37th Parliament, 1st Session
EDITED HANSARD • NUMBER 009
CONTENTS
Thursday, February 8, 2001
| ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS
|
1000
| CRIMINAL CODE
|
| Bill C-250. Introduction and first reading
|
| Mr. Chuck Cadman |
1005
| CRIMINAL CODE
|
| Bill C-251. Introduction and first reading
|
| Mr. Chuck Cadman |
| CORRECTIONS AND CONDITIONAL RELEASE ACT
|
| Bill C-252. Introduction and first reading
|
| Mr. Darrel Stinson |
| PETITIONS
|
| Criminal Code
|
| Mr. Chuck Cadman |
1010
| Genetically Modified Organisms
|
| Mr. Ghislain Lebel |
| Gasoline Additives
|
| Mrs. Rose-Marie Ur |
| Energy Prices
|
| Mr. Pat Martin |
| CANADA MARINE ACT
|
| Bill C-253. Introduction and first reading
|
| Mr. Paul Crête |
| AUTOMOTIVE POLLUTION REDUCTION ACT
|
| Bill C-254. Introduction and first reading
|
| Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan |
1015
| QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
|
| Mr. Derek Lee |
| GOVERNMENT ORDERS
|
| SUPPLY
|
| Allotted Day—Ethics Counsellor
|
| Mr. Stockwell Day |
| Motion
|
| Mr. John Reynolds |
| Motion
|
1020
1025
| Mr. Chuck Strahl |
1030
1035
| Amendment
|
| Mr. Grant Hill |
1040
| Mr. Gary Lunn |
| Hon. Don Boudria |
1045
1050
1055
1100
| Mr. Chuck Strahl |
| Mr. Bill Blaikie |
1105
| Hon. Don Boudria |
| Mr. Peter MacKay |
1110
| Mr. Stéphane Bergeron |
1115
| Mr. Derek Lee |
| Mr. Gary Lunn |
| Mr. Grant McNally |
1120
| Mr. Stan Keyes |
| Mr. Ghislain Lebel |
| Mr. Jim Abbott |
1125
| The Speaker |
1130
| Mr. Chuck Strahl |
1135
| Mr. Bill Blaikie |
1140
| Mr. Richard Marceau |
1145
1150
| Mr. Guy St-Julien |
| Mr. Serge Marcil |
1155
| Mr. Stéphane Bergeron |
1200
1205
| Mr. André Harvey |
1210
| Mr. Peter MacKay |
| Mr. Bill Blaikie |
1215
1220
| Hon. David Kilgour |
| Mr. Dennis Mills |
1225
| Mr. Roy Bailey |
| Hon. Lorne Nystrom |
1230
1235
| Mr. Dennis Mills |
1240
| Mr. Peter MacKay |
| Mr. André Bachand |
1245
1250
| Mr. Ghislain Lebel |
1255
| Mr. Paul Crête |
| Mr. Peter MacKay |
1300
1305
| Mr. John Cannis |
1310
| Mr. Randy White |
| Mr. Jim Abbott |
1315
1320
| Mr. Derek Lee |
1325
| Mrs. Elsie Wayne |
| Mr. Randy White |
1330
1335
| Hon. Lorne Nystrom |
1340
| Mr. Darrel Stinson |
| Mr. Steve Mahoney |
1345
1350
1355
| STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS
|
| THE ENVIRONMENT
|
| Ms. Aileen Carroll |
| EARL MCCUTCHEON AND ROSS WEAVER
|
| Mr. John Williams |
1400
| SAFE DRINKING WATER
|
| Hon. Charles Caccia |
| CATRIONA LEMAY-DOAN
|
| Mr. Rick Laliberte |
| REGIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
|
| CUSTOMS
|
| Mr. Myron Thompson |
| BLACK HISTORY MONTH
|
| Mrs. Marlene Jennings |
1405
| CLONING
|
| Ms. Pauline Picard |
| ALEXANDRE LAFLEUR
|
| Ms. Hélène Scherrer |
| KAMLOOPS, THOMPSON AND HIGHLAND VALLEYS
|
| Mrs. Betty Hinton |
| INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT WEEK
|
| Mr. Stephen Owen |
| NUCLEAR MISSILE DEFENCE
|
| Mr. Peter Stoffer |
1410
| SPEECH FROM THE THRONE
|
| Mr. Richard Marceau |
| EAST COAST MUSIC AWARDS
|
| Mr. Shawn Murphy |
| HEATING FUEL REBATE
|
| Mr. Norman Doyle |
| BRAS D'OR—CAPE BRETON
|
| Mr. Rodger Cuzner |
| HEATING FUEL REBATE
|
| Mr. Randy White |
1415
| AMERICONTACT 2001
|
| Mr. Claude Drouin |
| ORAL QUESTION PERIOD
|
| GRANTS AND CONTRIBUTIONS
|
| Miss Deborah Grey |
| Right Hon. Jean Chrétien |
| Miss Deborah Grey |
| Right Hon. Jean Chrétien |
| Miss Deborah Grey |
| Hon. Brian Tobin |
1420
| Mr. Grant McNally |
| Hon. Brian Tobin |
| Mr. Grant McNally |
| Hon. Brian Tobin |
| FOOD INSPECTION
|
| Mr. Gilles Duceppe |
| Hon. Lyle Vanclief |
| Mr. Gilles Duceppe |
| Hon. Lyle Vanclief |
1425
| Mr. Michel Gauthier |
| Hon. Lyle Vanclief |
| Mr. Michel Gauthier |
| Hon. Lyle Vanclief |
| TOBACCO PRODUCTS
|
| Ms. Alexa McDonough |
| Right Hon. Jean Chrétien |
| Ms. Alexa McDonough |
| Right Hon. Jean Chrétien |
1430
| ETHICS COUNSELLOR
|
| Right Hon. Joe Clark |
| Hon. Brian Tobin |
| Right Hon. Joe Clark |
| Hon. Brian Tobin |
| INTERNATIONAL LOANS
|
| Mr. Charlie Penson |
| Hon. Paul Martin |
| Mr. Charlie Penson |
| Hon. Paul Martin |
1435
| SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS
|
| Ms. Francine Lalonde |
| Right Hon. Jean Chrétien |
| Ms. Francine Lalonde |
| Mr. Pat O'Brien |
| FOREIGN AFFAIRS
|
| Mr. Monte Solberg |
| Hon. John Manley |
| Mr. Monte Solberg |
| Hon. John Manley |
| CINAR
|
| Mr. Stéphane Bergeron |
1440
| Hon. Martin Cauchon |
| Mr. Stéphane Bergeron |
| Hon. Martin Cauchon |
| ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS
|
| Mr. Andy Burton |
| Hon. Robert Nault |
| Mr. Andy Burton |
| Hon. Robert Nault |
| ROAD TRANSPORT
|
| Mr. Raymond Lavigne |
1445
| Hon. David Collenette |
| THE SENATE
|
| Hon. Lorne Nystrom |
| Right Hon. Jean Chrétien |
| HEALTH
|
| Mrs. Bev Desjarlais |
| Hon. Allan Rock |
| PUBLIC WORKS
|
| Mrs. Elsie Wayne |
| Hon. Alfonso Gagliano |
| Mrs. Elsie Wayne |
1450
| Hon. Alfonso Gagliano |
| HEALTH
|
| Mr. Rob Merrifield |
| Hon. Allan Rock |
| Mr. Rob Merrifield |
| Hon. Allan Rock |
| OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
|
| Mr. Benoît Sauvageau |
| Hon. David Collenette |
| AIR TRANSPORT
|
| Mr. Mario Laframboise |
| Hon. David Collenette |
| ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS
|
| Mr. Richard Harris |
1455
| Hon. Robert Nault |
| Mr. Richard Harris |
| Hon. Robert Nault |
| EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
|
| Ms. Carole-Marie Allard |
| Hon. David Kilgour |
| VETERANS AFFAIRS
|
| Mr. Roy Bailey |
| Mr. Carmen Provenzano |
| Mr. Roy Bailey |
| Mr. Carmen Provenzano |
1500
| CHINA
|
| Mr. Antoine Dubé |
| Right Hon. Jean Chrétien |
| CHILDREN AND YOUTH
|
| Mr. Tony Tirabassi |
| Hon. Ethel Blondin-Andrew |
| BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
|
| Mr. Chuck Strahl |
1505
| Hon. Don Boudria |
| The Speaker |
| SPEAKER'S RULING
|
| Allotted Day Subamendment
|
| The Speaker |
1510
| GOVERNMENT ORDERS
|
| SUPPLY
|
| Allotted Day—Ethics Counsellor
|
| Motion
|
| Mr. Steve Mahoney |
1515
1520
| Mr. Jim Abbott |
1525
| Mr. Peter MacKay |
1530
| Mr. Grant McNally |
| Mr. Keith Martin |
1535
1540
1545
| Mr. Murray Calder |
| Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold |
1550
| Mr. Gary Lunn |
1555
1600
| Mr. Paul Szabo |
| Mr. Peter MacKay |
1605
| Mr. John McKay |
1610
1615
| Mr. Grant Hill |
| Mr. Peter MacKay |
1620
| Hon. Anne McLellan |
1625
| Mr. James Moore |
| Mr. Réal Ménard |
1630
| Mr. John Williams |
1635
1640
| Mr. Derek Lee |
1645
| Mr. Peter MacKay |
| Mr. James Rajotte |
1650
1655
| Mr. John Bryden |
| Mr. Paul Szabo |
1700
1705
| Mr. Jim Abbott |
1710
| Mrs. Marlene Jennings |
| Mr. Lynn Myers |
1715
1720
| Mrs. Marlene Jennings |
1725
| Mr. Loyola Hearn |
1730
| Mr. Grant McNally |
1735
| Mr. Gerald Keddy |
1740
| Mr. John Bryden |
| MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE
|
| The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Bakopanos) |
| SUPPLY
|
| Allotted Day—Ethics Counsellor
|
| Motion
|
| Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick |
1745
1750
| Mr. John Bryden |
| Mr. Murray Calder |
1755
| Mr. Grant McNally |
| Mr. John Bryden |
1800
1805
1810
| Divisions deemed demanded and deferred
|
(Official Version)
EDITED HANSARD • NUMBER 009
HOUSE OF COMMONS
Thursday, February 8, 2001
The House met at 10 a.m.
Prayers
ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS
1000
[English]
CRIMINAL CODE
Mr. Chuck Cadman (Surrey North, Canadian Alliance) moved
for leave to introduce Bill C-250, an act to amend the Criminal
Code (theft of a motor vehicle).
He said: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Athabasca for
seconding the bill. I have the pleasure to reintroduce
legislation to amend the criminal code, specifically concerning
the offence of theft of motor vehicles.
This amendment applies only to those offenders who are in the
business of stealing motor vehicles. Organized crime and other
gang related enterprises are becoming quite active in this type
of criminal activity.
The purpose of the legislation is to impose a mandatory minimum
sentence of four years of imprisonment on anyone who is convicted
of more than one theft of a motor vehicle.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and
printed)
* * *
1005
CRIMINAL CODE
Mr. Chuck Cadman (Surrey North, Canadian Alliance) moved
for leave to introduce Bill C-251, an act to amend the Criminal
Code (abduction).
He said: Mr. Speaker, again I thank my colleague from Athabasca
for seconding the bill. I am reintroducing legislation to amend
the criminal code, specifically the section concerning the
offence of abduction of young persons. Section 281 currently
provides for the offence of abduction of persons under the age of
14 years by a person other than the person's parents or guardian.
I am proposing to change the offence so that it applies to the
abduction of all persons under the age of 16. My intent with
this change is to provide law enforcement and the courts with
another arrow in their quiver to combat the sexual exploitation
and abuse of young people by those involved in the sex trade.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and
printed)
* * *
CORRECTIONS AND CONDITIONAL RELEASE ACT
Mr. Darrel Stinson (Okanagan—Shuswap, Canadian Alliance)
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-252, an act to amend the
Corrections and Conditional Release Act (statutory release
granted only when earned and subject to mandatory supervision).
He said: Mr. Speaker, I too thank my hon. colleague from
Athabasca for seconding the bill. The purpose of the amendment
is to ensure that all inmates applying for statutory release
establish that they are rehabilitated to the extent that public
safety and the safety of individuals are not jeopardized by their
being at large.
It also requires that all those on statutory release to be
subject to a mandatory supervision order. Statutory release
would not be granted if the offender has shown behaviour that
raises reasonable doubt about public safety or complying with the
supervision order.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and
printed)
[Translation]
Mr. Paul Crête: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I seek
unanimous consent of the House to introduce Bill C-253, an
act to amend the Canada Maritime Act, which could not be
included in the order paper. It was supposed to be there today.
I am therefore requesting leave of the House to introduce it
today.
The Speaker: Is there unanimous consent for the hon. member to
introduce this bill today?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
Some hon. members: No.
[English]
Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous
consent of the House to introduce a bill on behalf of the member
for Lac-Saint-Louis who is unable to be here today.
The purpose of the bill is to protect human health and
environment against certain harmful or potentially harmful
automotive fuels by reducing automotive pollution in Canada.
The Speaker: Is there unanimous consent to allow the hon.
member to present the bill on behalf of the hon. member for
Lac-Saint-Louis?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
An hon. member: No.
* * *
PETITIONS
CRIMINAL CODE
Mr. Chuck Cadman (Surrey North, Canadian Alliance): Mr.
Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I am pleased to present
the most recent instalment of the petition which calls on
parliament to enact legislation that would raise the age of
consent from 14 years to 16 years for sexual activity between a
young person and an adult.
During the 36th parliament I presented a number of instalments
of the same petition on behalf of Mrs. Diane Sowden in Coquitlam,
British Columbia.
The intent of the petition is to provide another tool with which
to combat sexual exploitation of our youth by those involved in
the sex trade. With the addition of the 1,200 names on this
instalment, the total number of citizens who have signed this
petition now stands at over 13,000.
1010
[Translation]
GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS
Mr. Ghislain Lebel (Chambly, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I am the
spokesperson for some 50 people in my riding who are calling
upon the government to pass legislation requiring the
identification of genetically modified products.
I have just heard it said out in the lobby that it was important
for this to be done because people with allergies to certain
products are at risk of a major reaction if they do not know the
contents of what they are eating.
I recently read an article that said there is a plan to cross
tomatoes with spiders. When the tomatoes start climbing the
walls, it will be a bit too late to
pass any legislation. One may well wonder why such crosses
would be done, unless it is to avoid shipping costs and have the
tomatoes take themselves to consumers.
[English]
GASOLINE ADDITIVES
Mrs. Rose-Marie Ur (Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I wish to present a
petition on behalf of the citizens in the Grand Bend, Sarnia and
London areas.
They urge the government to eliminate the gas additive MMT as it
has a negative impact both on people's health and on our
ecosystem at large.
ENERGY PRICES
Mr. Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I am
very glad to be able to present, under Standing Order 36, a very
hefty document with literally thousands of names of people in my
riding who are appealing to government to help them with the
staggering skyrocketing fuel costs they are currently living
with.
Their recommendation is that the government establish a national
energy price commission. This independent national commission
would be charged to regulate the costs of gasoline, home heating
fuel, natural gas and other energy sources.
Mr. Derek Lee: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
As we are still in routine proceedings, I wonder if there would
be consent in the House to revert to introduction of private
members' bills to deal with two items that members apparently
wish to bring to the House?
The Speaker: Is it agreed?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
* * *
CANADA MARINE ACT
[Translation]
Mr. Paul Crête (Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques,
BQ) moved for leave to introduce Bill C-253, an act to amend the
Canada Marine Act.
He said: Mr. Speaker, this bill is intended to give greater
viability to regional ports in the future and ensure that, in
the context of the current policy on the divestiture of ports,
people can have a structure in order to properly develop
regional ports Canada wide. At present, these ports have no
specific status under the Canada Marine Act.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and
printed)
[English]
Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Mr. Speaker, again I would seek
the unanimous consent of the House to introduce a bill on behalf
of the member for Lac-Saint-Louis who is unable to be here today.
The Speaker: Is it agreed that the hon. member for York
North may present a bill on behalf of the hon. member for
Lac-Saint-Louis?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
* * *
AUTOMOTIVE POLLUTION REDUCTION ACT
Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan (for Mr. Clifford Lincoln) moved
for leave to introduce Bill C-254, an act to protect human health
and the environment by oxygenating automotive fuels and
eliminating the gasoline additive MMT.
She said: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of the bill is to protect
human health and the environment against certain harmful or
potentially harmful automotive fuels by reducing automotive
pollution in Canada.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and
printed)
* * *
1015
QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough—Rouge River, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, I would ask that all questions be allowed to stand.
The Speaker: Is that agreed?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
GOVERNMENT ORDERS
[English]
SUPPLY
ALLOTTED DAY—ETHICS COUNSELLOR
Mr. Stockwell Day (Okanagan—Coquihalla, Canadian
Alliance) moved:
That this House adopt the
following policy from Liberal Redbook 1 and call for its
implementation by the government: “A Liberal Government
will appoint an independent Ethics Counsellor to advise
both public officials and lobbyists in the day-to-day
application of the Code of Conduct for Public Officials.
The Ethics Counsellor will be appointed after consultation
with the leaders of all parties in the House of Commons and
will report directly to Parliament.”
Mr. John Reynolds (West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, Canadian
Alliance): Mr. Speaker, I believe you would find consent for
the following motion:
That at the conclusion of the present debate on today's
Opposition Motion, all questions necessary to dispose of this
motion be deemed put, a recorded division deemed requested and
deferred to the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders
on Tuesday, February 13, 2001.
The Speaker: The House has heard the terms of the motion.
Is there unanimous consent to adopt the motion?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
(Motion agreed to)
Mr. John Reynolds: Mr. Speaker, all members of the
Canadian Alliance will be splitting their time.
Mr. Stockwell Day: Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the
member for Fraser Valley.
We find the motion fascinating because it is a motion that was
brought forward by the Liberals in their so-called red book one.
I have indicated that it is our honour to support the government
on initiatives that we feel are positive and that will serve the
country well. We are here to help members opposite recognize
that this is a good motion.
We do not mind giving the Liberals full credit for their idea.
It is contained in their red book one. I have it in front of me
and it is fabulous.
[Translation]
This motion was part of the first red book in 1993. It was part
of the Liberal election platform. Here is a description of the
remarks of the Prime Minister during the 1993 election campaign.
[English]
During the election campaign the Prime Minister said, and it was
picked up by the Canadian Press, “It's time to elect
politicians that serve the public rather than serve themselves.”
We agree with that.
I think Liberal members will remember the months leading up to
the 1993 election, but if not I hope to refresh their memories in
about three or four years from now. However, on February 17,
1993, when the Liberals were in opposition, the present House
Leader, the hon. member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, tabled
the following motion:
That this House condemns the government for its continued failure
to establish and to adhere to a clear and high standard of public
sector ethics, for its incessant inability to function within the
framework of existing legislation, guidelines and standards, and
for its reluctance to bring forward strict new codes and
legislation with regard to conflicts and other public ethic
matters.
Again we hear a wonderful motion coming from the Liberals.
Motions and words are one thing, but we are looking for action.
1020
During the 1993 election the present House leader went on to quote
the promises of the then Prime Minister, Mr. Mulroney. He
denigrated the Conservatives as the “orgy of patronage”, as he
called it, and demanded other things. He demanded an independent
commission to scrutinize the contracting process. He demanded
that a member of parliament be excluded from involvement in the
awarding of contracts. Today they are allowed to award grants.
He also demanded a non-partisan process of review of cabinet
appointments. These were Liberal motions from seven years ago.
Eight months later the Liberals actually ran their campaign on
the image of being squeaky clean compared with the then Mulroney
government.
Canadians at the time put their trust in today's Prime Minister
thinking that the Liberals would “scrap, kill and abolish the
GST”. The Liberals were also opposed to free trade at the time.
