Mr. Speaker, last week I asked a question of the minister of ACOA in regard to past behaviour in his department by the former minister responsible for ACOA. I want to acknowledge that the minister himself is in the House tonight to respond to this, which is probably a first for the House of Commons. I am really pleased to see the minister here.
I do want to point out that the question which I directed to the present minister last week has nothing to do with his watch. We will watch the minister very carefully and if he messes up we will take him to task, but the question was directed at the former minister.
In fact the former minister is the member for Humber--St. Barbe--Baie Verte. I go back to some questionable funding that occurred on his watch as minister responsible for ACOA last year. It was so bad that I refer to it as being pork-barrelling. I think that word is parliamentary, Mr. Speaker. The minister at that time was using ACOA as his own personal treasury to support himself and his riding at the expense of other members of Parliament, including his Liberal colleagues.
This question arose in terms of his pork-barrelling, taking advantage and abusing his role as minister, because of complaints that came from Liberal members of Parliament. We entered into the debate as well, but I will just read one headline out of the Halifax Daily News . This goes back to last November. The headline reads, “MPs angry ACOA minister's riding gets bulk of Nfld. employment funds”.
I will quote one paragraph in that article which really sums up the argument I made the other day. I am demanding that the present minister conduct an audit of the past behaviour of the previous minister. In other words, I am asking the minister to do an internal review of ACOA to find out how a minister of the Crown could abuse an agency like ACOA and run roughshod over the board of directors to feather his own nest.
One paragraph of the article which appeared in the Halifax Daily News last November states:
Liberal and Conservative legislators from the province are furious that the minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency is doling out millions of dollars in federal employment funds and rural community works projects to his riding of Humber--St. Barbe--Baie Verte.
He did it to the point where 50% of all of the funding went to the former minister's riding. I know the new minister has been around this place a long time. He came here at the same time as you and I did, Mr. Speaker, in the class of '88. We are asking the new minister of ACOA to take a serious look at how this abuse of that agency could take place on the previous minister's watch.
In addition, I have requested that the Auditor General look at that same file and see whether or not she and her department can find out how a minister of the Crown would be allowed to abuse an agency like ACOA.