Community Initiatives Program (May 15)
Mr. Agnihotri: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. CIP guidelines state very clearly that up to $10,000 will be considered on a nonmatching basis. Not over $10,000. Up to $10,000.
Documents tabled in this Assembly show that rule 7 was broken 43 times, totalling over $2 million. To the Minister of Tourism, Parks, Recreation and Culture. How dare you say that rules were not broken 43 times?
Mr. Goudreau: Mr. Speaker, certainly there were no rules broken, as I indicated. The rules indicate as well that the minister has a fair amount of discretion to deal with the applications. We need to recognize that we probably approved during the time frame in question over 6,000 applications through the CIP process, and 43 were where we showed a lot of sympathy to groups and organizations that really needed a lot of help.
Thank you.
The Speaker: The hon. member.
Mr. Agnihotri: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the same minister. A month ago the minister admitted that he broke the rules. Why does the minister have rules if he doesn’t follow them?
Mr. Goudreau: Mr. Speaker, again I need to maybe quote a few of them. One of them was support to the Alberta Native Friendship Centres Association. Another was the Centennial High Parents’ Society. There was the Alano Club. Those are all groups that are doing a tremendous amount of work and needed some support. They could not provide matching funds, and we decided that they were sufficient and doing good enough work to be able to get those additional funds.
Mr. Agnihotri: Well, you were paying five times more than they deserved anyway.
Mr. Speaker, Albertans support the CIP program, but all groups should have the same opportunity to apply for the funds. Why should Alberta taxpayers trust this government with their money if the minister picks favourites?
Mr. Goudreau: Mr. Speaker, again I must re-emphasize that we use a lot of flexibility in this. I want to talk about the Grand Cache Transition House. This one was a group of ladies that needed a garage to conceal the location of abused women’s vehicles so these individuals would not be followed. They needed this money very, very rapidly. They did not have any matching funds. We showed some sympathy to them and provided them. I can go on and identify a lot more in there, but I don’t think I need to.
Alberta Hansard, May 15, 2007