The historic reality is that before an election the Liberals
will say one thing and after an election they will say almost
anything.
Another forgotten promise was the appointment of an ethics
counsellor who would report to parliament. We are reminding the
Liberals of that promise with their own motion. The Liberals
refused to deliver the very legislation that they called for
while they were in opposition. The hypocrisy is astounding. It
has resulted in a situation where we have an ethics counsellor
who actually has no powers of investigation.
Any comments that I am making today related to the present
ethics counsellor are in no way a reflection on the integrity of
that gentleman. However, the straitjacket within which he
operates keeps him from doing what the people of Canada would
like him to do and what the Liberals at one time said they wanted
him to do. He is appointed by the Prime Minister, has no powers
of investigation and, amazingly, reports directly to the Prime
Minister not to the House.
When someone hires me, gives me a job and a salary and then
tells me to report to him and to let him know if I like him,
human nature kicks in. I am not questioning the ethics
counsellor's abilities but he has been put in a straitjacket. We
are asking for that straitjacket to be removed.
The Liberals say that they have ethical guidelines for
ministers. We have never even seen them. The Prime Minister can
call the ethics counsellor any time to say hello and to remind
him that he is the guy who hired him and who pays his salary. He
can ask him to read the secret list of guidelines, which nobody
knows about, because he has been accused of some bad behaviour,
and to let him know that everything he has done is okay. That is
presently how it works and it is just not acceptable. We need a
public servant who reports to the House, not one who defends the
Prime Minister at every turn no matter how outrageous the
incident.
During the election, there was an experience that demonstrated
the restrictions that are placed on the ethics counsellor. It
was brought to our attention, through some very significant
investigations, that there was in place a secret and parallel
political process for the granting of HRDC grants. It was
brought out, accepted and realized by the Liberals. They
admitted it and did not challenge it.
We found out about that grant two years ago when we had asked
the ethics counsellor for documents regarding Pierre Corbeil and
his conviction for influence peddling related to the HRDC grants.
In that particular process, the ethics counsellor had conducted
an investigation but refused to give us the information. We then
had to appeal to the information commissioner. We could not get
the documents because the ethics counsellor was in a
straitjacket.
The information commissioner had to fight the office of the
ethics counsellor for two years in order to get the documents.
The few pages that were finally released to us just before the
election were the very pages that showed that there was a highly
unethical parallel political process in the approving of these
grants. That is not acceptable and it must change. We demand
the Liberals live up to their word and make these changes.
Further to that, and a subject of much attention to Canadians,
when it became public during the election that the Prime Minister
had demanded loans from the president of the Business Development
Bank and possibly even forced the president to resign when he
wanted to call those loans, I wrote to the ethics counsellor and
asked him eight very straight questions.
1025
He replied to me, and I appreciate the reply only took two days.
Whether that was a reflection of the gravity of my letter or the
straitjacket that the counsellor was in, I am not sure. However
he did reply and I appreciated that. He said that there was no
rule preventing a minister, including the Prime Minister, from
having direct contact on behalf of a constituent with a crown
corporation.
To support that, he quoted as his authority the independent B.C.
conflict of interest commissioner. The ethics counsellor had
replied in terms of protecting the Prime Minister from any
wrongdoing, saying that there had been no wrongdoing. The B.C.
conflict of interest commissioner concluded that constituency
assistance in a minister's office could give advocacy assistance
to constituents, provided it was not before a commission, board,
agency or other tribunal within the sphere of the minister's
responsibility.
He quoted from that to say he thought the Prime Minister was
okay. However in quoting from the report he neglected to quote
the preceding paragraph, and that was a very significant
omission, which indicated that the B.C. conflict of interest
commissioner had ruled that a minister must not make personal
representation on behalf of a constituent in such a forum,
commission, board, agency or other tribunal established by the
government, regardless of the ministry under which the
commission, board, agency or other tribunal operated.
It went on to say that a minister acting in such a way would
always be seen as a minister of government, which is a position
of responsibility that he or she cannot shed at will, and that it
would be improper to appear in an advocacy role of this kind.
Those were the words in the preceding paragraph. If he is going
to quote this citation, let us have the whole truth and nothing
but the truth.
The Business Development Bank of Canada is a crown corporation
as we know. The BDC president is a cabinet appointee. These
things need to be dealt with. He also did not refer to the
Ontario integrity commissioner who said that parliamentary
convention prohibits all ministers from personally appearing or
advocating on behalf of a private party with an agency, board or
commission.
[Translation]
Since coming to the House, I have heard Liberal members say from
time to time that they think provincial legislatures are the
minor leagues and that this is the major league. That is not
true. In many provinces, the standards are higher than those of
the federal government.
[English]
That is simply the case that has to be recognized. We want to
look at this issue. We recognize that one of the most important
ways of ensuring that politicians serve the public rather than
themselves is by ensuring the integrity and independence of the
ethics counsellor's office.
[Translation]
One of the main ways of making sure that politicians serve
public interest and not their own interest is by ensuring the
integrity and the autonomy of the office of the counsellor, who
is in charge of these standards.
[English]
This is absolutely necessary. I close by quoting the Prime
Minister's own words, as we now give the Liberals the great
opportunity to clear their name. People are suggesting that they
are being less than honest, less than straightforward. I would
like to help the Liberals clear their name by getting them to
support their own motion. In the 1993 campaign the Prime
Minister said “It is time to elect politicians that serve the
public rather than serve themselves”.
Mr. Chuck Strahl (Fraser Valley, Canadian Alliance): Mr.
Speaker, the question on most people's mind is: Will the
Liberals vote in favour of a motion that is lifted verbatim out
of the Liberal red book?
There will be other tangential questions that will be debated
today. They will be kind of interesting, but the essence of
today's debate and the subsequent vote that will be held on
Tuesday of next week is the agonizing political question that the
Liberals must face head on. Will the Liberals vote in favour of
today's motion that will create an independent ethics counsellor
answerable not to the Prime Minister but to parliament itself?
It should be an easy answer. How could they say no? Surely they
would want to support a motion which they in essence drafted
themselves. Let us hope that it is the case. Let us hope they
will follow through on an old promise and vote in favour of an
independent ethics counsellor. All MPs from all political
parties should support the motion. I suggest four reasons why we
should do so.
We should support it because it will rebuild our reputation as a
people who ensure a fair process for all Canadians.
That is one of our primary purposes as members of parliament. We
are to safeguard the sanctity of fair and equitable process for
all Canadians.
1030
Earlier this week the auditor general described the abysmal
track record of the Liberal government, especially in the area of
patronage appointments. He said that the government's failure to
appoint the best people to positions of authority, instead of the
people with the best political connections, was weakening our
institutions and tainting the political process. He said that
the Liberals had failed to protect the process.
Nobody likes to see patronage misused in this way, including the
government House leader, who actually called on the Mulroney
government to create a committee to review and disallow obvious
partisan political patronage appointments.
It is strange that the government House leader rejected that
idea when I proposed exactly the same thing just last month. The
reason he proposed that idea back in 1993, the reason the
Liberals originally campaigned on the promise to put in place an
independent ethics counsellor, and the reason we have the motion
before us today is obvious. Members of parliament have an
obligation to make sure that the process is fair, not just for
friends of the government, but fair and open and accessible for
all Canadians. We are the keepers of the process. That process
can be fixed today by supporting the creation of an independent
ethics commissioner.
The second reason for supporting the motion is that it will
enhance the reputation of the House of Commons. Public opinion
polls suggest that Canadians simply do not hold members of
parliament in very high esteem. Members of parliament contribute
to that image problem by the way we sometimes act during question
period and the manner in which we treat one another, or by the
very public airings of our foibles and weaknesses. Heaven knows,
we are not perfect and we have all made mistakes. In some ways
one can understand why people come up with jokes like the one
about how many politicians it takes to grease a combine. The
answer is only one if you feed him in really, really slowly.
It is not just voters who are convinced that something is out of
whack in the House of Commons. A recent poll published in
Maclean's magazine concluded that only 7% of business
people believe that members of parliament have a significant
impact on the actions of the government. Only 7% think that we
make a difference by our actions in the House.
More and more often, businesses and special interest groups
simply bypass parliamentarians and go directly to the real power
brokers. The real power brokers are those people who are close
to the Prime Minister in his office, those who are close to the
Prime Minister because they have been appointed by him to
important positions, and those who have the ear of the Prime
Minister because they are political friends and allies.
Let us think of how an independent ethics commissioner, with
powers to investigate the improprieties of lobbyists and public
officials, would change the way Canadians view their members of
parliament. Instead of viewing members of parliament as, in that
famous quote of Mr. Trudeau, nobodies when they are 50 feet away
from this place, they would proudly say that their members of
parliament have a published code of ethics; that they are
accountable for their actions in a fair, transparent and open
process; and that people would no longer able to bypass the
Parliament of Canada simply because they have access to a coterie
of unelected yet incredibly powerful and influential friends of
the Prime Minister.
There is a third compelling reason to support the motion to
establish an independent ethics commissioner. Establishing this
commissioner would complete a circle of accountability that would
have within the circle the following: a financial watchdog
called the auditor general; a privacy commissioner who reports
regularly to all Canadians, sounding the alarm whenever the
government intrudes improperly into their private lives; an
access to information commissioner, who has done so much to open
up the closed door mentality of big businesses and big
bureaucracies; and the long promised but yet to be delivered
ethics commissioner, a watchdog who would report regularly to
parliament on the ethics of those who have the honour and
privilege to serve in high office.
This circle of independent, professional and skilled advocates,
reporting regularly to parliament, with their advice, admonitions
and observations available to all Canadians, would finally
establish a complete system of checks and balances on the
absolute powers of a majority government. In this respect the
creation of an independent ethics commissioner would raise
accountability to a new level. It would raise the accountability
of the House of Commons to a high level among all parliamentary
democracies.
1035
The fourth and final reason for members of parliament to vote in
favour of an independent ethics counsellor who reports to
parliament is this: an independent ethics counsellor would
expose the inappropriate behaviour of public officials and
lobbyists but would also offer the best protection an honest,
hardworking, ethical member of parliament, cabinet minister or
prime minister could ever have.
Let us imagine the powerful, positive impact that this
counsellor would have upon the reputation of those in public
life. Let us imagine the leader cleared of wrongdoing by an
independent ethics counsellor who could stand proudly in his or
her place and deliver the leadership that Canadians applaud,
deserve and admire.
Let us imagine the condemnation of frivolous, politically
motivated witch hunts, which would be ruled on as out of order
and inappropriate by the ethics counsellor. Just as the other
watchdogs in this circle can laud the government when it does its
job well, an ethics counsellor could preserve the reputation and
enhance the effectiveness of ethical leaders who have given
themselves to public life.
There are four reasons to vote yes to this motion: to ensure
that the process of government is fair and open, to enhance the
effectiveness of parliament itself, to complete the circle of
government accountability, and to protect ethical members of
parliament from wrongful or politically motivated attacks while
exposing improper behaviour for all to see.
It goes without saying that an independent ethics counsellor
would from time to time ferret out improper actions committed by
some in public life. Hopefully that would happen only rarely,
but by voting in favour of the motion before us today members of
the House would send a signal that would be received with joyous
hearts from coast to coast.
There would be a standard by which we will be judged. It would
be fair, open and transparent. It would transcend political
parties because it would be based on principles that Canadians
believe to be proper and self-evident. It would be a cornerstone
in our collective efforts to build trust and confidence between
elected officials and the voters who sent them to this place to
represent all Canadians. I therefore move the following
amendment:
It is with pleasure and pride that I support this motion. I
urge all members of parliament to do the same.
The Speaker: Debate is on the amendment.
Mr. Grant Hill (Macleod, Canadian Alliance): Mr.
Speaker, if the official opposition House leader read the speech
of the House leader who sits across the way today, he would
probably be able to read to us most of the things that he has
just finished saying.
In opposition it is pretty easy to say these things, and I
imagine the House leader will stand and say something like that.
What possible assurance would the Canadian public have that we in
opposition would not just say these things but would actually
carry them out when we form a government?
Mr. Chuck Strahl: Mr. Speaker, this is not only something
we campaigned on. We have put forward details in regard to how
this would be implemented.
These details include the creation of a committee that would
receive reports from the privacy commissioner, the access to
information commissioner and the new ethics counsellor himself or
herself. Not only do we have the theory. We have some of the
flesh on the framework, the bones, as it were, of the process.
Not only do we have all party consent on this side of the House
for it. We also have the approval of the governing party. In
other words, I think this is a unanimously approved concept.
When the government House leader was in opposition he asked for
basically this sort of accountability. In fact he went further.
He asked for a committee that would review government patronage
appointments and would have the power to disallow those
appointments if it thought they were too politically motivated.
1040
It is one of the ideas I put forward earlier this year in a
document called “Building Trust”. Sadly the government House
leader said that it was unworkable and that we could not do it.
He called my ideas half-baked, but it is interesting to note that
the idea of having an ethics counsellor is not mine. It
originally came from the Liberals. These were their exact words.
The idea of accountability for patronage appointments is not my
idea. It came from the government House leader. We are just
putting it forward again.
There is also the idea of having secret ballot elections for
committees, on which we will be voting in the procedure and House
affairs committee on Monday, for those who are interested in
seeing if the government follows through. That also is a Liberal
Party idea which I hope the Liberals will support.
In other words, as we go through the list of things we can do to
build trust in this place and in parliamentarians, the ideas have
support from all political parties. It should not be hard for
any political party to follow through on a promise that has
unanimous support.
That is why this step today, something that Canadians have long
looked forward to, is a step that will help to build trust not
only between this party and the electorate but between the House
and the electorate. Heaven knows we need to rebuild that trust
as quickly as possible.
Mr. Gary Lunn (Saanich—Gulf Islands, Canadian Alliance):
Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the House leader of the
official opposition who put forward a document called “Building
Trust” a few weeks ago. It is about bringing back ethics,
transparency and accountability to this institution.
The House leader for the government responded, at least in the
media, that we would actually need constitutional change. I am
wondering if he will come up with the same kind of argument now.
I admit that I studied constitutional law at law school. I
cannot see, for the life of me, how he could possibly see that
any of those things would require constitutional change. It is
absolutely ridiculous.
I would like the House leader to comment on this point, in the
anticipation that the government House leader could stand and say
that he actually loves this idea but we would have to change the
constitution.
Mr. Chuck Strahl: Mr. Speaker, none of the proposals that
have come from our document “Building Trust” are constitutional
in nature. I am not sure exactly what message the government
House leader is trying to send, other than one that he just does
not like the idea of that much transparency. There certainly is
nothing constitutional in it.
There is a reason we are asking for the particular motion today
on the ethics counsellor. I will quote Lawrence Martin, who
talked about the ruling that the ethics counsellor made during
the election campaign. He said that the ethics counsellor made a
ruling without having made an investigation. Howard Wilson
exonerated the Prime Minister in the hotel loan affair without
interviewing those involved, without responding to the specific
questions posed by our opposition leader, without delving into
the suggestion of political interference raised by the principals
in the affair.
The point he made is that he did not substantially research the
matter before him, therefore the ethics counsellor had brought in
a verdict that was both timely and, in terms of merit, worthless.
He added that it was of great political benefit to the man who
appointed him.
In other words, although I have a lot of respect for Mr. Wilson,
he has been put in an intolerable position. He has been hired by
someone and reports to that same someone. He is not allowed to
release any reports publicly without that same someone's okay. If
the ruling does not look good the first time, he can go back and
rewrite it. He does not have to investigate. He does not have to
interview. He does not have to report to parliament. It is a
political sham.
[Translation]
Hon. Don Boudria (Leader of the Government in the House of
Commons, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address today's
motion from the official opposition, which reads as follows:
That this House adopt the following policy from Liberal Redbook
1 and call for its implementation by the government: A Liberal
Government will appoint an independent Ethics Counsellor to
advise both public officials and lobbyists in the day-to-day
application of the Code of Conduct for Public Officials. The
Ethics Counsellor will be appointed after consultation with the
leaders of all parties in the House of Commons and will report
directly to Parliament.
1045
[English]
I am more than pleased to speak on this motion because as a
government we know the importance of ethical behaviour. We have
a Prime Minister who is personally accountable for the
government's outstanding ethical behaviour. We have a record of
taking action which I point to with pride. We have made sure
that ethics reach all levels of government and are part of
the everyday ongoing work. Gone are the days before 1993 when we
had a government that had little if no concern for ethics at all.
After we were first elected in 1993 we introduced a tough ethics
package with a fundamentally different approach to politics than
the previous Conservative government. We restored public
confidence in the decision making process and returned integrity
to public life as we had promised in the 1993 election and the
red book.
Let me remind all colleagues of the excellent record of this
government on integrity. We know the importance of ethical
behaviour. We have a good understanding on this side of the
House that the most important asset a government can claim is the
confidence it enjoys of the citizens to whom it is accountable.
We know that if our government is to play a positive role in
society, as it must, honesty and integrity must be maintained in
our political institution. Public service is a trust. Canadians
expect their government to serve the public interest with fairness
and to manage public resources properly on a daily basis.
When this government took office in November 1993, it was evident
that Canadians had been losing faith in government. We know
honesty, integrity and trust are important, not just for winning
elections but because we have a responsibility to maintain the
trust of Canadians in their political institutions and in the
greatest institution that we have in the country, the House and
parliament.
The Prime Minister told the House in 1994 that “trust in the
institution of government is not a partisan issue.” I would
like to remind my colleagues who just made their speeches of that
point. I quote further “—but something all of us elected to
public office had an obligation to restore.” The Prime Minister
added that trust in institutions is as vital to a democracy as
the air we breathe. For this trust we owe a duty of conduct to
all Canadians.
[Translation]
We promised Canadians that they could count on an honest,
transparent and responsible government. We truly want them to
regain confidence in government institutions and we clearly
stated that our actions and decisions, taken individually and
collectively as members of the government, would be marked by
integrity.
[English]
As members of the government we are accountable to a Prime
Minister who is personally accountable to the House and to
Canadians generally. The Prime Minister understands the
importance of ethical behaviour and has himself said “setting
high standards for the holders of public office is essential in
renewing and maintaining the faith of Canadians in their public
institution. In particular, ministers must remain above
reproach.” That is a message that our Prime Minister gives to
all of us in cabinet all the time. He reminds us constantly
that is the guiding principle under which we operate.
The Prime Minister is responsible before Canadians and to the
House for the conduct of ministers. That is the burden of his
office. As ministers we all undergo daily scrutiny in the House.
We are not exempted from that. Yet the burden to remain above
all reproach at all times in all of our activities is one that we
gladly accept because we want to be accountable and behave
ethically, and we are.
It is the Prime Minister's prerogative to establish standards of
conduct for ministers and to ensure that these standards are met.
It is his prerogative and his personal responsibility both in a
constitutional sense and to the House.
1050
As signs of his commitment to this responsibility, in 1994 the
Prime Minister announced the appointment of the first ethics
counsellor we have had in the history of Canada. The role of the
ethics counsellor with regard to ministers is clear. He is the
Prime Minister's adviser on matters relating to conflict of
interest and the ethical conduct of government officials,
including ministers.
The ethics counsellor also has another job. He provides reports
to parliament on his duties and investigations under the
Lobbyists Registration Act. In that regard he already reports to
the House of Commons. The Prime Minister bears responsibility
for the conduct of ministers. He recommends the appointment of
ministers to Her Excellency. He sets the standards of conduct
which ministers follow, considers possible breaches of those
standards should they occur and, should the need ever arise,
would take the appropriate action.
