TPC Coverup (en francais)

CPC MP James Rajotte is trying to raise this issue in the MSM. Help him out. Write a Letter to the Editor of your local paper. NealeNews has an excellent 'Newspaper' section listing links to many papers across the country. Other than the voting booth, this is one of the few avenues that average Canadians have to make their voice heard.

Time to take advantage of it.

Industry Canada Press Release

Ministers Speech at Montreal Chamber of Commerce


A few questions spring to mind:

1. I wonder why Industry Minister Emerson is announcing these changes at a Montreal Chamber of Commerce meeting, instead of the House of Commons?

2. Why will Emerson not release the audits?

3. If illegal commissions were paid to unregistered lobbyists, why are the RCMP not investigating and criminal charges being considered? Are they waiting for limitations to run out as they did in Adscam?

4. Does the Minister actually think that adding another layer of "experts", appointed by the Liberals, is going to change this program? (visions of a fox and the henhouse come to mind here)

5. Why will the Minister not do the right thing and refer this entire program to the Auditor-General?

Those are just a few off the top of my head. I'm sure Mr. Rajotte has a few more!

TPC changes cover-up real problem: Rajotte
20 September 2005

OTTAWA – James Rajotte, Member of Parliament for Edmonton-Leduc and Senior Opposition Critic for Industry, Science and Technology today called the proposed changes to the Technology Partnerships Canada (TPC) program a cover-up.

“This Liberal government is simply trying to sweep the chronic mismanagement of TPC under the carpet,” said Rajotte. “Rather than account for the billions of dollars granted under this program, the Liberals are going to change the name and hope everyone forgets.”

Rajotte is particularly disturbed by the fact that the new program, called the Transformative Technologies Program (TTP) will not be a cost-recovery program. Instead it seems grants will be given to for-profit businesses without any return on taxpayers’ investments.

“This is blatant corporate welfare,” said Rajotte. “TPC gave money to Paul Martin’s own shipping company, Canadian Shipbuilding and Engineering (CS&E). We can expect more grants to friendly Liberals under the new program.”

Rajotte renewed his call for the release of all recently completed audits of the TPC program. He fears that Minister David Emerson has finally had to change the program because the audits have uncovered wide-spread misuse of taxpayer money.

In addition, Rajotte is calling for a complete public accounting of all payments by TPC as well as all repayments by the private-sector companies that received the loans.

“I want to see a chart of all the money that has been loaned versus all the money that has been paid back,” said Rajotte.


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For further information, contact James Rajotte (613) 992-3594 or (780) 495-4351