption is overwhelming here. Let's have a vote whereby each member can vote their conscience.

    The Chair: We're ready for the vote.

    Reg Alcock.

    Mr. Reg Alcock (Winnipeg South, Lib.): I think this little fellow over here should learn something. There's a presumption in this place that all members are honourable members. If you have a charge to make, you make it directly, okay? Don't play these kinds of games with me.

    That little guy doesn't scare me at all.

    The Chair: Mr. Clerk, you can go ahead and poll members.

    (Motion negatived: nays 8; yeas 6)

    The Chair: Monsieur Lebel, would you move to your next motion, please.

    Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.): I have a point of order, Mr. Chairman.

    The Chair: The chair recognizes Mr. Szabo.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: Mr. Chairman, there was a question at a previous meeting concerning the request to have the ethics counsellor come before us. The clerk circulated information that I think led to the conclusion that the ethics counsellor could not be invited by us because it wasn't within our mandate to do it.

    In view of the fact that the responsibility for crown corporations has been transferred to the Deputy Prime Minister and is no longer part of the work of this committee, or of the ministers to whom this committee addresses its attention, would it not also come into question whether or not we are permitted to call a minister for whom we have no responsibility--i.e., for crown corporations?

    The Chair: Richard, do you have a ruling on that?

    The Clerk of the Committee: I would have to check it.

    Mr. Jim Pankiw: Not all crown corporations have been transferred to the Deputy Prime Minister. Some still remain with the Minister of Public Works.

    The Chair: Okay. In light of your comments, the clerk will check into it. He has no further advice on this.

    Mr. Pankiw, please address the chair and be mindful of your language; keep it parliamentary so that we have a good meeting. Thanks. And you have the floor.

    Mr. Jim Pankiw: Well, I appreciate your request to keep things parliamentary, Mr. Chair, but we're dealing with corruption.

    Some hon. members: Order, order.

    Mr. Jim Pankiw: What?

    Mr. Reg Alcock: You don't know that.

    Mr. Jim Pankiw: Well, then, let's find out.

    Mr. Reg Alcock: You think that, right?

    The Chair: Gentlemen, your comments should come through the chair, please.

    Mr. Jim Pankiw: I suspect that your own job and your position in your party are under threat if you don't participate in the cover-up.

    The Chair: Order, order.

    Mr. Jim Pankiw: Let's be open and investigate it. What's the problem? What do we have to hide?

    The Chair: Order.

    Monsieur Lebel, you have the floor for your second motion.

    Mr. Pankiw, you'll have a chance when your motion is on the floor.

[Translation]

    Mr. Ghislain Lebel: Unfortunately, I'm afraid my colleague is right.

    Here is the second motion:

That the Standing Committee on Transport and Government Operations invite the Honourable John Manley, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister responsible for Crown Corporations, to appear before the Committee and disclose the approach he is planning to take in managing Crown corporations under his governance, particularly Canada Lands Company, and relate the administrative deficiencies he may have noted in the management of Crown corporations by his predecessor, the Honourable Alfonso Gagliano.

    I will be much briefer. Today, in Le Journal de Montréal and in other newspapers in the province of Quebec, quite frankly, the credibility of our friends across the way is plummeting, would you not say so, my friend, the Member for Chicoutimi? The Auditor General stated that the people appointed to this corporation were absolutely incompetent and had no training to prepare them for these positions. The only competency they had was that they were members of the Liberal Party of Canada in Quebec. That is their only claim to fame.

    But this does not worry our friends. They are continuing to fool around with the computer while we are discussing these matters here. They are having fun. They seem to be in their element. They are rolling around in all of this like pigs in slop. These matters are very serious but nothing scares them. Nothing worries them.

    The government has funds. The government has a bottomless pit of money. You can mismanage funds over centuries, but a government will never go bankrupt. The debt went up to $680 billion with that attitude. A large part of the debt may indeed be due to those attitudes, to this kind of management. We want to correct the situation and bring things back into line. We also want our Crown corporations to project an image of integrity and competence. Nothing insults these good-old-boy Quebec liberals. Nothing is insulting. No diversion affects them, not in any way. We all saw that during the vote that was just held, Mr. Chairman.