The Prime Minister's responsibility for the ethics counsellor
reflects his personal responsibility for establishing the
standards of conduct for ministers. It is quite clear that the
Prime Minister cannot answer members of the House, or anyone else
for that matter, and say “I have an ethics counsellor, therefore
nothing is my fault and nothing is my responsibility”. None of
us would ever accept that kind of answer. He is personally
accountable and, as he said, he will never abdicate that
responsibility. He will never pass the buck, to use his words.
The ethics counsellor provides reports to parliament on his own
duties regarding the Lobbyists Registration Act. To establish a
similar reporting on his duties in advising the Prime Minister
would undermine the Prime Minister's responsibility for
ministerial conduct. The Prime Minister, and he alone, is
responsible to parliament for the conduct of ministers, and he
will not shirk this duty. The ethics counsellor advises the
Prime Minister of course on the overall policies and in
particular cases but in the end it is the Prime Minister who is
accountable to the House, and I would not want it otherwise.
The Prime Minister is accountable for the public. The
opposition may imagine that it carries out that responsibility
but of course it does not. It is the responsibility of the House
and all its members to question the government on its action,
including ethics, if that is what it wants to do. We are pleased
to answer these questions when they occur. That is the way
parliament works.
[Translation]
We have an excellent track record, thanks to our Prime Minister.
I give him full credit and I am very proud of that performance.
The appointment of an ethics counsellor is but one of the
measures that have been taken by our government and I am proud
of it. I am proud to be part of a government that takes measures
to ensure that public affairs in Canada are conducted with
integrity.
Let me give some examples. In 1994, the Prime Minister reviewed
and strengthened the code governing conflicts of interest.
Since then, it is prohibited to grant preferential treatment to
individuals or groups simply because go-betweens were hired to
promote their interests.
[English]
The Prime Minister appointed the ethics counsellor to administer
the code. He also provides reports to parliament under the
Lobbyists Registration Act. That is a promise we made and a
promise we kept. We gave the job real teeth. The job has strong
investigative powers with the amendments to the Lobbyists
Registration Act. When we amended the act we even incorporated
amendments that I think were proposed by the hon. member for Elk
Island who is sitting across the way. The government brought
forward amendments strengthening that act, increasing
transparency for lobbyists and so on.
The government took measures to reform the pension plan for
members of parliament and senators to put an end to double
dipping, for instance. In 1999 the government established
guidelines on donations made by crown corporations to political
parties. We have done that as well.
Our amendments to the Canada Elections Act also put very strict
controls on third parties that were outside forces influencing
the political process and who had no rules guiding them.
We have put them on a level playing field with candidates. We
have made sure that ethics are anchored in all levels of
government.
1055
Under the leadership and direction of the Prime Minister,
departments and agencies have taken greater steps on values and
ethics than under any previous government. In 1996 a report was
produced on public sector values and ethics. It has helped forge
a consensus on such issues. Fair and reliable public services
inspire public trust and create favourable environment for
business.
The opposition likes to quote the auditor general. Just last
fall, the auditor general told the House that there was a strong
foundation of values and ethics in the federal public sector. We
have put in place those rules governing that.
The auditor general also said that the government is taking
steps to maintain some values and ethics. I wonder why the
opposition is not quoting that part of the auditor general's
statement. He also pointed out at the time that a prerequisite
for the success of ongoing measures is the leadership of
parliamentarians, ministers and senior officials. It is thanks
to that leadership that we have that high set of ethics not only
for ministers, indeed I hope for all of us in the House, but also
for our public servants.
While I cannot speak for the leaders of other parties, I can
guarantee that under the leadership of our Prime Minister,
Canadians will be able to go on depending on the federal public
service to provide fair and reliable services to Canadians.
In 1998 the Government of Canada established the office of
values and ethics to promote values and ethics in the public
service. The head of the public service has been a driving force
behind value initiatives across the government. Public servants
have access to training and publications to promote awareness on
ethical issues and to assist employees in developing skills for
handling ethical situations.
It is quite obvious that the government believes that ensuring
sound values and ethics is a vital part of good government which
supports and respects fundamental democratic values. We also
believe that understanding ethics involves not only knowing the
difference between right and wrong but also making a commitment
to do the right thing.
On June 16, 1994, the Prime Minister stood here and pledged to
the House and to all Canadians that the government would guard
its good name with all that it can. That is what it has been
doing.
The public's political expectations and values have undergone
enormous changes over the years. On this side of the House, we
have taken the steps to help raise those standards and
expectations. Through the standards we have met and kept, we
have retained the trust of Canadians.
The opposition day motion suggests that the government is not
accountable to parliament for its ethical policies. Our
government is accountable to parliament. Our Prime Minister is
in the House all the time.
Parliament has considered and passed the Lobbyists Registration
Act. The auditor general can now report to parliament up to four
times a year. A strengthened conduct code has been tabled in
parliament. The ethics counsellor reports to parliament on his
duties on the Lobbyists Registration Act. The Prime Minister and
ministers continue to be accountable to parliament for their
policies and ethical behaviour. In other words, we have not only
met our red book commitments, we have exceeded those commitments.
An independent ethics counsellor has been established to advise
the Prime Minister on ministerial ethics issues. The ethics
counsellor is independent and reports to the Prime Minister. The
Prime Minister reports to parliament. The opposition members
were consulted and agreed with the selection of the ethics
counsellor. They even spoke glowingly about the individual
earlier this day. The ethics counsellor can be asked to appear
before parliamentary committees. He has done so in the context
of estimates and otherwise.
We will not apologize for our record on integrity. We will not
apologize for meeting or exceeding our red book commitment. We
will not apologize for having an independent ethics counsellor,
whose selection was done after consultation with the opposition,
who reports to parliament directly for the Lobbyist Registration
Act and who reports to the Prime Minister who, in turn, is
accountable to parliament regarding the issue of ministerial
ethics.
1100
This government's record on ethics is clear to all members of
the House, and it is second to none. It is part of a record of
achievement, of improving the quality of life for Canadians, of
creating jobs, of putting the fiscal house in order, of
strengthening Canada's health care system and of making our
communities safe and governing with integrity.
These things are all part of the record of this government. That
is why, last November 27, the people of Canada chose to re-elect
our Prime Minister and our government with a third successive
majority.
Today's opposition motion is simply an attempt to distract
members of parliament and Canadians from this government's
excellent record, and perhaps to distract Canadians from the
terrible situation that the Leader of the Opposition finds
himself in. Therefore I would move the following amendment:
That the amendment be amended by deleting the word “immediate”
and by substituting therefore the word “continued”.
Mr. Chuck Strahl (Fraser Valley, Canadian Alliance): Mr.
Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think all people can
appreciate what the government House leader is attempting to do
here, which is to not only amend the supply day motion but to
actually amend the amendment.
I would argue that the amendment is completely out of order in
that it changes, and not in a small way, but completely changes
the intent of the amendment to the supply day motion.
We are talking about an immediate implementation of a certain
course of action. To try to amend it in this manner would
completely change the intent of the motion. I would ask you, Mr.
Speaker, to rule it out of order.
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg—Transcona, NDP): Mr. Speaker,
I rise on the same point of order. I would say to the Chair that
accepting this amendment would certainly be in contravention of
what has come to be the established practice with respect to the
acceptance of amendments.
It is unfortunate that we have developed the habit whereby the
same party that moves the motion immediately moves to amend it.
However that practice developed, as you know, because without it
the government had a tendency to amend the motion into something
it could support. In doing so it could vitiate the purpose of
motions moved by opposition parties and render opposition days
useless.
The purpose of opposition days is to allow opposition parties to
put forward a motion, have it debated and have the House decide
on it or divide on it if necessary, and most likely, or it may
even pass. However to permit this kind of practice would
eviscerate the politics from opposition day and give the
government the hammer, so to speak, to use its majority to amend
motions. In theory, all opposition day motions would pass but
they would, ultimately, all be motions designed by the government
and not by the opposition.
1105
Hon. Don Boudria (Leader of the Government in the House of
Commons, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point of
order. The opposition is arguing that it has a right to amend
the motion but that the rest of the House does not have a similar
right. I suggest that is not at all how motions are supposed to
be dealt with in the House.
Need I remind the Speaker that for a political party to move a
motion and amend it itself is a rather recent innovation of the
House that is only two or three old. Prior to that motions were
routinely amended.
Further, in the amendment of the hon. member across the way he
is arguing that the program in question, the subject of the
debate, is the immediate implementation of a particular
initiative as opposed to the implementation of the same subject.
I am arguing that if he can amend the main motion by referring to
it as immediate, I can also propose an amendment to the amendment
by substituting the word and making it a continued
implementation.
I am not changing the sense of the original motion at all. We
are arguing the implementation. The matter of whether the issue
is continued or is immediate or started or otherwise is a matter
of debate, not a matter of whether the amendment should be in
order.
I submit that the amendment to the amendment is in order because
it in no way damages the intent of the proposition that is on the
order paper today, which is the implementation that the
opposition is calling for. Therefore the amendment to the
amendment is in order.
I draw the attention of the Chair to Erskine May and to the
practices in effect in the House of Commons in the United Kingdom
and say that the amendment to the amendment is perfectly in
order.
Mr. Chuck Strahl: Mr. Speaker, it is a pity that we are
taking up valuable time in this regard. If the amendment to the
amendment were allowed to stand in the government's name, it
would be unprecedented in my time as House leader and in my
memory here in eight years, in that the government is trying to
eviscerate an opposition day motion by so doing.
If you allow this to take place, Mr. Speaker, opposition day
motions will become a lark. For example, if we put forward a
motion that condemns the government for its lack of action on
paying out aid to farmers in crisis, it could be changed by the
government to congratulate itself for its fine work in the farm
crisis area.
You cannot allow the government to do this. If you allow it,
the government House leader will never again allow a motion to
reach the floor of the House of Commons because he will just
amend it to one that is favourable to the government. He will
simply change the motion to one which congratulates the
government for its implementation of an ongoing program.
It would completely eviscerate opposition day motions. To allow
a subamendment like this one is contrary to the letter of the
standing orders, as I mentioned earlier, because it completely
changes the motion.
I ask the government House leader to reconsider. This is the
first time in the eight years I have been here that he has ever
tried a stunt like this one, and I consider it a stunt. I ask
him to withdraw it in the spirit of co-operation we had when
working on other issues and to understand what he is doing by
putting this subamendment forward.
If he continues with it, he is throwing down the gauntlet,
saying that he will run the House with an iron hand and will not
allow opposition members of parliament to bring forward anything
that contradicts the government agenda.
Mr. Peter MacKay (Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, PC):
Mr. Speaker, it is with some amusement that I join the
discussion. The newfound friendliness and fondness that the
opposition House leader had for the government House leader just
a few short days ago seem to be crumbling.
With that aside, I find that what is taking place here is
obviously an attempt by the government to hijack an opposition
motion that is very legitimate in its intent and has opened up a
discussion which is very fruitful and favourable to democracy.
The government House leader, as has been stated by the previous
speaker, is very much trying to change the entire intent and
spirit of what is being discussed in the motion.
1110
As a long time defender of adhering to the rules of procedure,
Mr. Speaker, you will know that is not supposed to take place on
a supply day amendment. We are not to change the entire
spirit and intent of the motion as the government is doing in the
self-congratulatory way to which we are accustomed.
The motion is very serious. It once again raises the ire of the
government because of its sensitivity of the particular subject
matter. This day we have embarked upon will be very important
and very interesting as we delve into discussions of the Prime
Minister's activities in the Auberge Grand-Mère situation.
On a broader scale it is a discussion of the credibility of
offices like the ethics counsellor, and the importance of what we
say prior to elections and what we do after elections, which is a
lesson for all of us. It is a lesson that Canadians are waiting
for us to listen to.
I strongly urge you, Mr. Speaker, in your discretion not to
allow the subamendment. I urge you to accept the submissions
that other members have put forward in opposition to what the
government House leader has suggested, which is obviously an
attempt to hijack and reverse the intent of the motion before the
House.
[Translation]
Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères—Les-Patriotes, BQ): Mr. Speaker,
I would like to join my opposition colleagues in condemning this
outrageous attempt by the government to denature—for that is
exactly what it is, and I emphasize this for the benefit of the
government House leader—the very idea of opposition
days and the very essence of the Canadian Alliance motion.
When the government House leader attempts to play down the
introduction of this practice in the House by saying that
opposition motions have only been amended, or amendments brought
to these amendments, for the past two or three years, I would
remind him that this practice has been around much longer than
that.
It first began when the Bloc Quebecois was the official
opposition in this House, in other words just after the 1993
election. This has been an established practice in the House
for almost seven years now.
This is why I would agree with those who say that we have never
seen or gone along with the government introducing amendments to
amendments introduced by the opposition parties on allotted days
since, if memory services, we first came to this House, in 1993.
Clearly this practice of the opposition parties amending their
own motion has become established practice in the House. Why?
The simple answer, as the leader of the New Democratic Party
points out, is that the government has taken to amending the
opposition motion in order to vitiate its very purpose.
I would respectfully submit to you that what is going on right
now has no other purpose than to vitiate the Canadian Alliance
motion.
Not only is the government's outrageous attempt contrary to
established practice in this House but, if you read the
government's motion to amend the amendment, it vitiates, or
denatures the very essence of, the motion.
I urge you strongly, Mr. Speaker, to reject this government
motion to amend the amendment and to rule it out of order.
1115
[English]
Mr. Derek Lee (Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the
Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I
will briefly speak to the procedural issue. I hope I can be
helpful to the Chair.
The purpose of an amendment is to make an item under
consideration more acceptable to the House. I submit that is
what is intended by the subamendment. I would not view it as a
wrecking amendment, and I hope the Chair would not view it as
such.
The opposition has suggested that some political stuntery is
involved in the subamendment. The opposition has proposed its
own amendment by inserting an adverb or putting a new definition
into the motion. The subamendment proposed by the government
House leader merely changes the adverbial definer that was
inserted in the amendment.
Standing Order 85 specifically authorizes and speaks to the
issue of an amendment and subamendment to supply day motions. It
is specifically authorized in Standing Order 85.
In terms of whether or not the government has done this before I
regret I do not have a specific citation, but I am advised that
the government has been offering amendments to supply day motions
since the days of Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent back in the
fifties. I am advised as well that it has occurred since 1993.
In the next few moments a citation may find its way to the Chair.
If I am wrong in that regard I apologize and stand corrected, but
this is what I am informed.
I suggest the subamendment is certainly in order. It does not
reverse, undermine, negate or denature the opposition motion
dealing with a particular subject matter. I submit that it is in
order. Some members in the House may find the subamendment
refreshingly appropriate.
Mr. Gary Lunn (Saanich—Gulf Islands, Canadian Alliance):
Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point of order. I am referring
to the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, page 727,
which states:
Amendments which have the effect of providing the basis for an
entirely different debate are not in order. When a party has
been allocated an allotted day and a subject has been proposed
for debate by way of an opposition motion, the day should not be
taken away by way of an amendment.
I would argue that when the government changes the words to
“continuing to implement”, it is deliberately misleading the
House. It is changing the entire context of the motion, as we
are asking for immediate implementation. It is 180 degree
diametrically different from the motion we have put forward.
If you follow what was written by the very astute former clerk
of the House, Mr. Speaker, I would argue that there is no way you
could possibly accept this subamendment.
Mr. Grant McNally (Dewdney—Alouette, Canadian Alliance):
Mr. Speaker, obviously the government House leader and the
government are setting the tone right off the bat. We saw that
in the response to the Speech from the Throne when the new member
poked the Bloc in the eye. We are now seeing this procedural
wrangling. We know the government House leader is an expert at
this because he has had many years of practice in opposition.
Perhaps he is time warping to those days.
The subamendment proposed by the government House leader is
inconsistent with the main motion. I would direct you, Mr.
Speaker, to Beauchesne's citation 580(2) which says:
A subamendment must attempt to explain the substance of the
amendment and may not substitute an entirely new proposal.
The amendment by logical thought processes would indicate that
the motion we are bringing forward is not currently in place and
is not happening. That is why we are asking for it to be
immediately put into place.
1120
The government House leader's subamendment, by logical
processes, would infer that this process is in place and should
just keep going. The two are logically inconsistent with each
other. It is a substantive change to the motion and should be
ruled directly out of order.
Mr. Stan Keyes (Hamilton West, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, for
clarification, for your consideration and for members opposite, I
do not understand what would be more immediate than continued.
That aside, let us talk about the political stuntery that went
on here. It is common knowledge that the opposition wants to put
forward a motion in the House of Commons for consideration and
for all to vote. In a procedural vote on an issue that may have
been of interest to constituents watching, it is about now that
constituents will change over to their favourite game show on the
television set. This is the kind of thing that bores them to
death.
The opposition refers to political stuntery and who brought it
up. If the constituents are still watching, they might want to
take this into consideration. The opposition leader made his
speech. Then, for the benefit of the folks at home, members of
the opposition decided to split their leader's time.
Why did they do that? They did that because the second
opposition speaker, and this is directly related to this issue,
will move an amendment to the motion. What that does is kill the
opportunity for any other party in the House to move an amendment
to the motion.
Where is the political stuntery in that? The opposition is
claiming that we are politically—
The Speaker: With great respect, I know the hon. member
for Hamilton West is trying to be helpful, but the Chair is
looking for assistance on the admissibility, and only the
question of the admissibility of the subamendment, not on what
may have happened in the House for the benefit of the folks at
home.
We are taking up time from the debate and I am concerned that it
is going on a little long. Unless members have something that is
directly relevant to the admissibility of the subamendment, I
would prefer to bring this to a conclusion very quickly. If the
hon. member for Hamilton West has something else on that point I
will hear him.
Mr. Stan Keyes: Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, having given
that brief explanation, I think the subamendment is in order
because it seeks to clarify the amendment that had been put
forward in somewhat of a stunt fashion by the opposition. It
clarifies for yourself and for the House that we want a
continuation of exactly what the motion addresses.
[Translation]
Mr. Ghislain Lebel (Chambly, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I have been
listening to this debate for a while and I want to warn the
Chair that the proposal by the party currently in power will
literally change the nature of opposition days in the House.
What we call an opposition day, unfortunately for the
government, is not generally a day of praise. What the House
leader of the party in office has said will turn opposition days
to the advantage of the party in power.
To remedy that there will be a vote this evening, or a deferred
vote, if the party in power does not agree with the proposal and
the amendment by the opposition parties.
It can always catch up, with its parliamentary majority, in the
vote at the end of the day.
I therefore ask that the Chair pay careful attention to avoid
creating a dangerous precedent for the opposition, which is in
the minority in the House, as we all know.
[English]
Mr. Jim Abbott (Kootenay—Columbia, Canadian Alliance):
Mr. Speaker, as a scholar of the affairs of the House, I am sure
you of all people would be aware of the reason for the amendment
in the first place. It became a practice of the House back in
1993 and has been a standing practice of the House since then.
I believe you would agree with me that in addition to Erskine
May, Beauchesne's and the rulings of the Speaker, the House over
a period of time does come to certain practices. This has been
an accepted practice from the time I became a member of
parliament in 1993.
1125
If you permit the subamendment as stated, which basically
eviscerates or guts the opposition motion, you will have created
a situation where the opposition parties will no longer be able
to bring to the attention of the House motions that are contrary
to what the government would prefer to have in the House. That
is the purpose of opposition day. You would be setting a
precedent, Mr. Speaker, and I suggest that it would not be a good
precedent.
Mr. Bill Blaikie: Mr. Speaker,
it might be helpful to the Chair in deciding this issue so that
we can get on with the debate, to refer to Marleau and
Montpetit's House of Commons Procedure and Practice. On
page 453 in chapter 12 it states:
An amendment should be framed so that, if agreed to, it will
leave the main motion intelligible and consistent with itself.
In elaborating on this point, it goes on to say that an
amendment should be out of order if it would produce the same
result as the defeat of the main motion.
