December 9, 1998                                                                                                               For Immediate Delivery

"Goodale defends KPMG ‘investigating’ themselves as an ‘independent’ audit. Go figure."

Here’s the exchange as it went in the House of Commons:

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton-Melville, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, on November 20, I asked the Minister about voting irregularities in the Canadian Wheat Board elections. The Minister defended the process. Now we have learned that the election results were incorrectly tabulated by the government’s consulting firm in at least three districts. The entire election results are now suspect. Will the government order an independent audit immediately?

Hon. Ralph E. Goodale (Minister of Natural Resources and Minister Responsible for the Wheat Board, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the independent election co-ordinator, KPMG, is investigating the problems. Additional external professional expertise is being acquired to ensure absolute accuracy including an audit if that is necessary. The problems will be corrected as rapidly as possible. It should be noted it is because we have had a very open, public and totally transparent [process] in the hands of an independent professional that any problems have been quickly identified and the corrective action taken.

"How can Mr. Goodale’s consulting firm ‘investigating’ themselves be considered ‘very open, public and totally transparent’ and at the same time be ‘independent’? asked Breitkreuz. "Farmers will say, ‘This sounds more like lawyer double-talk.’ The consulting firm Minister Goodale hired to help him play his political games, couldn’t even get their computer program to work. It’s time to start over by allowing the Auditor General of Canada to conduct a truly independent audit of this total waste of farmer’s money spent by the Wheat Board on this election fiasco," recommended Breitkreuz.