    I am imploring them, I beg them to look at things properly, to focus and see that we are accountable to the taxpayers, to the citizens of Canada. A corporation such as Canada Lands Company sells a building that was assessed in a municipal assessment at $9 or $10 million dollars and lets it go at a liquidation sale price, for $3 or $4 million dollars. It sold for less than $13 a square foot a building that was easily worth $50 a square foot. Was there really an emergency? That sale could have been delayed. If the market was not the best to dispose of that building, the government that has a bottomless pit of money could have waited a while for the market to improve. There was no fire sale needed. It was not like the case of a fellow who cannot make his mortgage payments and rather than lose everything has to sell his property at a loss.

    We are talking about the Canadian government, that government that has been fattening those fellows across the way forever. It could have waited a little rather than selling a piece of land that was a jewel in the downtown area of Montreal for a third of its value, land that had been acquired from the Sulpician brothers. But it did not do so because the buyer was a crony of the regime, one of their buddies. That is why, Mr. Chairman, and that is what was said in the newspapers, even though this offends Mr. Szabo.

Á  (1140)  

[English]

    The Chair: Mr. Szabo.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: In the motion, Mr. Chairman, the mover is calling for a minister--who I'm not even sure we can invite--to describe how they are going to manage a crown corporation and what deficiencies they noted in the management of the crown corporation by a previous minister.

    Ministers do not manage crown corporations; they are the sole shareholders of crown corporations. In view of the fact that there are no management responsibilities, this motion is out of order.

    The Chair: Well, that's your perception.

    I'm going to allow Mr. Lebel to continue with his motion.

[Translation]

    Mr. Ghislain Lebel: I can see that my colleague across the way is resorting to splitting hairs in texts and to peccadillos to try and slow down or trip up this committee. Don't panic. You have probably managed to do so with your confederates, but allow me to at least say this, Mr. Chairman: I am not proud of my friends across the way, not by a long shot, in light of these machinations. This is very close to fraud, in most of these cases.

    If they weren't protected by Liberal immunity, they would be facing criminal charges and could wind up in jail, Mr. Chairman. But because of the Liberal immunity, this will again be swept under the carpet. This is an invitation to do the same thing all over again, it is sending a message that there are no guidelines, no risks. When you are in power, you slurp up the gravy, and there is no risk of getting caught. You are covered. You are covered by Liberal immunity.

    If these people have some semblance of dignity, some semblance of honesty in their hearts, Mr. Chairman, I am asking them to wake up right now and support this motion. Thank you.

Á  (1145)  

[English]

    The Chair: Mr. Moore is asking for the question. Are you ready for the question?

[Translation]

    Mr. Ghislain Lebel: I request a recorded vote.

[English]

    (Motion negatived: nays 8; yeas 5)

    The Chair: Monsieur Lebel, you have the floor again. Since you have the third motion, put it on the floor, please.

[Translation]

    Mr. Ghislain Lebel: Here is motion number...

[English]

    The Chair: A point of order from Mr. Szabo.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the clerk could advise the House whether or not we have the authority to call a former minister, no longer a member of the House, to appear before this committee.

    The Chair: Richard.

    The Clerk: Yes, you can invite him.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: To deal with his activities as a former minister?

    The Clerk: You can invite him, but he will not be obliged to answer the questions regarding his former portfolio.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: It's an invitation.

    The Chair: Monsieur Lebel, we don't have the motion. Let's have the motion on the floor before we debate it.

    It was a point of order, and we got the point. Thank you.

    Ghislain, you have the floor.

[Translation]

    Mr. Ghislain Lebel: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    You know that a motion had been tabled two weeks ago asking that the Minister be summoned to appear, but new facts have been added since. I am not a lawyer, but I know that in court new facts always give you the right to raise new arguments.

    So the new argument is this absolutely appalling, catastrophic letter, if I may say so, from Mr. Couillard to our friends across the way. Each one of them was not named personally, but they are the ones to whom this was addressed. As my friend Mr. Laframboise said, if they don't want to save the image of their government and the image of their party, I hope that they will try to save their dignity. They are the ones concerned. Let them not become the after-the-fact accomplices of reprehensible acts such as we have seldom seen. And this is not over. If these people think that they can sweep this under the carpet, there is a horde of journalists waiting in my office, and others who want me to phone them. I'm going to do so. I am telling you that I won't abstain from doing so, Mr. Member from Chicoutimi. You are all going to be tarred with the same brush.