I would contend that the government subamendment in this case is
designed to do exactly what subamendments should not be designed to
do. This subamendment, if adopted, would make the original motion
as amended inconsistent with itself. It would be inconsistent
with the claim of the opposition that a particular policy has not
been implemented and must now be implemented and, as amended,
immediately implemented. The insertion of the words continue to
implement is inconsistent with the main motion insofar as the
word continue implies that this policy is being implemented when
the contention of the motion is that it is not being implemented.
Therefore, the passage of that particular subamendment would in
effect produce the same result as the defeat of the main motion.
On those grounds it would seem to me, Mr. Speaker, that you
would have ample room to not only rule technically that this
subamendment is out of order, but also to save supply days for the
purpose for which they were created, which is for the opposition
to lay down a motion that must be debated on the opposition's
terms. If you do not, I submit that you will be creating a
problem that will grow in proportion. As supply days continue
the government will have secured a loophole if you rule
differently than the opposition is advising on this and it will
not be healthy for the House.
I also suggest that it would not be healthy for the government
House leader's relationships with the opposition. I say to him
that this is inconsistent with the relationship that I think he
has tried to establish with the opposition.
The Speaker: I think the Chair has heard enough on this
point.
[Translation]
In my opinion I have already heard a lot of members. The quote
from this book has already been cited in the House. I give the
floor to the hon. Bloc Quebecois whip, and this will be
absolutely the last intervention.
Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Speaker, I realize that several
quotes from Marleau-Montpetit were submitted to the Chair on the
admissibility of motions in amendment and, in this particular
case, regarding the very nature of the main motion.
I would like to quote an excerpt from Marleau-Montpetit dealing
with your responsibilities vis-à-vis the minority in the House,
namely opposition parties which unanimously share the same view
on this issue. On pages 260 and 261, it says:
The duties of the Speaker of the House of Commons require
balancing the rights and interests of the majority and minority
in the House to ensure that the public business is efficiently
transacted and that the interests of all parts of the House are
advocated and protected against the use of arbitrary authority.
It is in this spirit that the Speaker, as chief servant of the
House, applies the rules. The Speaker is the servant, not of any
part of the House or any majority in the House, but of the
entire institution and the best interests of the House as
distilled over many generations in its practices.
The Speaker: The Chair would like to thank all the members
who took part in the debate on the point of order raised
following the amendment to the amendment proposed by the hon.
leader of the government in the House. I truly appreciate your
input on this issue.
1130
[English]
The Chair will take the matter under advisement. I propose to
come back to the House with a decision at 3 o'clock, following
question period, on the question of the admissibility of the
subamendment.
I know hon. members have expressed a certain outrage. As a past
participant in the discussions relating to these amendments and
motions on supply days, both as an opposition member and as a
government member involved in these kinds of arguments, I
sympathize with the views expressed on both sides of the issue. I
am well aware of them. I will take under advisement the matters
that have been referred to Chair and the submissions. I will
look at the authorities and come back to the House shortly.
Mr. Randy White: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
Can one assume that in debate we are debating the amendment?
The Speaker: The question before the House is on the
amendment. The subamendment has not been put to the House and
will not be until I make a ruling that it is in order.
Mr. Chuck Strahl: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of
order. As I said earlier, it is very unfortunate that we have
been on this point of order for the last half hour. I wonder if
there would be consent of the House to extend the orders of the
day for a half an hour at the end of the day to make up for it.
The Speaker: Is there unanimous consent to extend orders
of the day by half an hour today?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
Some hon. members: No.
Mr. Chuck Strahl (Fraser Valley, Canadian Alliance): Mr.
Speaker, without again getting into what I think is just a
detestable move on behalf of the government House leader, I will
wait for your ruling. I cannot believe he has actually done
this.
The essence of his speech is that everything is glowing,
everything is wonderful on the government side, democracy is
going on without a hitch and life is grand.
I bring the attention of the House to two or three different
quotes from independent watchdogs of parliament who say
otherwise.
The access to information commissioner's report begins with
“Mayday-Mayday, democracy is at risk”. The commissioner goes
on to say that he has never in his 17 years on the job seen a
government that has been so intransigent as the current Liberal
government. In fact he said that the government routinely
intimidates those who put forward legitimate requests for
information.
The auditor general's report that was released yesterday states
that the process of political patronage appointments is tainting
the institutions where those appointments take place and tainting
the political process. That is not a glowing report.
The privacy commissioner has routinely chastized the government
for the intrusive actions of this government into the private
lives of others.
It is no wonder that the government House leader is trying to
eviscerate this motion today by pretending that all is well. He
apparently does not want a watchdog with some teeth, he wants a
lapdog to do his bidding.
An independent ethics counsellor who would report to the House
through a standing committee instead of reporting to the Prime
Minister, the guy who signs his paycheque, is the difference
between night and day. By approving this motion today, not only
could the Prime Minister keep his promise from the Liberal red
book, but for once he could reassure Canadians that we will have
a complete set of guidelines for members of parliaments and prime
ministers, which we could have access to.
Yesterday members from the Progressive Conservative Party asked
if they could see the ethical guidelines and could they be tabled
in the House. What was the response? The Prime Minister said
no. We cannot see or have access to the guidelines. In fact we
are not allowed to even know to which standards we are being
held.
By not giving the motion the chance to go ahead and by perhaps
denying the House even a chance to vote on it, which I think is
almost unspeakable, he is basically saying that the guidelines
they are going to hold themselves to are their own guidelines.
They make them up. Not only that, after they make them up, they
keep them secret. Then they give them to somebody who judges
them without calling in witnesses or doing investigations.
Further, the person reports only to the person who is signing his
paycheque, and finally, he releases only what he wants to release
to the public.
When he said that this ethics counsellor has come before
committees, he just had to throw in there that the current ethics
counsellor comes before committees to talk about his estimates,
about how much he spends. We cannot ask him about a ruling.
1135
We know and I think the Canadian people know what is going on.
The Liberals made a promise. The motion today was lifted
verbatim out of the Liberal red book. The Prime Minister made a
promise. All he has to do is follow through on the promise that
was made in writing to the Canadian people. We did not change a
single word. All he has to do is say that it is a good motion.
In fact, they drafted it. All we want is to have a go at it and
to have a vote on it.
Hon. Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. House
leader for his question. I believe, though, that there is a
certain misunderstanding or perhaps an inaccuracy in what the
House leader for the official opposition has just stated. I
believe he said that the guidelines for public officeholders are
not public. That is not accurate. The guidelines for public
officeholders are public, both category A and category B. They
have been in place for a very long time and they are public.
The hon. member also said that the ethics counsellor does not
report directly to parliament, but he does. Let me elaborate on
this a little. The ethics counsellor reports directly to
parliament for the registration of lobbyists and reports to the
Prime Minister for that additional threshold of accountability
that the Prime Minister asks of his own ministers in addition to
the regular guidelines for public officeholders that are the
exigencies of everyone else. With respect, I believe that is
what the hon. member does not correctly understand.
The Prime Minister is obviously in a system known as responsible
government, with a capital r. We could argue that the
government is also very responsible in the regular lower case
r for that matter. In the system of responsible government
it is the Prime Minister who appoints cabinet and it is the Prime
Minister who has the ultimate responsibility for recommending to
Her Excellency to of course remove someone who is behaving in a
way that is inappropriate. Therefore that responsibility is upon
him and not upon anyone else, and it cannot be. I am sure none
of us would want it to be otherwise. How could we ever tolerate
a situation in the House where someone, a prime minister some
day, could say “It is not my fault. I have nothing to do with
this. Ask the ethics counsellor”.
That is not the way in which the Prime Minister does his
job. This Prime Minister is accountable to parliament, does not
try to pass the buck to someone else and takes full
responsibility for his ministers. That is the way I believe it
should be, both in terms of accountability in the House and in
terms of the constitutional requirement of how it should be done.
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg—Transcona, NDP): Mr.
Speaker, in an odd sort of way, what we see here today reinforces
the point that I think the opposition has been trying to make
over the last little while with respect to the Prime Minister.
Because this motion impinges on the Prime Minister's behaviour,
and because it causes distress to the Prime Minister, when it
comes to the Prime Minister there are no rules, or what rules
there are have to be bent, twisted, ignored or reinvented,
whatever the case may be when it comes to the Prime Minister.
It just seems to me that in a strange sort of way the
government, by its behaviour today with respect to this motion,
is reinforcing the very point that many of us on this side are
trying to make: that when it comes to the Prime Minister the
ordinary rules of behaviour, particularly in terms of appearance
but also with respect to how certain things are handled, do not
apply.
I ask the government House leader, given that this was a red
book promise and that he had 20 minutes to speak, why he at least
did not explain why the Liberals did not keep their promise. It
was their promise, not our promise. They promised that this
person would be an officer of the House. It was not something
invented by the opposition.
It would seem to me that at the very least the government House
leader could have taken some time, in the time that he had on his
feet, to explain why the Liberals changed their minds. People
change their minds. They obviously changed their minds. If they
did change their minds, why did they? Or is this simply a case
of a broken promise and something they did not mean to do in the
first place? Could we please have an explanation?
1140
Hon. Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, the hon. House leader for
the New Democrats raises two propositions, one in which he
alleges that the ordinary rules of behaviour have somehow been
modified for the purpose of this debate. That is factually
incorrect. The hon. member has been around here so long that he
has been here even longer than I and that is a long time. Of
course there is another hon. member near him who has been here
even longer. They will both remember, of course, that an
opposition motion being amended is not something new. It is
something that has been done for 50 years. To say that it has
been suspended is wrong.
What the opposition, cleverly or otherwise, discovered a few
years ago was to find a way of making a minor amendment to its
motion to prevent someone else from offering one later. I have
offered a subamendment today which I believe is acceptable. If
the Speaker decides that it is not, I will certainly accept that.
I hope the hon. member does the same.
Insofar as the ethics counsellor being, as I believe the hon.
member said, an officer of the House, I do not believe that
particular feature was ever in the red book. There was a
reference to reporting directly to parliament, which he does in
relation to one part of his work. He reports to the Prime
Minister on the part dealing with ministers. For the part
dealing with backbench MPs, all of us collectively have not yet
put in place a system regarding the code of conduct for other
MPs, so it does not apply there.
[Translation]
Mr. Richard Marceau (Charlesbourg—Jacques-Cartier, BQ):
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the Bloc Quebecois
whip, the hon. member for Verchères—Les-Patriotes.
Since last November 27 I have heard members of the House, either
within these walls or elsewhere, including in the media, asking
why there was such a poor turnout at the last federal
election.
Surely one of the reasons is that the public so often feels
betrayed and misled by people who do not keep their promises.
When there are more people believing Elvis is still with us than
people believing that politicians are to be trusted, that should
send some pretty strong alarm signals to all members of this
House.
For once the Canadian Alliance had a good idea: to bring before
the House an issue that would normally be totally non-partisan.
The proof of its non-partisan nature is that they actually
repeated, word for word, a promise made in the 1993 Liberal red
book, and are merely asking that it be adopted by all members of
this House.
It seems that the members of the four opposition parties are the
only ones who want to honour this promise originally made by the
Liberals, which is ironic to say the least. Moreover, the Bloc
Quebecois election platform for the year 2000 stated as follows:
The Bloc Quebecois proposes that the ethics counsellor report to
the House of Commons rather than to the Prime Minister's Office.
We are therefore fully involved in this movement, which seems to
be unanimous on this side of the House, to have the ethics
counsellor not be answerable to a single person, the person who
signs his paycheque, in other words the Prime Minister.
The purpose of this proposal in 1993—I remember the debates on it
then, and nothing has changed—was to restore at least a little of
the public confidence in politicians. Unfortunately the
government has failed miserably at that.
It is perhaps worthwhile reminding hon. members that, since the
quiet revolution, no hint of scandal has involved any Quebec
political party in power, regardless of political stripe.
I am referring to the Union Nationale government, the Quebec
Liberal government and the Parti Quebecois government
1145
There has been a broad consensus, the result of which is that
the sorts of political and financial scandals we see on the
federal scene are unheard of in Quebec. Unfortunately, or
fortunately, this has been a lesson that Quebecers have learned
the hard way. We went through the terrible excesses of the
Duplessis period, which preceded the quiet revolution, but the
problem began before that. The government of Quebec was
wallowing in patronage and was helping itself to public monies.
I put myself in the shoes of a young Quebecer.
A young Quebecer is amazed by the sorts of scandals we are
seeing in France with the Sirven affair, in Germany with the CDU
problem, in various countries, and even on the federal scene.
As a young Quebecer I am rather proud, damned proud, that these
sorts of scandals do not exist in Quebec.
I have heard friends or relatives talk about them, and I have
read about them in history books, but they have not been seen in
Quebec for the past 40 years. When someone oversteps the
limits, which are very strict, they are dealt with by the courts
and no more is heard about them. They are dealt with
effectively and efficiently.
It is rather sad for young people to see that Duplessis-style
politics have now sprung up on the federal scene.
This increases young people's disillusionment with politicians
in this country. It is all the sadder since the Prime Minister,
who comes from an old red family, having fought the Duplessis
system, has come himself to the point of setting up much the
same system.
The example of Placeteco comes to mind. In it $1.2 million in
public funds were squandered without an invoice to account for
the spending. There is the Auberge Grand-Mère, a subject of much
discussion these days. There is also the business in the riding
of my colleague from Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, which—we will recall
it having been brought up—magically ended up in the riding of
the Prime Minister.
This sort of attitude on the part of the federal government
leads it to consider the money of Quebec and Canadian taxpayers
its own, so it can spend it as it likes. One of the most
effective ways of stopping that is to have a man or a woman
outside the parliamentary system and not accountable to the
Prime Minister, who usually makes the decisions that often
benefit his friends, his riding, under a very vague set of
rules, but accountable instead to parliament, a bit like the
auditor general.
In conclusion, the position of the Bloc Quebecois is very clear.
We support this motion. I hope the Liberal government will
honour its promise in 1993, when it made this proposal we all
fully support.
I will conclude therefore by saying that Quebecers learned the
lessons of the Duplessis system the hard way.
We have built a just and fair society, which has created strict
and clear rules for itself thereby ensuring there will be no
scandals in Quebec.
I am truly and firmly convinced that this
attitude of Quebecers in general to scandals and the need for
their MNAs to be honest, augurs very well for the political
system we will soon be setting up in Quebec.
1150
Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
I listened carefully to the comments of the Bloc Quebecois
member.
He said that the public had lost confidence in the government.
Looking back at the results of the last election, it looks as
though Quebecers lost confidence in the Bloc Quebecois, which
lost six seats, while we made gains.
Be that as it may, in his speech, the hon. member often referred
to the standards of the Quebec government. He contends that
there were no scandals. I find this strange, because over the
past three years, the media have reported on people being
prosecuted, on scandals relating to several issues, on
suspicious discretionary budgets.
How does the Bloc Quebecois explain then that, in 1994, it voted
against a bill to increase transparency in the Canadian
government, when in Quebec the act governing the National
Assembly includes provisions such as the following:
The jurisconsult is appointed under section 74 of the Act
respecting the National Assembly, on the motion of the Premier
and with the approval of two-thirds of the Members, for a
renewable term not exceeding five years.
Indeed, the act respecting the national assembly creates the
office of jurisconsult, a position currently held by Quebec's
former chief justice Claude Bisson. The jurisconsult's advisory
role only extends to members of the national assembly.
Several Quebec premiers have added directives that apply to
cabinet members.
These rules are similar to those established at the federal
level and in the other provinces.
I will conclude by saying that the responsibility of the current
premier of Quebec is made even clearer in the final paragraph of
the letter Mr. Bouchard wrote his ministers on January 29, 1996:
In contentious cases, the Premier (of Quebec) is responsible for
the interpretation of these directives.
Is it true or not?
Mr. Richard Marceau: Mr. Speaker, I find it scandalous that a
Quebec MP can rise in this House and refer to the fact that the
Quebec scene has been filled with scandals, but not be able to
name a single one of them. That is scandalous.
Mr. Ghislain Lebel: Not a one.
Mr. Richard Marceau: We can certainly list some on the federal
level: Auberge Grand-Mère, Placeteco.
Speaking of the government's ethics, Tremblay—Guittet
Communications received more than $2 million from the Canada
Information Office and Public Works Canada. Mrs. Michelle
Tremblay of that company has been involved in all Liberal
election campaigns since 1988.
Communication & Stratégie also obtained more than $2 million
from the CIO in order to organize federal ministerial visits to
Bloc Quebecois ridings. The head of that company is Serge
Paquette, who ran for the federal Liberals in the Laurentides
riding.
Another buddy of the Liberal Party of Canada, Richard Mongeau,
was legal counsel for the CIO, as well as its head of
communications at the same time. He has since been appointed to
a judgeship.
Groupe Everest and Lafleur Communications both received
contracts of several million dollars, either from the CIO or from
Public Works and Government Services Canada through its
“initiatives sponsorships” program, and all these companies
have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to the Liberal
Party of Canada's campaign chest.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh.
Mr. Richard Marceau: I could go on. This is the kind of
attitude the Canadian Alliance motion is aimed at avoiding. This
is the kind of feeding from the public trough that the Liberal
Party has demonstrated, this is the kind of proprietary feeling
about public funds that the Alliance motion is aimed at doing
away with.
This is why I am calling upon the Liberal Party, and this member
in particular, to vote and to respect the Liberal campaign
promise of 1993.
Mr. Serge Marcil (Beauharnois—Salaberry, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, it
is really something to see how self-righteous they are in the
House, when earlier they were demanding proof that nothing is
going on in Quebec City with appointments.
How is it that the husband of Pauline Marois was appointed
president of the Société générale de financement?
Let the Bloc Quebecois explain to the public how they indirectly
broke the law on the funding of political parties introduced by
René Lévesque by inviting Mrs. Marois to a dinner to raise
campaign funds?
I could provide a number of examples. Why was Mr. Larose
appointed—
An hon. member: Tell us about your bridges.
The Speaker: The hon. member for
Charlesbourg—Jacques-Cartier.
1155
Mr. Richard Marceau: Mr. Speaker, in politics, there are certain
debates we have been dreaming about, and this is one of them.
The member for Beauharnois—Salaberry, who has just put a question
to me, went through three election campaigns promising the same
bridge and not once did he ever deliver on this promise. We
will soon see a picture of the member for Beauharnois—Salaberry
beside the definition of broken promise in the dictionary.
Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères—Les-Patriotes, BQ): Mr. Speaker,
I am pleased to take part in this very important debate on the
question of parliament's need to be able to count on the
services of an ethics counsellor, whose role it will be to
examine the probity and the actions of members of cabinet and to
report to the House on his findings.
In the questions and comments we have just heard from the two
Liberal members, I find it particularly interesting that they
mention that the public has lost confidence. However the public
gave the Liberal Party a greater majority than in the last
election. That is the trouble with this government, which still
only wants to see part of the picture.
The hon. member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik has taken great care
to conceal the fact that the turnout rate for this election was
one of the lowest in federal election history. That must
indicate something.
When we speak of loss of confidence, we mean a loss of
confidence in political institutions and parliamentary
institutions. Why was there such poor voter turnout? Perhaps
because our fellow citizens did not find it was worth while. It
makes no difference who gets elected, they feel.
What is it that gives them such a negative attitude or
impression of the public and the political scene?
It is the sort of things we saw during the election campaign,
when the Prime Minister was suspected of involvement in some
rather dubious undertakings. The ethics counsellor was
consulted and his response in the midst of the election campaign
was “I do not think the Prime Minister can be faulted in any
way”. I shall return to this point.
I also found of particular interest that the hon. member for
Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik raises the code of ethics of the
National Assembly. Really now.
Here in Ottawa we have a nearly secret code of ethics, one
established by the Prime Minister, enforcement of which is
entrusted to a man who was appointed by the Prime Minister, who
administers rules set by the Prime Minister, and who is
answerable for his actions to that very Prime Minister.