    The Liberals across the way—and I am looking you right in the eye—should have a little dignity, at least, at the last minute, and summon Mr. Gagliano to have him come and explain what system he put in place, how it worked, what was his modus operandi. This may be the price to pay to recover the dignity you have so lamentably lost.

    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Mario.

    Mr. Mario Laframboise: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    I have a lot of trouble understanding this. I reiterate that we are here as representatives of the population in the areas of transport and government operations. There have been some very serious allegations made concerning expenditures, money spent by Crown corporations, and concerning people who were hired. Once again, we are talking about taxpayers' money, the taxes paid by Quebec and Canadian men and women. That money was used to pay people... All we want is to throw some light on all of this.

    Mr. Chairman, they have refused to summon the new minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. John Manley, who is responsible for Crown corporations, and the text says:

...and disclose the approach he is planning to take in managing Crown corporations under his governance [...] and relate the administrative deficiencies he may have noticed...

    They are refusing to summon the new minister and also the former minister who acted in that situation. Well, somewhere, you really have a problem, because there really are...

    Go ahead.

Á  (1150)  

[English]

    The Chair: Monsieur Harvey.

[Translation]

    Mr. André Harvey (Chicoutimi--Le Fjord, Lib.): I would like to make a comment, Mr. Chairman, since my friend Mr. Lebel likes to mention my name quite frequently. I want to tell him that I'm quite capable of defending my dignity myself.

    I love the Bloc members, Mr. Chairman, especially during an election campaign. I love them during an electoral campaign, because we then have the opportunity of assessing their record. My own dignity rests on concrete achievements and not on public declarations made by people who have retired, or on memos that have been lost.

    With my colleagues on this side of the room I have been building my dignity and will continue to do so. Our achievements must not be so bad, if you look at the results of yesterday's survey: the Bloc Québécois is at 25%. It will have to go down to 0% for its members to realize that they are making “off-the-wall” statements that are not serving the specific interests of our fellow citizens. The Standing Committee on Transport and Government Operations is not a royal commission of inquiry.

    So, all things considered, I welcome Mr. Lebel's remarks, but as far as our dignity is concerned, and my own in particular, I take full responsibility for it. During the many election campaigns I have waged, my fellow citizens elected me on the basis of concrete things.

    I am not in Ottawa on a honeymoon, Mr. Chairman. If certain members of the Bloc are, that is not the case for me. I am at work every day, but I'm not going to spend my time carrying out investigations on things that are considered groundless, even by the authors.

    I am always pleased to vote on motions. If Mr. Lebel has 10 others, let him put them on the table and we will vote on them. But insofar as my dignity is concerned, I am a big boy and I will take care of it, thank you very much.

    The Chair : Thank you very much, Mr. Harvey.

[English]

    (Motion negatived: nays 8; yeas 5)

    The Chair: Mr. Pankiw, you have the floor with the fourth motion.

    Mr. Jim Pankiw: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    The motion is:

That Jean-Marc Bard, Chief of Staff to former Public Works Minister Alfonso Gagliano, be invited to appear before the Committee to answer questions regarding conflict of interest allegations that both he and Gagliano interfered in the operation of Canada Lands Company by lobbying to secure employment for friends and supporters, contrary to subsections 23(1) and 23(3) of the government's Conflict of Interest Code.

    Mr. Chair, these are allegations that the government's own... The Liberal government brought this Conflict of Interest Code in themselves, and the code itself has been broken. This is the committee tasked with overseeing government operations, so for members to vote against this motion--and it appears they will, because they voted against three similar motions that would have accomplished the same thing--it means they're refusing to fulfil the responsibility they're tasked with by being on this committee.

    That said, I guess I probably understand how the Olympic champion Canadian pairs figure skaters felt when they looked at the French judge.

Á  (1155)  

    The Chair: We're ready for the question. I'll ask the clerk to poll the members.

    (Motion negatived: nays 8; yeas 5)

    The Chair: That ends our business for today. We will reconvene on Thursday at 11 a.m. to do the business of the committee.

    Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

    We are adjourned.