The hon. member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik told us “It is no
better in the National Assembly”. To that, I will say that
there is one major difference, though.
In the National Assembly, the code of ethics is a law. There is
a statutory basis for ministerial integrity.
He spoke of the function of jurisconsult, saying the appointment
is made by the premier after a vote in the National Assembly.
That is a lot better than here, where the Prime Minister alone
makes the appointment without consulting anyone. The members of
the National Assembly have the opportunity to comment on the
appointment of the jurisconsult.
Before the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik starts denigrating
the Quebecers' National Assembly again, I would advise him to
find credible and relevant examples under the circumstances.
I think it is also interesting to note that our friends in the
government are just as vigorously resisting the idea of having
to agree to the motion presented by the Canadian Alliance.
1200
Yet, we are simply asking them to honour an election promise
they made in 1993.
We saw earlier—and the Speaker will be coming back to it later
on, so I would not want to elaborate further—how twisted the
government House leader got in his efforts to have the motion of
the Canadian Alliance say what it does not, to avoid voting
against their own red book this afternoon.
There is no way around it. The motion by the Canadian Alliance
reiterates verbatim the promise in the Liberal Party's red book
in 1993. It would be embarrassing, to say the least, for the
government to have to vote against one of its own election
promises. However, this would not come as a surprise, since we
have seen the government, on a number of occasions, not fulfil
its commitments.
The Liberals are in effect rising in this House, this symbol
of Canadian democracy, and saying “Dear fellow citizens, we lied
to you in that we did not intend to fulfil the promise we made in
1993”. I will admit that it could be embarrassing to say the
least for the government to have to rise and vote against its own
promise. This is why the Liberals tried their best to have us
believe that this motion says something that, in fact, it does
not really say.
I alluded to the broken promises of the Liberals. What about the
infamous promise to scrap, to abolish the GST? What about the
infamous promise to tear up the free trade agreement? What about
this other Liberal promise the hon. member for
Beauharnois—Salaberry mentioned in responding to the speech by
the hon. member for Charlesbourg—Jacques-Cartier? What about the
promise made during the last election campaign to build two
bridges and 14 kilometres of highway?
The government now seems less anxious to provide an answer and
to fulfil that promise. This is common practice among Liberals.
It is no wonder that the participation rate at the last general
election was one of the lowest in Canadian history. It is no
wonder that, after such a display of cynicism and arrogance on
the part of the Liberal government, people are much less inclined
to take part in the electoral process.
The ethics counsellor answered one question and I will get back
to it in a few moments.
First let me say that our comments here today are not in any
way aimed at the ethics counsellor himself. Given his
professional background, I presume that Mr. Wilson is a person
whose probity cannot be questioned and that he has very high
professional qualifications. This is not what is at issue here
today.
What is at issue is the relevance of an ethics counsellor
position, if the incumbent does not report to parliament. What
is at issue is a broken Liberal promise from 1993 to create an
ethics counsellor position, and fill it with someone who would be
appointed by the various political parties in the House and who
would report to parliament.
I come back to what I was saying earlier. The ethics counsellor
gave his interpretation of the reasons why he does not report to
this parliament. He said that the first reason is that the Prime
Minister is responsible to parliament for the conduct of his
ministers. He invoked ministerial responsibility. He said that
since he reports to the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister
reports to the House, the necessary transparency is there.
I will, if I may, mention something very much in the news right
now which makes me question the validity of the ethics
counsellor's response. We have only to look at the CINAR affair
and the somewhat special role played in it by the Canada Customs
and Revenue Agency.
When we question the Minister of National Revenue, he tells us
that he cannot answer because of the confidential nature of tax
files. What about ministerial responsibility? Is he not
responsible to this parliament for the actions of his department?
1205
His answer is: “I cannot answer. I do not know what is going
on. My people are professionals. They are doing their job and I
cannot interfere”. What is the point of having a minister who
reports to the House?
I would close by urging all members to vote in favour of this
motion, first of all because it is important for Canadian
democracy and the Canadian parliamentary process, and also
because it will allow the members opposite to finally deliver on
one of their election promises made seven years ago.
Mr. André Harvey (Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, Alain
Dubuc, from La Presse, was right to say that the Bloc is out of
touch with reality. The former member for Beauharnois—Salaberry
has been replaced by my hon. colleague. Someone has reviewed all
the speeches made by the member for that riding. That member
never had any concern for the issues his riding and his region
were faced with.
I would like to ask the hon. member this: the real scandal, is
it not the fact that the Bloc and the PQ let the regions die off
while they keep talking about the Constitution, at a time when
8% of Quebecers are still willing to hear about the Constitution
and 92% of Quebecers and people in the regions prefer to hear
about the economy and health? Meanwhile, they are still
discussing very nebulous items of parliamentary procedure,
whereas we are focusing our initiatives on research and
development, the infrastructure program and the upgrading of our
small and medium size businesses to make them even more
efficient. They are always out of touch with reality.
I see the hon. member for Jonquière who once wrote to President
Clinton. I am sure the president did not find the time to answer
her letter before leaving office.
I would like to ask my hon. colleague for Verchères—Les-Patriotes
if, to his mind, the real scandal is not seeing the PQ and the
Bloc Quebecois let the regions decline and fall at a time when
our policies as a government are focused on structural
initiatives?
Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank my
colleague, the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, for his question,
which is at the very least twisted and warped. I thank him,
nevertheless, because it will allow me to set the record
straight.
I use the words twisted and warped because we are discussing
government integrity and the necessity for the government to
justify its actions before the House. All the member for
Chicoutimi—Le Fjord has done is to bring us back to the
constitutional debate, while accusing us of always bringing up
that issue.
I will answer his question, first to say this. I find it at the
very least outrageous that the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord
should undermine the work of the former member for
Beauharnois—Salaberry, Daniel Turp, by saying that he never cared
about his riding. That takes some gall.
I challenge the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord to go to
Beauharnois—Salaberry to see what is going on in that riding and
what was going on, these last years, when my colleague, Daniel
Turp, was its representative in parliament.
Some say that the constitutional issue is not among the
priorities of Quebecers. I would like to say something about
that.
What are the priorities of Quebecers? Like most other people,
their priorities are employment, health and education. Not
foreign affairs, not national defence or the coast guard. The
federal government has understood that well.
This government invests as little as possible in areas which are
under its responsibility. It cuts payments to the provinces and
uses this money stolen from the provinces to invest in health,
education and employment. These are all jurisdictions which do
not belong to the federal government, under the Constitution. No
wonder we want to talk about the Constitution.
1210
[English]
Mr. Peter MacKay (Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, PC):
Mr. Speaker, I would like to add some comments to the debate and
perhaps bring some focus back to what we are here to discuss,
that is, the ethics counsellor, the integrity of government and
the ability of the government to portray itself with confidence
to the Canadian people.
It troubles me greatly when I hear the government House Leader
get up and speak of the pristine ethics of the government and, in
particular, of the Prime Minister. I know the hon. member who
just spoke will recall what occurred in his province with respect
to a Liberal fundraiser who, armed with lists of persons from
HRDC and ACOA who had applied for grants, went far afield with
that information and attempted to raise funds for the Liberal
Party of Canada. I also know the member from Chicoutimi would
recall that incident.
I wonder how the government reconciles that with its position of
pliable ethics that it is so proudly clinging to today. I wonder
if the hon. member would comment.
[Translation]
Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Speaker, I greatly appreciate your
indulgence and your concern.
I would simply like to thank the hon. member for
Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough for his question. He is bringing the
debate back to its real purpose, that is to the issue of the
ethics counsellor and the government's accountability to the
House.
That being said, I believe he raised a very clear case where, if
the ethics counsellor were appointed by the House and reported
to the House, dubious actions on the part of the government
could have been prevented or corrected.
[English]
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg—Transcona, NDP): Mr. Speaker,
I will be sharing my time with the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle.
I still think of the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle as the member
for Yorkton—Melville. I have not quite adjusted to the fact
that he is not known by the riding that he was known by for 25
years.
I have a couple of things to say about the motion. We are
talking about two things in the motion. We are talking about
broken promises and we are talking about the substance of
promises made, and whether or not those promises should now be
implemented.
First, with respect to the question of broken promises, clearly
this is a broken promise. It was very clearly promised in red
book one that there would be an ethics counsellor created and
that the counsellor would be responsible to the House of Commons.
That has not happened and the government has given us no
indication today as to why that has not happened. It has been
very self-congratulating in terms of its record. It looks good
only because it compares itself to the previous Conservative
administration which was rife with controversy and scandal.
Sometimes I think that the only difference between the Liberals
and the Conservatives, when it comes to that sort of thing, is
that the Conservatives never really got out of their amateur
status when it came to patronage, scandal and other things. The
Liberals are the real professionals when it comes to that sort of
thing. They are better at not being caught. They are better at
hiding what they do. They are better at covering things up. The
Tories were just a bunch of rank amateurs.
In fact, when the Tories were in government, I remember some
Liberals in opposition saying to me off the record that the
Tories were a bunch of rank amateurs, that they were really the
people who knew how to do that. The Liberals have been back
since 1993 and they are still doing it, in part because they have
not kept the promises they made with respect to those kinds of
issues. One of those promises was the creation of an ethics
counsellor, an ethics counsellor that would be responsible to the
House not to the Prime Minister.
1215
The government House leader made the argument that the Prime
Minister was ultimately responsible and therefore we could not
have the ethics counsellor reporting to the House. The Prime
Minister is ultimately responsible for the official languages
policy, for the privacy law and for the freedom of information
law, but that does not prevent us from having privacy
commissioners, official language commissioners and freedom of
information commissioners. It also should not prevent us from
having an ethics commissioner, if that is what that person would
come to be called whenever that position would be created, who
would be responsible to the House of Commons. On the face of it,
the Liberals have broken this promise and offered no explanation
as to why they have.
What has given rise to the debate? It is of course all the
controversy surrounding the things that have happened in the
Prime Minister's riding.
I have listened to the Prime Minister carefully over the last 18
months to two years. It is not a question of whether the Prime
Minister did anything wrong in the criminal sense. I am
certainly not making that charge and some people who have made
that charge have withdrawn it. What the Prime Minister does not
seem to get is that he is not just an ordinary member of
parliament. I just do not think there is any substance to that
argument.
Yes, the Prime Minister can do the same things as an ordinary
member of parliament can do, but to suggest that it is ordinary
behaviour for the Prime Minister to have people over to 24 Sussex
to talk to them about loans to hotels in his riding, not to
mention hotels that the Prime Minister has had something to do
with in the past, and that it is the sort of thing that I get to
do every day as a member of parliament, is just ridiculous and
the Canadian people know it.
Given the election results, the Canadian people seem resigned to
accept this. They seem resigned to accept a certain level of
that kind of behaviour. Unfortunately, they just seem to think
that goes with the Liberals. They seem prepared to tolerate that
behaviour with the hope that the Liberals have other virtues.
However, we as members of parliament do not have to tolerate it.
We do not have to tolerate it as opposition parties. As members
of this place We have a responsibility not to tolerate and that
is why we are up on our feet today.
I say to the Prime Minister and to the government, not just for
their own sake but for the sake of the political process in
general, that they should behave differently. They should see
that there is a distinction to be made between the kinds of
opportunities that the Prime Minister has, the clout that the
Prime Minister has, the question of how that clout should be used
and whether there are times when the Prime Minister should resist
the temptation to use that clout, even if it is for the benefit
of his own constituency, because it puts the whole political
process in jeopardy.
There is no question, from some of the figures I have seen, that
the Prime Minister's riding has done very well indeed by virtue
of having the Prime Minister as its member of parliament. When
it gets so out of whack, when there is so much more money going
into the Prime Minister's riding over what goes into other
ridings, and when we see that there are secret opportunities for
transitional funds going into Liberal ridings that people in
other ridings do not even know about, all these kinds of things
do not exactly bring a healthy smell to the political process.
I would urge my Liberal colleagues to see if they can find a way
to act more appropriately when it comes to this sort of thing.
We often talk about governments breaking their promises. I want
to say with respect to the party that moved the motion today that
it is one of the rare political animals in our political system.
It has managed to accumulate a whole number of broken promises
while it is still in opposition. It is not something that
everybody can do. One has to have a special talent to do it.
Members of that party made promises as to how they would behave
in opposition.
They did not say how they would behave in government because they
have not had a chance to govern, and God help us if they ever do,
although if they ever do become government I hope they do break
some of their promises. I hope they never bring them into being.
1220
The Canadian Alliance promised that their leader would not move
into Stornoway. They promised their leader would not take a
freebie with respect to a car. Many of them promised they would
not become members of the pension plan.
Having said all that, I think they have done some growing up
while they have been here. They have appreciated some of the
policies that were in place, that they made a political career
out of criticizing, and have changed their mind. However, when
they changed their mind, they broke another promise. They were
the ones who said that when members of parliament change their
mind or make a decision contrary to what their constituents
thought they were voting for, then they should put themselves at
the mercy of their voters once again.
With respect to the members of the Canadian Alliance who
indicated that they would opt into the pension plan before the
last election and the people voted them in, fair enough. What
about the people who indicated after November 27, 2000 that they
would opt into the pension plan? Do those members not have an
obligation, given the things that they have said in the past, to
submit themselves to the mercy of their constituents in a form of
self-imposed recall? Do we see any of that? There is another
broken promise.
It strikes us as a bit odd, without prejudice to the well
deserved criticism that the Liberals deserve when it comes to
breaking promises, that the official opposition should be on its
high horse when it comes to broken promises because they are the
one political party in the country that has managed to accumulate
a record of broken promises without ever having been in
government.
Hon. David Kilgour (Secretary of State (Latin America and
Africa), Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for
Winnipeg—Transcona knows that I have a lot of respect for him.
In his view, what would be proper for a prime minister to do for
a riding that has an unemployment rate, as I believe the Prime
Minister's has, of approximately 20%? What in his view is
proper?
Mr. Bill Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, we do not all have ridings
that have 20% unemployment. Many of us have ridings that have
less than that and some that have more.
The point is that the Prime Minister ought to let the ordinary
process take its course. I would submit that having people over
to 24 Sussex and using the full context of the Prime Minister's
office is not always the appropriate thing to do.
The appropriate thing to do, not with respect to ridings but
with respect to the issue before the House, is to keep the
promise that was made in the red book.
Mr. Dennis Mills (Toronto—Danforth, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
I too have great respect for the member from Manitoba, but he
said something in his remarks that I could not support. He said
that if the Prime Minister thought there could be or might be
some challenge to a particular project in his riding that he
should probably not do it.
It is almost like reverse discrimination. If the Prime Minister
cannot use his position to influence a half a dozen projects for
the cumulative total of not more than $5 million or $6 million, I
just cannot figure that reasoning out.
In my riding, a week before the election was announced, we
talked about a $500 million project. Everybody was happy about
it. We are making a big fuss here about a $200,000 fountain and
a $500,000 loan in a tourism industry that is going through a
very difficult time.
I do not think Canadians are putting it in perspective. I never
had any problem when the former Prime Minister of Canada, Mr.
Mulroney, put a $300 million prison in his riding. That is just
the way it goes.
I would never want to see a situation where because one becomes
the leader of the country, one has to discriminate against one's
own constituents.
1225
Mr. Bill Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I was not suggesting that
the Prime Minister should discriminate against his own
constituents. I was suggesting that there is an appropriate
balance to be struck between not discriminating against one's own
constituents and being seen to discriminate a bit too much in
favour of one's own constituents.
This is all a matter of perception and judgment, but the Prime
Minister has an obligation for the sake of the whole political
process not to leave himself open to those kinds of perceptions.
He should not be wrong on the facts, as he apparently was when he
was very absolute about the fact that the hotel in question did
not receive any money from the immigrant investor program, and
then we find out that it did. Why was he so assertive about
that? Why did he not check the facts? This does not help.
I want the Prime Minister to behave differently because that
would benefit the whole country. I am not saying that people in
the Prime Minister's riding should never get anything. I do not
know about the $500 million project in the member's riding, but
it sounds to me like something that is going on in the whole of
Toronto, not just in the member's riding. Or, perhaps we should
be looking more closely at the member's riding as $500 million is
a lot more than most of us put together would get in terms of
special grants and projects for our ridings.
Mr. Roy Bailey (Souris—Moose Mountain, Canadian
Alliance): Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from Winnipeg
mentioned broken promises. Coming from Saskatchewan I could talk
until midnight about broken promises.
The NDP member who just spoke was in the House when we had gold
plated pensions. He was here when we had to serve six
consecutive years. Conceivably a member could be elected at 19
years of age, retire at 25 and get a pension. Does his
conscience bother him in that he sat in the House and supported
that pension?
Mr. Bill Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, here is the line that we
all had to live with in the early nineties, that somehow we
received a gold plated pension if we were in this place for six
years.
Actually, after six years a member received six-fifteenths of a
pension. All of the ads by the National Citizen's Coalition and
the Reform Party implied that if a member were here for six years
and retired or was defeated, he or she received a cheque for $1
million or something like that amount, instead of six-fifteenths
or 75% of the average of their best five years.
No, I am not embarrassed because hen that so-called gold plated
pension was brought in, in 1981, I voted against it. I did not
have any choice but to be in it. People who did have a choice
have since made different choices than the ones they said to the
Canadian people.
Hon. Lorne Nystrom (Regina—Qu'Appelle, NDP): Mr.
Speaker, I hope my friend from Souris—Moose Mountain does not
leave the Chamber. The motion today provides us with an
opportunity to talk about our vision of democracy: electoral
democracy, parliamentary democracy and economic democracy.
I agree with the Leader of the Opposition moving a motion to
make the ethics counsellor responsible for reporting to the House
and not to the Prime Minister himself. It only makes sense.
People cannot report to someone they are responsible to and then
investigate the same person. There is an apparent conflict of
interest.
It struck me rather strange this morning when I heard the
opposition House leader talk about the importance of
accountability and things being built on trust. I think 11
members of the Canadian Alliance Party campaigned against the MP
pension plan. In many cases, after the election on November 27,
these members decided to pay back into the pension plan. They
broke a fundamental trust and a fundamental promise that they
made to the voters in their ridings.
If we want to build a parliamentary system on trust, on
confidence and accountability, it seems to me that the deputy
leader of the Reform Party from Edmonton and others should do one
of two things. They have now bought back into the pension plan
after criticizing us strenuously and comparing us to hogs
slopping at a trough. They should either submit themselves to a
recall of their voters or resign their seats like the member from
Hamilton, the Minister of Heritage, did when she campaigned
against the GST and then was part of a government that supported
it. If they have changed their minds the members should resign
their seats and face the voters in a byelection to receive a new
mandate. That is accountability.
1230
If some of the Alliance members had said before the November
election that they had changed their minds on the pension and
would opt in and buy back past service, that would have been a
different story. However, those who did not do it broke a
fundamental promise and a fundamental part of what that party is
all about in terms of accountability and respect for the House.
They should resign their seats and submit to a byelection if
indeed they mean what they say. That is an important part of
what we are debating today.
I will use the words again of the Leader of the Opposition and
the House leader of that party who talked about the importance of
building on trust and the importance of accountability.
When we talk about the ethics counsellor being responsible to
the House of Commons, we do this in a broader vision of our
democracy. I believe our country is in a democratic crisis. Our
parliamentary system gives the Prime Minister far too much power.
The Prime Minister appoints all the senators, all the supreme
court justices, the head of the army, the head of the RCMP, all
the important heads of agencies, and makes thousands of patronage
appointments to all kinds of organizations, agencies and crown
corporations. He does this without any parliamentary
accountability whatsoever.
If the Minister of Industry had any zeal for democratic reform
he would lead a crusade to make sure that some of the powers of
the Prime Minister's office went to the House of Commons and
parliamentary committees in terms of important appointments.
We also have too many confidence votes in the House. If we had
fewer confidence votes parliament would work in a more congenial
and democratic way in trying to solve the problems that face the
Canadian people. Those are just some of the issues we should be
dealing with.
Parliamentary committees should have a lot more power and
independence to initiate and timetable legislation. However the
government will not even take the minor step of allowing the
committees to secretly elect their own chairs. Such a step would
simply follow the precedence of secretly electing a Speaker of
the House. The government is in the dark ages in terms of basic
democratic reforms.
On the electoral and democratic side, no wonder the Minister of
Industry hides his head in shame. Only 5% of Canadians polled
support the unelected Senate. The minister, however, sits across
the way and says aye, aye and cheers on the Prime Minister to
make more and more Senate appointments to that house of hacks,
flacks and political has-beens.
The time has come for genuine reform to abolish the unelected,
undemocratic and unaccountable Senate. Canada should also take a
serious look, as has almost every other country in the world, at
some kind of proportional representation in our electoral system
so that every voter could have equality and not cast a wasted
vote.
The Liberal majority government, elected constitutionally for
another five years, received 40% of the vote on a turnout of less
than 60% in the last election. That means fewer than a quarter
of Canadians voted for the government of the day.
Canada is one of only three countries in the world with a
population of more than eight million that does not have some
form of proportional representation in its electoral system.
Only Canada, India and the United States do not have some kind of
proportional representation.
Under a PR system every voter would be equal. No vote would be
wasted. People would be included and involved in creating a
parliament that would actually reflect how people vote. That is
the kind of democratic reform we should be looking at.
We should also get rid of the kind of enumeration mess we had in
the last campaign. Over a million people were denied democracy
because there was no house to house enumeration of voters. Most
of those missed were younger or poorer people living in inner
cities or younger people who had moved.
These are some of the things we must change to make Canada more
democratic and inclusive.
1235
We must also look at the question of economic democracy and the
fact that Canada is now governed more and more by trade deals,
the WTO, NAFTA and huge transnational corporations that have more
and more power.
It is not a question of trade per se. There will be trade.
There will be more and more international trade and more
globalization because of technology. It is a question of losing
democratic control over issues that affect our lives because of
the power of transnational corporations.
These huge corporations are not really run by entrepreneurs.
Many are run by bureaucrats and technocrats who are responsible
and beholden to no one. They are like big icebergs at sea,
bumping up against countries, distorting economies and denying
local control and decision making over social programs, health
programs, cultural programs, labour standards and farm programs.
This should change. Canada should lead the way in trying to
build labour, social and environmental standards into trade
agreements. Such agreements should protect the cultural
identities of nation states and allow them to make important
decisions over the lives of their citizens in health care,
shelter, employment and other important areas.
That is part of the democratic vision people should hope for and
espouse from the Parliament of Canada. The country is
sleepwalking toward a crisis in democracy. Barely 60% of the
people voted in the year 2000. In 1997, 67% of the people voted.
Thirty or forty years ago it was routine to have 80% or more of
the people voting in federal and provincial campaigns.
People are disengaging from the process because they feel
politicians do not listen. In so many ways the people are right.
We elect a government that has a mandate for five years and there
is no power sharing. About 60% of the people voted for the
opposition parties and 40% for the government party, and yet the
Prime Minister has the unilateral power to make most important
decisions.
If the Prime Minister wants to leave a legacy he should begin
the process of democratizing the political institutions, the
economic and electoral systems of Canada, so that the ordinary
people, through their representatives, will have a real say over
the common good and the direction of Canada.
The motion today is but a small step in that direction. It
would make the ethics counsellor responsible not to the Prime
Minister but to the House of Commons. The person would report to
the House of Commons as does the chief electoral officer, the
privacy commissioner, the official language commissioner and many
others who operate in a way that is just and proper and in a way
that governments past said would never work.
Let us not be afraid to take at least that one step toward
democratic reform.
Mr. Dennis Mills (Toronto—Danforth, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
I agree with a lot of what the member said about trade. I have
been racking my brain on the issue of unelected and unaccountable
bureaucrats in multinational corporations, and the way they move
around like icebergs. We are responsible as members of
parliament to maintain jobs in our communities and in our
country.
What idea does the member have for handling multinational
organizations in such a way that they will not hold us to ransom
for all the jobs they control?
Hon. Lorne Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, the member from Toronto
made a very good comment. He talked about the multinational or
transnational corporations that can hold us to ransom for the
jobs in our communities.
Part of the problem with the trade deals today is that they are
like charters of rights for transnational corporations. We must
somehow augment that with an international people's charter of
rights which builds into these agreements minimum standards in
terms of labour and labour mobility and in terms of environmental
and social standards. Such a charter might even look at radical
ideas such as a minimum global tax on transnational corporations
so they cannot play off one country against the other.
In other words, I think many powers once enjoyed by the nation
state must now be transferred to the international forum.
1240
We have transferred the powers of capital to huge transnational
corporations, but we have not counterbalanced that with a
counterweight, which is the democratic control of people through
their governments as institutions, and transferred other powers
such as people's rights, labour rights, agricultural rights,
environmental rights and environmental standards. One of them
might be a minimum tax on transnational corporations.
Another idea endorsed by parliament in a 2:1 vote was contained
in a private member's motion which I put before the House two
years ago endorsing the idea of what was called a Tobin tax on
currency speculation to help curb speculation in currency. About
a trillion dollars are traded every day. There is no control of
this or of the international casino of currency which distorts a
lot of economies.
We became the first parliament in the world to endorse the idea
of a small currency tax, which is called a Tobin tax, in concert
with the world community. Our government should be aggressively
selling the position of the Parliament of Canada at international
fora like the World Bank and the IMF. These are some of the
things we can do.
The main point is that democracy has been denied, thwarted and
abrogated because of trade deals and because of transnational
corporations. We have lost that democracy. These people report
to no one. We as a nation have to take a leading role in trying
to get that power back for ordinary people.
Mr. Peter MacKay (Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, PC):
Mr. Speaker, it is enlightening to see you in the chair. I know
the impartiality you bring to this place.
I want to pose a question to the hon. member with respect to his
comments about the credibility and importance of an ethics
counsellor. Reference has been made throughout this debate to
various parties and to which party did what first. The hon.
member's own party is not devoid of indiscretion or
discrepancies.
I remind him of the former premier of British Columbia, Mr.
Vander Zalm, who found himself in some difficulty. It resulted in
a report published by Ted Hughes, a former deputy attorney
general and superior court judge in Saskatchewan.
The report dealt with public land transactions and money that
was then returned for a promise of a speculator acquiring
adjacent properties. Federally owned oil companies were
involved. All of this resulted in another premier from British
Columbia resigning, Premier Harcourt. Although he was not
personally implicated in the wrongdoing, he resigned after a
forensic audit by an auditor he had appointed who found that
party officials during the eighties had concocted a scheme to
divert funds legally designed for charity into NDP coffers.
This demonstrates that the independent counsellors, the
independent auditors, and in this case a former judge, were able
to flesh out a situation that obviously was wrong.
Is the office of the ethics counsellor tainted by what has
occurred in this situation? Should we be looking at a separate
judge or special prosecutor to be assigned to cases like this
one? He would be at arm's length from government. Perhaps he
would be appointed by government but would not have that
connection and therefore could credibly come before the Canadian
people and lay out the facts so that there would be a credibility
process.
Hon. Lorne Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, I should like to clarify
what might be a misunderstanding. Mr. Vander Zalm was not an NDP
premier but a Social Credit premier. Mr. Harcourt was a New
Democrat and he did resign. Mr. Vander Zalm is now the leader of
the Reform Party of British Columbia. His cousins sit over to my
extreme right.
The ethics counsellor should be an independent person. Perhaps
he should have the power to appoint an independent prosecutor to
investigate certain things. A committee of the House could look
at what additional powers the counsellor should have. He should
certainly have the power to launch independent investigations.
[Translation]
Mr. André Bachand (Richmond—Arthabaska, PC): Mr. Speaker, I
would like to indicate that I will be sharing my time with the
hon. member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough.
I will start by making a few brief comments. Following the
government House leader's procedural stunt, the debate seemed to
cool down, except perhaps that our colleague from the New
Democratic Party managed to heat it up a bit.
We got tripped up by procedural considerations on the
appropriateness of an amendment and an amendment to an amendment.
In my humble opinion, we are ignoring the purpose of the motion
under consideration.
1245
Of course, we can talk about the promise broken by the Liberals
in 1993. We are used to that. However, the real reason we have
this motion before us today is because of the Auberge Grand-Mère
issue. Nor must we must dismiss the Canadian Alliance's desire to
bring forward a motion about the ethics counsellor, because the
Auberge Grand-Mère affair is a case in point.
The real debate must be centred on the Prime Minister, the
ethics counsellor and a specific affair or affairs that have led
to this debate.
When we look at the facts, we are told “You know, the Prime
Minister did his job as an MP”. There is a big difference
between the prerogatives of a Prime Minister and those of an
ordinary MP. It is not the same thing at all.
Finally, what we want today is to know exactly what happened. We
only get snippets of information about what the Prime Minister
did in this affair.
When the Prime Minister called the president of the Business
Development Bank and told him “Drop by 24 Sussex; we have to
talk”, it was clearly not to congratulate him. Then he told the
president “Look here, there is a loan application. You have to
see to it. Understood?” Suddenly the loan is approved. Soon
after there is a default of payment. Something is wrong.
The president of the bank says “Listen, we must call in the
loan”. He gets a phone call from the Prime Minister who asks
“What is going on?” He replies “They are not making any
payments, so I have to call in the loan”. It is a Business
Development Bank policy, but this is not how it worked.
A little while later, Mr. Beaudoin was moved out of the Business
Development Bank. He got pushed out and the loan was not called
in.
I hope the Prime Minister does take care of his riding. However,
at one point, the prerogative of a Prime Minister should
implicitly and explicitly require a certain amount of reserve,
beyond what would be required of an ordinary member. I am not
the Prime Minister, but he acted wrongly in this case, he acted
very wrongly. That is what we say when we blame the Prime
Minister.
As far as the ethics counsellor is concerned, we would like to
know what data, what discussion, what evidence brought him to
absolve the Prime Minister. Whom did he speak to? Over a two
day period, he did not have time to meet with too many people.
What evidence was his decision based on? Is he well informed
about the whole issue? Did he speak with the representatives of
the Business Development Bank? The answer is no.
After two days, he replied: “Everything is fine. I am reacting
rapidly because this is an urgent matter. The urgency justifies
a thorough analysis of the issue”.
We are asking for the truth, the whole truth. Did the ethics
counsellor do his job properly in this case? This is an
important case, because the office of Prime Minister deserves
respect.
However, if we are to respect the person who holds that office,
we must have reasons to do so.
We are told that we keep accusing the Prime Minister. Give us
good reasons not to do so, and we will stop. Let the Prime
Minister have the ethics counsellor meet with members of
parliament. Let him have a good talk with the elected
representatives of the Canadians. That is not too much to ask.
Does he need the permission of the big boss? Let the big boss
tell him to meet members on both sides of the House. We will ask
him with whom he had discussions on this issue. Will his answer
be “The Prime Minister? I had coffee with him”. That is not
good enough. We must go deeper than that.
Once again, the reason we are having this debate today is the
questionable conduct of the Prime Minister, who, among other
things, approached directly the president of a bank.
It is cloudy, and this had nothing to do with the storm that is
coming tomorrow.
1250
It is getting quite cloudy on the government's side, concerning
the role of the Prime Minister. The best way out of these
problems, the best way to bring sunshine back in the Prime
Minister's Office and his function is to free from political
limitations the person whose role it is to check the conduct of
elected officials, Prime Minister included, and let the ethics
counsellor be more open.
The ethics counsellor is a good guy, but François Beaudoin, of
the Business Development Bank, is a good guy too. Unfortunately
he did not do exactly as told by the Prime Minister's Office, so
he is gone.
The ethics counsellor must like his work, and I can understand.
He probably does not want to frustrate his big boss. That is why
we are asking that the counsellor's code of ethics be improved.
He should be made independent. The only way for him to be totally
independent is to report to parliament as a whole, and not to a
group, a party or an individual. That is the way things should
be.
The Auberge Grand-Mère issue will no go away as long as the
Prime Minister refuses to be more open. It will not go away until
the Prime Minister allows the ethics counsellor to meet with us.
Let us not delude ourselves. Something fishy has prompted
today's opposition day motion. Parliament should take all action
necessary to ensure that the positions of Prime Minister and
ethics counsellor are respectable and respected ones.
Mr. Ghislain Lebel (Chambly, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I listened
with great interest to the comments by the member for Arthabaska,
and I have a question for him.
I have read all the editorials, especially in Quebec. Members
will forgive me for reading the French ones in particular, but I
assume the English language newspapers are saying pretty
much the same thing. Throughout this whole business of
handing out contracts and favours, the Prime Minister has been
saying that he is an ordinary MP and that he is doing his job as
an MP.
The editorial writers are saying that this is not true; he is
not an ordinary MP. Democracy imposes him on us every three
years and four months, or thereabouts, but once elected our
Prime Minister is a dictator. He has the discretionary,
decisional power to hand out money without being accountable to
anyone. Can he claim to be an ordinary MP like I and all the
other MPs on this side of the House? Is he not something
more? That is the first part of my question.
The second part is this. In a divorce proceeding would it be
considered normal for the mother of one of the parties seeking
divorce to also serve as the judge and award child support,
assign fault, and determine access? It seems to me that one
could say that this is not transparent, even if the mother-in-law
in question were mine—she is very fair—and if she perhaps had a
tendency to favour me, which I am not in any doubt about. One
might wonder whether her ruling was an impartial one.
During the election campaign did the ethics counsellor not come
up with his decision a bit too quickly, before he had all the
facts? Does this not leave him open to criticism for the simple
reason that he was appointed by his friend, that he is acting for
his friend, and that his decisions favour his friend? I would
like to hear what the member for Arthabaska has to say about
this.
Mr. André Bachand: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member
and congratulate him for having a nice mother-in-law. That being
said, I want to point out that the Prime Minister is not just
another member of parliament, and nor should he be.
As a member of parliament I cannot designate my chief of
operations as the new vice-president of the Business Development
Bank of Canada. I cannot call Jean Carle, who has worked in my
office for some time and tell him that I have made him the new
vice-president of the Business Development Bank of Canada. I
cannot do that.
1255
Even with all the credibility a Conservative member has, I
cannot call the president of the BDC and tell him “I want to see
you at my place, at 206 Brault Street, in Asbestos”. I do not
think he would show up. It is not the same thing.
Of course it is quite an honour to have a premier or a Prime
Minister as the member of parliament for one's riding. Does it
come with some perks? The Prime Minister should be clear on this
issue.
A certain amount of reserve should be exercised. If we look at
the way the Prime Minister has been acting since 1993, we see
that he has appointed a number of his friends to key positions.
He has acted on his own. He will then be able to tell them what
to do. That is what is going on.
This is why it is so important to have an independent ethics
counsellor. There is a cloud hovering over the Prime Minister
Office because of his involvement in crown corporations, federal
programs, and so on, which is why we need an independent person
to investigate.
Some may argue that an opposition member may not be fair enough
to pass judgment on a prime minister, and they may be right.
However an ethics counsellor appointed by the House and
accountable to the House will be independent enough to clarify
the whole issue.
The Prime Minister is not just another member of parliament.
Unfortunately our current Prime Minister is nothing like the
prime ministers we had before him.
Mr. Paul Crête (Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les
Basques, BQ): Mr. Speaker, in his speech, my colleague pointed
to the unhealthy situation that currently exists.
I will give an example. During the election campaign people
must decide which party will be elected, which one will form the
government and how it will operate. During the last campaign a
few days before election day, a person appointed by the Prime
Minister had to give his view on a very important issue, the
Prime Minister's integrity. The next day the headlines read
“Prime Minister Exonerated”.
Could we not make a comparison? If the auditor general were to
report to the Prime Minister rather than to the House of Commons,
would we have received this week a public report, like the one
tabled, showing the good and the bad sides of the government,
instead of something giving no sense of justice?
Mr. André Bachand: Mr. Speaker, it is essential that the
person appointed be independent from the House.
We cannot bet on that, but unfortunately I am sure that, having
acted like he did since 1993, the Prime Minister will not put his
head on the log by appointing an independent ethics counsellor
not reporting to his office.
[English]
Mr. Peter MacKay (Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, PC):
Mr. Speaker, I am always honoured to rise in the Chamber to take
part in a debate such as this one.
What has happened in this instance is that a cloud has descended
over the Prime Minister and over his behaviour. This debate is
very much focused on the ethical behaviour of the Prime Minister.
As a result it broadens to how parliament operates and how we
should hold elected officials and their conduct to a certain
standard.
It is only through an independent and impartial examination of
circumstances that we can arrive at the truth. This should be a
truth seeking exercise.
The tragedy in all of this is that the government and the Prime
Minister are hiding behind this office they have created. They
are holding it up to Canadians and saying that they have been
cleared by this individual, this individual who is appointed by
the Prime Minister and reports to the Prime Minister.
They are telling Canadians that the Prime Minister makes the
rules, is the judge and appoints the referee. However the
referee only reports to him. How can Canadians have any faith in
what that referee might say, let alone know the standard or the
guidelines that the referee is operating by?
1300
We have asked the Prime Minister to, at the very least, put
forward the guidelines and the framework within which the
counsellor is to work. This is not a reflection on the
counsellor himself but the office. Sadly, what may emerge from
this is that the office itself has been so denigrated by the
process that Canadians will never have faith in that particular
form of office. That is why we should explore other avenues,
such as the one in British Columbia. Perhaps we do need an
independent special prosecutor who can be arm's length and can
help to gather evidence in order to shed light on these types of
circumstances.
There are many, particularly the supporters of the Prime
Minister, who want him to be exonerated and want him to clear the
air on what has taken place in these circumstances. That can
only happen with a credible examination of all the facts, not the
blurred facts, the fuzzy facts, the special words, the nuances
and the treatment that we might tend to put in this Chamber, but
done by an impartial examiner. It can only happen if, and only
if, there is an office created that will allow an individual or
group of individuals with staff to examine facts.
The whole substance of the motion before the House was
originated by the Prime Minister and his government. This is not
the creation of the opposition. This is not something that came
out of thin blue air. This motion came directly from that now
infamous fairy tale called the red book. This was an example of
a promise that the Liberals put before the Canadian electorate on
the eve of an election because they new the electorate wanted it.
However, as we have seen time and time again from the government,
it was pulled back and put on a shelf when the election was over.
When the votes were counted those words no longer rang true. They
had no validity whatsoever.
What we hope to do in the brief time that we have as members of
the opposition is to pose the important questions that come from
this particular circumstance. This standard of behaviour coming
from the Prime Minister should be something that is particularly
troubling to Canadians.
I would like to refer to a member of the current government's
own backbench, the newly elected member for Vancouver Quadra in
British Columbia, who has quite a storied past with respect to
the justice system and to examinations of these types of
questions. He is a former land use commissioner and deputy
attorney general, positions that would give a unique perspective
on ethical performance of government. He said that one of the
things we needed was a conflict of interest commissioner who
would be a legislature officer rather than a part of the
executive of government and therefore independent of the
executive. There is a lot of wisdom in those words. He went on
to say that the more senior the politician, the greater the need
to be explicit about what the rules are and what the
communication is about. This is in the context of a
communication between a senior member of government, in this case
the head of the country, and an appointed official, and what the
communication between those individuals is meant to bring about.
What we now know is that the Prime Minister of Canada, acting in
his capacity, so he says, of a simple and humble member of the
House, called the head of the Business Development Bank and said
that there was an individual, a constituent who was in need of a
loan, and that he would like the bank to look favourably upon.
It did not stop there. There was another phone call. It was an
invitation to come to 24 Sussex, which again, I dare say, no
member of the House, short of the Prime Minister, has unfettered
access to. We cannot say what took place during that
conversation in the cozy confines of the living room of the Prime
Minister, but lo and behold we do know the result. The loan was
approved against previous recommendations by individuals in the
Business Development Bank.
Where it again became very blurred was the personal connection
of the Prime Minister to the particular deal. He was the former
owner of the hotel and owned lands adjacent to the particular
hotel that was partitioned some time previous. This element of
personal connection to the property for which the loan was
secured is troubling because it was the personal benefit that
might flow by having a loan approved that would improve and
enhance the value of the hotel and therefore vicariously enhance
the value of the adjoining lands.
1305
There is much speculation as to when the Prime Minister actually
disavowed himself, when he actually sold that property. That is
very unclear. All of that examination, were it actually done by
the ethics counsellor, is not available to the general public or
to members of the House. It is exempt from public examination.
These are parts of the factual background of the situation which
highlight the need for independence from counsellors if, most
important, they are to have any credibility in the eye of the
public or any credibility in the way members of the House conduct
themselves and conduct their personal business affairs.
The Prime Minister made many promises to Canadians during his
tenures as official opposition leader and Prime Minister, and
during his ongoing attempt to build a legacy for himself.
As reported in a 1994 edition of the Ottawa Citizen the
Prime Minister said that there could be no substitute for
responsibility at the top. He indicated that he set the moral
tone for the government and must make the ultimate decisions when
issues of integrity and trust are raised.
Those words ring hollow today. When simple questions are posed
to the Prime Minister in the Chamber he will not even dignify
them with a response. He is completely backing away from his
previous words, as we have seen him do on many occasions.
By appointing an ethics counsellor and then having that
counsellor report only to him, the Prime Minister is so shallow
and denigrates so much the entire idea of having an ethics
counsellor that it further undermines public confidence. It
drives even further underground the ability of the public to
respect and have faith in public officials. That is perhaps what
is most troubling of all about the subject matter.
There is a unique opportunity here for the Prime Minister not
only to fulfil an electoral promise but to signal to Canadians
that the Chamber can create a change and the public can once
again have confidence in elected members. These are basic
principles that should and could guide the Chamber in our future
attempts to govern the country.
The ethics code and the ethics counsellor have lost credibility
for reasons now very apparent to the Canadian public. The
counsellor has lost the ability to report directly to the House
and to report to the public on how the Prime Minister and
ministers of the government conduct themselves. A higher
standard has to be applied.
The argument of the Prime Minister and the government House
leader that ultimately the Prime Minister reports directly to the
House falls short. They left out important detail. The Prime
Minister has to be responsible to the House. We have seen an
utter and complete failure of the Prime Minister to be
accountable and to be respectful of the House in the way he has
conducted himself in these affairs.
Mr. John Cannis (Scarborough Centre, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
I listened to the comments of the member from the Conservative
Party. It was a character assassination or a witch hunt. He can
confirm what I say by going back to Hansard. He went on
and on with allegations that supposedly the Prime Minister said
in a meeting to the representative from the bank, that he would
like him to look favourably on the issue. Further the member
said that he could not say what was said in that meeting. If
they stand to state their position, let them state it firmly as
they did during the election campaign.
The leader of the Conservative Party sent a letter; the leader
of the Canadian Alliance Party sent a letter; and the ethics
counsellor responded to them.
They did not let it go during the election, as they state here.
They did not leave a cloud hanging over it. After the election
they pulled it back. It continued. We can read in today's
Quorum about the inquiry.
1310
They are not being fair to the Canadian people by making these
innuendos and allegations. They are not being fair by saying one
thing one moment and contradicting it in the next moment. It is
total hogwash.
Mr. Peter MacKay: Mr. Speaker, let me deal with the
facts. Someone in the Prime Minister's Office denied that he in
fact spoke to Mr. Beaudoin, president of the Business Development
Bank. We know that happened. I may have characterized what took
place, but we know that conversation happened. Only two people
know what happened between those individuals, what transpired in
that conversation.
The Prime Minister should come forward and tell us. He should
be completely frank and open with Canadians. He has an
opportunity to do that. There is nothing stopping the Prime
Minister from telling us what transpired in his living room. If
he has nothing to hide, if there is nothing that he is ashamed of
as he so vehemently states outside the House, let him come
forward and table what took place in his living room. Then we
will have trust and we might have faith.
Excuse me if I am not completely enamoured with the argument
that we should trust the Liberals. We have heard time and time
again about the GST, about free trade and about what they would
not do if they were elected to office. They have swallowed
themselves whole on their promises time and time again.
Mr. Randy White (Langley—Abbotsford, Canadian Alliance):
Mr. Speaker, I compliment the hon. member on his speech contrary
to the position across the way and have a question for him.
If we in the House find or sense an ethical problem with a
minister, in what way would the member propose that we get an
investigation underway? In order to do so we seemingly have to
make a nuisance of ourselves in the House of Commons and raise
the issue to such an extent that we force the government or use
some other means.
My question relates to the fact that the ethics counsellor
reports to the Prime Minister. How is it possible that anybody
else other than the Prime Minister can get an investigation
underway on the ethics of ministers?
Mr. Peter MacKay: Mr. Speaker, the thrust of the entire
debate is how Canadians can have faith in an individual appointed
by and reporting only to the same person who is the subject of
the inquiry in terms of conduct. There is absolutely no
credibility whatsoever.
I refer to a quote from Gordon Robertson, a widely respected
retired clerk of the Privy Council, the head of the Public
Service of Canada who served under Prime Ministers King, St.
Laurent, Pearson and Trudeau. This is what he had to say about
the ethical standards of the Prime Minister, as reported in the
Toronto Star of January 6: “What happened in Shawinigan
never would have met the standard set in Pearson's code of
ethics. I should know. I drafted it. This Prime Minister has
lowered the bar”.
Is the lasting legacy of the Prime Minister that he lowered the
ethical standards and lowered the bar on how a prime minister
conducts himself in office? If that is the legacy he wants, he
has it right now.
Mr. Jim Abbott (Kootenay—Columbia, Canadian Alliance):
Mr. Speaker, this being my first speech of the 37th parliament I
should like to make some brief introductory remarks. First I
thank God for the privilege of being here. I thank my wife and
family for their unending support over the last seven years of
political life. I thank the voters of Kootenay—Columbia who
returned me to the House with a 68% margin, but I am concerned
about the other 32% and I commit to them my unwavering support.
1315
I thank my dedicated campaign team. I also thank my staff who
have consistently served me over the last two terms and who are
continuing into the third term. If they are listening today I
hope they do not give up on me yet.
On the topic at hand, I am going to be referring the Liberal
members to a person who is a former provincial ombudsman. He was
a former land use commissioner and a former deputy attorney
general. I consider this person to be an expert.
Apparently the Prime Minister also considered this person to be
an expert because he selected this man over the incumbent Ted
McWhinney who was the sitting member for Vancouver Quadra. Ted
McWhinney was a constitutional expert and a foreign affairs
consultant with a broad range of contacts. He served two terms
very honourably in the Chamber. He was well respected and just
an all around decent guy.
If the Prime Minister is going dump a person like that, clearly
he must have in mind the calibre of the individual that he is
bringing in. The member who came in, as I say, is a former
ombudsman, a former deputy attorney general and a former land use
commissioner for the province of British Columbia. If the Prime
Minister needs to know much more about the things that we have
been discussing today, and how these things should be handled,
all he needs to do is consult one of his newest MPs, the new
member for Vancouver Quadra.
I give credit to Vaughn Palmer who is a reporter and who asked a
number of questions of the new member for Vancouver Quadra. As
he pointed out, the member needs little introduction to B.C. The
positions he has held give him a unique perspective on the
importance of independence and openness where elected office
holders are accused of wrongdoing, as has been the issue with the
Prime Minister.
The reporter said:
I interviewed (this person) recently on Voice of B.C. on the Shaw
Cable. To his credit, he didn't shirk at the comparison between
the way things are handled here in B.C. and the way things should
be handled in the case involving the Prime Minister.
The member for Vancouver Quadra stated:
B.C. is often looked at as the neanderthal of politics but B.C.
on a number of fronts is a leader in new government...We've led
the country in conflict-of-interest legislation...Our special
prosecutor legislation is unique in Canada and in the
Commonwealth.
When questioned on what specifically could Ottawa learn from
B.C., the new member for Vancouver Quadra answered:
One of them is a conflict-of-interest commissioner who is a
legislative officer rather than part of the executive of the
government and therefore independent of the executive. We've
gained good experience, proud experience and the federal
government may want to look at that.
He went on to say:
One of the most difficult things for politicians to understand
and senior bureaucrats to understand is that there is a line
between the political and the administrative. When a politician
speaks across that line to a senior bureaucrat, there is a danger
of miscommunication and what may, perhaps, look like urging on
behalf of a constituent might be taken as political direction to
deviate from the duty of administrative fairness.
He further stated:
The more senior the politician, the greater the need to be
explicit about what the rules are and what the communication is
about.
The most senior politician in Canada is the incumbent Prime
Minister who hand-picked the member for Vancouver Quadra.
The reporter asked:
This case you are talking about where a senior person calls a
public official on behalf of a constituent sounds an awful lot
like the Prime Minister three times lobbying the federal business
development bank on behalf of a constituent who wanted a loan.
The reply from the member for Vancouver Quadra in January of
this year was “Yeah, I don't think any of us should be
comfortable with the confusion and the public unease that it
caused”.
This is a quotation and I want to underline this. He further
stated:
This is something we've learned earlier in B.C., that you need to
make the rules very explicit, that you need to make the review
processes very transparent and independent. I think this is
something I can take with experience to Ottawa.
That being the case, and with there being a number of speaking
slots open for the balance of the afternoon, I would naturally
assume that the federal Liberals would be happy to have this
member in the speaking rotation.
1320
I think he would be able to bring a lot of light to this issue
and speak directly to the Liberal members across so that they
could understand what the issue is about. Clearly to this point
they have not understood.
Yesterday I asked the industry minister the following question:
Mr. Speaker, Justice Ted Hughes, the B.C. conflict of interest
commissioner, has established this rule for the ministers of
B.C.: “A minister must not make personal representations on
behalf of a constituent to—a commissioner, board, agency, or
other tribunal established by the government.”
The Prime Minister obviously violated this principle in lobbying
the president of the Business Development Bank on behalf of Yvon
Duhaime.
Rather than answering the question directly, the industry
minister attempted to deflect it. He said:
Mr. Speaker, the ethics counsellor has written recently to the
Leader of the Opposition and has responded to the most recent
correspondence from the Leader of the Opposition. He has made
crystal clear that all these matters, all the allegations being
raised today, have been addressed. There were no private benefit
by the Prime Minister whatsoever and no conflict of interest.
The issue is who does that ethics counsellor answer to. If the
ethics counsellor answered to the House there is no possible way
the House would ever permit the ethics counsellor to say “We
don't have any rules about someone actually trying to take direct
influence on a member of a crown corporation so, therefore, I am
exonerating him”.
I am not questioning the ethics or the competence of the ethics
counsellor. What I am questioning are the rules under which the
federal ethics counsellor has been set up.
Under the British Columbia conflict of interest act, clause
14(1) says “There must be appointed a commissioner who is an
officer of the Legislative Assembly”.
That is the most important part but it goes further in paragraph
two. It says:
On the motion of the Premier in the Legislative Assembly and on
the recommendation of 2/3 of the members present, the Lieutenant
Governor in Council must appoint the person so recommended to the
office of commissioner.
The point is that in the province of B.C., he not only answers
to the legislature in terms of his reporting, but clearly
two-thirds of the legislature, the majority, would also be
involved in setting the terms and conditions under which he is
actually operating.
If we are ever going to re-establish the whole concept of trust,
we cannot allow this situation to continue where we have the
ethics commissioner reporting to his boss. If the standards are
established by the Prime Minister, we end up with the kind of
answer we got from the industry minister that I just quoted.
If parliament is not supreme, then the prime minister is king,
autocrat, dictator and supreme ruler. The issue here is
accountability. It would be my hope that the member for
Vancouver Quadra can get these people to wake up, smell the
coffee and realize that it is an issue of accountability.
Furthermore, it is an issue of the government keeping its word
that it put down in black and white in the 1993 campaign.
Mr. Derek Lee (Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the
Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I
want to thank the member opposite for bringing the debate around
to something a bit less over the top and more rational. I am
very pleased to have a chance to comment on his remarks.
He made reference to the framework under which the ethics
counsellor operates. Other speakers have questioned whether or
not such a framework exists and suggested they could not find it.
I have a copy obtained from the Internet this morning. The
document is public and the rules under which the ethics
counsellor operates are quite public and available. One could
argue that those rules should be expanded, but in any event what
is there is there and available for all to see.
The member opposite, and other members have also done this,
moved from referring to an ethics counsellor to an ethics
commissioner. There is a difference between the two. It is
important to realize the distinction. The Liberal Party's
commitment in 1993 was for an ethics counsellor.
1325
I submit to members that this is not necessarily an ethics
enforcer or an ethics policeman, but rather a counsellor who will
counsel officeholders.
Does the member opposite not think there is at least room for
disagreement here or misunderstanding? Office holders rely on a
counsellor. We would not be as forthcoming to a policeman as we
would a counsellor. The counselling function is very important.
We may need a policeman, but a counsellor we have.
Mr. Jim Abbott: Mr. Speaker, I do not take the member's
comments as splitting hairs. Clearly there is a difference
between a counsellor and a commissioner.
However, the words in the motion were lifted directly out of the
promise that the Liberals made in 1993. However, the promise was
not only about an independent ethics counsellor. Therefore, I
agree that there is a difference. However, I give him the last
five words “will report directly to parliament”. Clearly they
have not done that and as a result, unfortunately the Prime
Minister is under a cloud because he is the highest politician in
the land. Unfortunately, if he is under a cloud, every other
politician is also under a cloud.
What would work to his benefit is to simply follow through on
the promises that he authored and he spoke about. He stood in
front of the television cameras with his red book and said that
people could go to the red book, however many days after he was
elected, and see what he had done.
We are saying fine, we are going to the red book and we want
this put in place. If the ethics counsellor was answerable to
parliament, we and perhaps the people of Canada would have some
confidence would have some confidence in the Prime Minister.
Mrs. Elsie Wayne (Saint John, PC): Mr. Speaker, I want
to thank my people back home for having elected me for the last
27 years, not only here, but at home also.
What is happening with this debate on the ethics counsellor is
reflecting on every member of parliament on both sides of the
House.
In the 1993 red book it was stated: “The erosion of competence
seems to have many causes. Some have to do with the behaviour of
certain elected politicians, others with an arrogant style of
political leadership”.
During the selection of any officer presiding over the ethics of
the House should that person be selected by this House? Should
that person be selected by an independent committee of credible
people on both sides of the House? Should the person not be
reporting back to this House, not just to one person, so we can
bring some credibility back to the House of Commons on both sides
of the House? Could the member comment on that.
Mr. Jim Abbott: Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with the
respected member of this chamber. The province of Alberta act
says: “There shall be appointed as an officer of the legislature
by the lieutenant governor in council, on the recommendation of
the legislative assembly, an ethics commissioner to carry out
those duties and functions”.
The province of Ontario's act says “There shall be an Integrity
Commissioner who is an officer of the Assembly”.
I recognize the difference between counsellor and commissioner.
However, when we look at the standards of these ethics
commissioners, we see that there should never be a situation
where we have the highest ranking politician in Canada twisting
the arm of the president of the federal Business Development
Bank, who he appoints, who he can fire, and indeed we suspect did
fire. It casts aspersions on all of us.
Clearly, if the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and
Ontario can get their acts together, what is holding up the
federal government from simply getting its act together and
getting all of us out from under the cloud which the Prime
Minister has put us under?
Mr. Randy White (Langley—Abbotsford, Canadian Alliance):
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure today to speak to this issue. I
too would like to thank the 39,000 people who voted for me in the
last election. I would also like to thank them for the 70% plus
vote we received.
1330
I guess it is due to the common sense of the common people in
British Columbia who look for a relatively conservative type
vote, and I do thank them for that.
I would also like to thank one of the individuals who has been a
big part of my life in politics and a good person to bounce
issues off and that is my mother, who is watching in Chester,
Nova Scotia.
I want to talk about the ethics counsellor and how individuals
in the country or in the House of Commons initiates an
investigation by this individual, because therein I think lies
part of the problem that we face.
The ethics counsellor is supposed to be, in my mind, independent
of the executive, which he is not. He reports to the Prime
Minister. This individual should be looking at the ethics, the
morality and the issues facing members of parliament, but he is
not. He reports on ministers of the government who report to the
Prime Minister. This individual should be interviewed by a
committee of the House, short listed and selected by members of a
committee of the House. He is not. He is basically selected by
the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister says that he has drawn counsel from the
official opposition leader on the appointment, but basically that
is not the case. It is “Hi, how are you doing, thank you,
good-bye”. What is presented on one side is not reality.
The necessity of having an individual who is independent of the
executive and who will report on even more than ministers is
obvious.
I will go back to the issue I first introduced, which is, how is
it possible for an individual, like myself for instance, to
initiate an investigation when I feel something has happened that
is unethical. For example, during the election the current
Minister of Citizenship and Immigration basically said that
members of the Canadian Alliance were Holocaust deniers, racists
and bigots.
In my opinion, not only is that a slanderous comment from a
minister of the government, but it is a comment that should have
been challenged by an individual. The Prime Minister should have
dealt with it but he did not. Instead, he has taken it upon
himself to leave that minister in that position.
I have heard from thousands if not tens of thousands of people
on the issue. They are all concerned about the Minister of
Citizenship and Immigration and her ethical standards of saying
such a thing about so many Canadians. The idea of Holocaust
denier offended so many people that there was a great call for
her resignation.
Mr. Steve Mahoney: But she was re-elected.
Mr. Randy White: A member across the way said that she
was re-elected. Well there were tens of thousands of people who
were concerned about the comment.
Where do people or members of parliament go when such a
slanderous, demeaning comment is made? They can come into the
House and complain about it as much as they want, but with a
majority government it will basically laughed at them. They can
go to the Prime Minister but he will only say that if he gives it
to the ethics counsellor that person might come back and say that
something is wrong and then he would be embarrassed. He will not
do that. Why should he embarrass himself?
The control and the jurisdiction that the Prime Minister has
over the ethics counsellor is totally inappropriate. It would
never exist in any normal organization. We have a minister who,
in my opinion, has a lack of ethics that should be challenged,
and people want it challenged, but there is no avenue to do so
because the Prime Minister would see it as a problem for himself,
a problem for his cabinet.
1335
Therein lies the problem. If that individual did not report to
the executive but reported to the House of Commons in general, I
would bet my bottom dollar that minister would be up for
investigation now.
The way the whole ethics problem in the House of Commons is
handled is totally inappropriate. It should be a matter of
ethics for all members of parliament on this side and that side,
not just ministers.
We have heard a lot about the Prime Minister and his flirtation
with money for the last few years. People are speaking about
that today but I guess the same problem exists. Why would the
Prime Minister appoint the ethics counsellor to investigate the
Prime Minister? How naive would anybody be to think that the
Prime Minister would even permit that? That will not happen.
That is why the whole situation has to be reviewed.
One of the members on the opposite side said there was a
difference in that he is an ethics counsellor and not an ethics
commissioner. An ethics counsellor counsels. He is not an
enforcer yet he should be. If the problem is that they cannot
understand the difference between names and roles then we should
do away with the ethics counsellor and bring in an ethics
commissioner who does not report to the executive but reports to
the House of Commons.
It is simple. To suggest for a moment that the real problem is
the difference in a name between counsellor and commissioner is
assuming that we on this side of the House and the rest of
Canadians are just plain stupid. The real problem is that there
is no chance on earth that the Prime Minister will allow an
investigation of ethics of his ministers, members or himself,
because he would bear the political outfall from that.
The position is a plain waste of time. As much as we would like
to talk about having a person do one thing or another, we are
really wasting our time. If we cared about ethics in the country
and in the House on the part of all members, we would concentrate
first on an ethics commissioner, shortlisted, hired by a
committee of the House of Commons and reporting to the House on
any issue not passed on a motion of the majority. Then again the
majority government would get to pooh-pooh all investigations of
the majority government and allow them or even push them all on
the opposition. There has to be some other mechanism to kick in
an investigation by this new position.
I want to summarize two things. First, the current Minister of
Citizenship and Immigration undertook a particular and
devastating ethical error and still sits in her job unaccountable
for it. Second, we cannot make ministers or anybody else in the
House accountable to a position that reports to the Prime
Minister. That has to change.
Hon. Lorne Nystrom (Regina—Qu'Appelle, NDP): Mr.
Speaker, I support the motion put forward by the opposition
leader in the House today and the comments by the Canadian
Alliance about the importance of ethics and accountability.
I want to ask a question of the former House leader of the
Reform Party about the message it conveyed when members of his
party like the deputy House leader spoke often about
parliamentary pensions and pigs going to a trough and then after
the election did a total flip flop and bought back into the plan.
1340
I am just wondering whether he would agree that she should
follow the precedent of the Minister of Canadian Heritage and
resign her seat, in other words be voluntarily recalled, go back
to her riding and consult her voters through a byelection. It
seems to me that would be the proper way in terms of ethics and
in terms of accountability. Otherwise, how can an opposition
party criticize the government for the lack of ethics when its
own ethical standards in terms of accountability are also
tarnished?
Mr. Randy White: Mr. Speaker, that is a good question
because I think it involves everybody in the House of Commons,
which was the basis of my thesis in the first place.
When there are questions about whether or not something is
ethical, they deserve to be answered regardless of the particular
situation. The House of Commons should have a mechanism to
challenge ethics, not just for ministers but for all members,
including myself, on things we have done or failed to do.
However, the problem here is that there is no mechanism to
undertake these kinds of things. We could not possibly leave
these kinds of questions to an ethics commissioner for those
folks across the way. For goodness sake, they have a majority
government and we all know what happens in that situation. They
out vote everybody else. They could charge, for political
reasons, everybody over on this side and win all of those
charges.
It is a question that has to be worked out. I think all members
should be under the watchful eye of an ethics commissioner.
Mr. Darrel Stinson (Okanagan—Shuswap, Canadian
Alliance): Mr. Speaker, I have to agree with what I heard in
the hon. member's speech. I also heard complaints about the
Minister of Citizenship and Immigration with regard to some of
her comments during the campaign. The ethics counsellor could be
an avenue where that could be addressed.
I also understood the member to say that an ethics commissioner
is already in place in British Columbia. Did this position come
into place after the NDP were caught raiding the charities,
filtering the money out of that and using it during its
campaigns? If so, it is a good example of why we do need that
here in Ottawa.
My understanding of the way it is set up now is that it is
almost like asking Frank James to look after Jesse James or
Bonnie to look after Clyde.
Mr. Randy White: Mr. Speaker, I do not know when the
ethics commissioner was appointed in British Columbia. However,
no matter when he was appointed, I have not seen many ethics in
the government of British Columbia for a number of years.
We will be throwing out the NDP very shortly. That is one of
the good blessings of elections. Perhaps then, once again
British Columbia will lead the country in the economy.
Even if an ethics commissioner is in place, as we have in
British Columbia, it does not guarantee an ethical government.
However, at least an ethics commissioner will bring issues to the
public and then the decision will be made at the polls as to
whether or not justice is done.
Hon. Lorne Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, with respect and with
deference, I wonder if the member would answer the question I
asked. I asked him whether the ethical thing for the deputy
leader of the Canadian Alliance Party to do, because of her
decision after the election to buy back into her pension plan
after promising not to, a fundamental commitment that she made,
would be to voluntarily resign and face her electorate in a
byelection like the member for Hamilton East did on the GST
issue?
Mr. Randy White: Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that the
NDP is trying to degrade the discussion.
If we want to talk about ethics, I only need to look to my left
down here at the NDP and I can really spend all day talking about
ethics or the lack thereof.
Mr. Steve Mahoney (Mississauga West, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
it is not often that I get a chuckle out of things that are said
over there, but it is interesting that the former speaker accused
one of the NDP members of degrading the discussion.
All we have seen in this House, and once again we see today by
putting this motion forward—
1345
Mr. Randy White: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
I am the former House leader, not the former Speaker. I came
this close to Speaker—
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair): So noted.
Mr. Steve Mahoney: Mr. Speaker, I will refer to him as
the person who just finished speaking. Is that any better?
Never mind Jesse James or whatever that was. It is like Homer
looking after Bart Simpson over there. We are seeing that on an
ongoing basis.
I want to address the issue that the person who just finished
speaking brought up. It is the issue of comments made during the
election by one of my colleagues, the Minister of Citizenship and
Immigration.
Is it not interesting to note that when comments are made
outside of this place there is no legal protection for any
member? If the party opposite was so incensed in its rather
thin skinned approach to the Minister of Citizenship and
Immigration, who was at the time a candidate for re-election for
the Liberal Party, why did it not simply do something about it?
The comment was not made under the protection of the House of
Commons. That party has access and recourse to the legal system
if its members feel they have been slandered in some way.
The comment that was made was based on the fact that over the
years enough things have been said by people purporting to
represent that party and its predecessor such that an image has
been created within the broader public in Canada that it attracts
people with some unusual, perhaps to be kind, fringe ideas.
I recall during the election campaign having a very fine
gentleman representing the Alliance Party running against me in
my riding of Mississauga West. He was a member of the Chinese
community, in fact, the president of the Chinese Association of
Mississauga. I remember how upset he was at an all candidates
meeting about the comment that came from one Betty Granger, a
candidate for that party, who talked about the Asian invasion.
Members can imagine how my opponent, being of Asian extraction,
reacted and how he felt in regard to that kind of insensitive
comment. That is the problem and that is what the minister, the
candidate at the time in Thornhill, was referring to. So if
those members opposite want to say that she did not have a right
to make those comments, I beg to differ, and they have a right to
take action.
Let me share another example of what is, in my view, unethical
behaviour, a statement that I am quite prepared to make either in
this place or outside this place. I am referring to the current
Leader of the Opposition who, when a member of the Alberta
legislature, wrote a letter—he did not say this in the Alberta
legislature—to the editor slandering a lawyer who was
representing a person who had been charged, not yet convicted,
with pedophilia.
The implication in the letter written by the Leader of the
Opposition, the implication that people took, was that somehow
this defence attorney was in support of pedophiles because he had
the gall to represent someone who had been charged with a
criminal act. Do members see the fundamental problem with that?
He did not say it exactly. It was implied. The court seemed to
agree that the implication was there because it forced the Leader
of the Opposition into a settlement.
If the Leader of the Opposition was not afraid of having his day
in court, why did he settle? I presume he received advice from
his lawyers who told him he was in deep trouble and that he had
better cut a deal, settle and get out.
1350
The fundamental principle in our justice system is that whether
we like the charge or not, whether or not in our opinion the
person is as guilty as we can imagine, it is not up to him and it
is not up to any one of us to sit in judgment of a fellow citizen
who has been charged but has not yet had their day in court or
had an opportunity to present a defence and tell his or her
story.
That did not seem to matter to the then member of the Alberta
legislature. He felt that it was very justifiable, outside of
the protection of that chamber, to publicly castigate this
person.
If we want to talk about ethics, I think it is indefensible for
him to make that kind of assertion as someone who has tried to
stand tall as a member of the Alberta legislature in a very
important position, who I believe was a minister of labour, who
certainly was a finance minister, who worked in that
distinguished position in that distinguished facility and who was
entrusted with the confidence of the people of his riding.
I do not know how anyone, including that particular member, can
defend it. It grates on us a bit on this side of the House to
see someone who actually did that stand here and lecture us about
ethics. I do not know that they on that side understand the
implications of the word.
Then he left town and came to Ottawa as the leader of Her
Majesty's loyal opposition, leaving behind him a bill for the
taxpayers as a result of the settlement that was made as a result
of the letter that he wrote. As a result of the unethical
practice of castigating a member of the bar in the province of
Alberta and attacking that person with his personal views, he
left behind an $800,000 tab for the taxpayers in Alberta to pick
up.
There is a former attorney general from Alberta in the House. I
find it hard to believe that the hon. gentleman can stand with a
straight face or can stomach the activity by the person who is
now his leader.
To give members another example of this holier than thou
populist prairie preacher who comes into the House of Commons
pretending to be the new sheriff in town, pretending he is going
to change the way we do things, this is the fellow—
Mr. Richard Harris: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
I strongly object to the
characterizations of the member opposite, who is known in the
House for his personal attacks during his speeches. I ask that
he withdraw that sarcastic reference to our leader he just
uttered.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair): That is not necessarily
a point of order, but on the other hand I would ask the hon.
member for Mississauga West to be more judicious in his choice of
words.
Mr. Steve Mahoney: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure which one
of the sarcastic remarks he wants me to withdraw, so it is
difficult for me to respond to that. The problem I have is that
I am only telling the truth so it means that I cannot withdraw
comments that are based on fact.
Let me also tell members about comments made by the Leader of
the Opposition in the election. He informed the public that the
seat he was running for had been voluntarily and cheerfully
vacated by Mr. Jim Hart, who was the member of the day. He said
that. It is in black and white. We all know he said it and the
members opposite know he said it, only for us to find out at a
later date that Mr. Hart was given $50,000 in return for vacating
his seat.
I found it interesting that the member for Wild Rose was quoted
as saying “Fifty thousand dollars? That is an awful lot of
bucks”. He was pretty upset about that.
1355
Those members who purport to tell us how we should behave in
government paid off one of their members to open up a safe seat
for their leader to run in. I think the Canadian people did
judge. I found it interesting when I heard a member opposite,
one who spoke earlier, say that we need to change this so the
people of Canada could have confidence in the Prime Minister.
Our party has 172 seats in the country, with parliamentarians
representing every province, every territory and every part of
the country. I will admit we are not as strong in some parts of
the country as we would like, but we clearly have a larger
majority. I believe the Canadian people showed their confidence
in the Prime Minister and in the government. More important,
they showed that they were not prepared to entrust the Canadian
Alliance or any other party with the responsibility of governing.
Let me also say that it is very difficult for us to accept
lectures from a party when its deputy leader decides, after
having railed against gold plated pensions in this place, to
invest $89,000, magically turn that into a $1 million asset and
then say that she needs to take care of her family. The hon.
member should have thought of that before she came in here with
the pigs, the buttons and the snorting that went on in the most
disgusting display that most of us have ever seen in this place.
Now we find out today that a second member, the member for
Medicine Hat, has invested $50,000 to buy back in. This is what
he said in an interview from Ottawa: “I probably cannot square
it. We will try to do our best to explain it”.
Mr. Jim Abbott: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
I know that in a former life as Deputy Speaker you used to hold
an awful lot of us to the issue of relevance. I do not find any
relevance in what this member is talking about.
The Speaker: I know that after question period the hon.
member for Mississauga West will have nine minutes remaining. I
am sure he will point out in the course of those nine minutes the
relevance of the statements he is making to the motion before the
House dealing with a statement about the ethics commissioner
being responsible to parliament. I am sure we will hear from the
hon. member for Mississauga West as to relevance later this
afternoon.
STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS
[English]
THE ENVIRONMENT
Ms. Aileen Carroll (Barrie—Simcoe—Bradford, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, I stand to congratulate the Hon. Minister of the
Environment for being the first Canadian to be elected as
president of the governing council of the United Nations
Environment Program, UNEP.
UNEP is a forum for governments to tackle critical environmental
issues. Canada is now positioned to become a leader in
developing the international environmental agenda for the next
two years.
In the same forum scientists warned that greenhouse gases that
have been locked in the Arctic's permafrost for millennia are now
being released because of global warming. Damage to the
permafrost will unleash enormous environmental harm, thus the
need for UNEP to attempt a speedy ratification of the 1997 Kyoto
protocol.
Canada, as a signatory and now positioned to be a world leader,
must demonstrate that we are working diligently to honour our
commitments made in Kyoto.
* * *
EARL MCCUTCHEON AND ROSS WEAVER
Mr. John Williams (St. Albert, Canadian Alliance): Mr.
Speaker, I rise today to recognize Sergeant Earl McCutcheon from
my riding of St. Albert and Corporal Ross Weaver from Edmonton.
They were recently awarded the Medal of Bravery by the Governor
General for their heroic actions in Kosovo.
Sergeant McCutcheon and Corporal Weaver entered an undefined
minefield to rescue an elderly civilian who had been seriously
injured by stepping on a mine. Realizing that immediate care was
required to save his life, the two officers cautiously made their
way through the unmarked minefield, administered first aid and
co-ordinated the evacuation of the victim to a hospital for
intensive care that saved his life.
It is the heroic actions of our soldiers like Sergeant
McCutcheon and Corporal Weaver that define Canada as a nation
committed to peace and human rights. On behalf of the people of
St. Albert, Edmonton, and indeed, on behalf of all Canadians, I
thank them for acting selflessly in the face of danger. We can be
proud of their dedication and service to our nation.
* * *
1400
SAFE DRINKING WATER
Hon. Charles Caccia (Davenport, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
according to the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, most Canadian
provinces and territories have inadequate laws to ensure the
safety of our drinking water. The survey it conducted shows that
regulations in four other Canadian jurisdictions are as bad or
worse than those in Ontario prior to the Walkerton tragedy.
The situation calls for federal leadership. The Speech from the
Throne contains a commitment to safeguard our freshwater supply.
We have to move from non-binding drinking water guidelines to
strong regulations to prevent toxic substances and waterborne
contaminants resulting from industrial and agricultural
operations from reaching the water supply.
Legally binding standards aimed at ensuring a safe drinking
water supply for Canadians are needed from coast to coast.
* * *
CATRIONA LEMAY-DOAN
Mr. Rick Laliberte (Churchill River, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
it gives me great pleasure to rise in the House today to
recognize the accomplishments of Canada's best amateur athletes.
A world class Olympian is what Catriona LeMay-Doan of Saskatoon
is today. The undisputed star of women's long track speed
skating captured gold medals in both the 500 metre and 1,000
metre World Cup races held this past Saturday in the Netherlands.
The reigning Olympian speed skate champion in the 500 metres has
won six of seven World Cup races this season in the 500 metres
and on two occasions bettered her world record.
Training out of the Calgary Olympic Oval, which is still
recognized as the best ice in the world, Ms. LeMay-Doan leads a
strong Canadian speed skating team that is preparing for the 2002
winter games just one year away.
I congratulate Ms. LeMay-Doan for being an exceptional Canadian.
We are all very proud of her and wish her the best in her future
endeavours.
* * *
[Translation]
REGIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Georges Farrah
(Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, I would like to take the few minutes I have at my
disposal to draw attention to the exception results our
government has had with its action aimed at economic recovery in
the Gaspé and Îles-de-la-Madeleine.
The Minister of National Revenue and Secretary of State
responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada
announced on October 4, 2000, that a new regional office of the
Economic Development Agency would be opening at Gaspé. It has
been providing service since the fall to the Gaspé and
Îles-de-la-Madeleine.
The performance of this new office over its first four months
confirms without a doubt that it is an important tool in the
regional economy.
In just a few months 50 new applications have been formally
submitted, and decisions already reached on 18 of them. As a
result the federal government has been able to contribute $2
million, which has generated investments of $5,2 million and
created or maintained 233 jobs.
From the number of applications it is clear that what our
government is doing in the Gaspé and Îles-de-la-Madeleine region
is appropriate. Its commitment to the future of the people of
that region is equally clear.
* * *
[English]
CUSTOMS
Mr. Myron Thompson (Wild Rose, Canadian Alliance): Mr.
Speaker, according to the National Post we have just
learned that the Liberal government in the past couple of years
has relaxed our customs regulations to the point that they have
now become an honour system called CANPASS.
Private aircraft with less than 15 passengers are free to land
at any airport without customs inspection merely by calling a
central phone number to report their arrival. To make matters
worse, the itineraries of these planes are considered
confidential information by Nav Can so customs is truly working
blind.
With regulations this loose Canada will quickly become the
number one destination for organized cartels and their smuggling
of drugs, guns and human beings.
The American government is so concerned with Canada's sieve-like
borders that it is now considering the placement of troops along
our border. It has no alternative, since drug cartels can simply
load up, fly to Canada and distribute south of the border. Does
it honestly make sense to the minister of customs that we do not
search international flights?
The solution is simple. CANPASS must be scrapped immediately.
Anything less is not only unacceptable but a dangerous threat to
all Canadians.
* * *
[Translation]
BLACK HISTORY MONTH
Mrs. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, February is an important month to me and to many
Canadians.
As the House is aware, it has been officially designated Black
History Month. This is an opportune time for all Canadians to
think about the important contributions of black Canadians to the
development of the Canadian identity and to the realization of an
open society focussed on the individual.
[English]
February also presents an ideal opportunity to highlight a book
which has recently been published and is entitled Millennium
Minds: 100 Black Canadians. Written by Ottawa author
Patricia Holas, this beautiful photo biographical book draws the
profiles of men and women in black communities across Canada who
have contributed or are still contributing with both passion and
pride to the diversity of Canadian culture and to our country's
evolution.
I congratulate Patricia Holas for an outstanding accomplishment
and best wishes to all for a great month of black history.
* * *
1405
[Translation]
CLONING
Ms. Pauline Picard (Drummond, BQ): Mr. Speaker, with human
cloning the topic of the day, and countries like Great Britain,
the United States, France and Germany drafting legislation to
cover practices in this matter, Canada cannot manage to even
produce a bill or initiate debate.
Cloning is a serious matter raising fundamental issues about the
future of humanity. This sort of thing should not be discussed
in secret but rather in the House of Commons.
For five years I have been asking the government to act on the
issue, and the minister says he is still thinking. While the
federal government is thinking, other countries are acting and
changing their laws to permit human cloning for therapeutic and
scientific reasons.
This government's inaction, lack of transparency and lack of
initiative put Canada once again dangerously close to missing
the boat.
* * *
ALEXANDRE LAFLEUR
Ms. Hélène Scherrer (Louis-Hébert, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, allow
me first to sincerely thank the people of my riding of
Louis-Hébert for according me the honour of representing them in
Ottawa.
In addition, I would like to congratulate a young student in
Sainte-Foy, Alexandre Lafleur, who is studying natural science at
the CEGEP there. He is going on the team Canada trip to China
today, sponsored by the pharmaceutical and telecommunications
sectors.
This will be a unique experience for this young man and an
honour for us to be represented by Mr. Lafleur, nicknamed the
“whiz kid” by Quebec City's paper Le Soleil.
I wish Alexandre, an excellent trip.
In closing, I invite my colleagues in the House of Commons to
visit the Quebec City region during the carnival, which ends this
weekend. There will be the sculptures, the ice palace, hooch
filled walking sticks and, of course, Bonhomme Carnaval.
* * *
[English]
KAMLOOPS, THOMPSON AND HIGHLAND VALLEYS
Mrs. Betty Hinton (Kamloops, Thompson and Highland Valleys,
Canadian Alliance): Mr. Speaker, today I rise for the first
time in the House of Commons to give thanks to my family, to my
campaign workers and to the wonderful constituents of Kamloops,
Thompson and Highland Valleys. On November 27 they elected me as
their representative by an overwhelming majority. I consider it
a great honour and a great responsibility.
My riding is one of the most beautiful places in Canada, if not
the entire world. It is an area of sage, pine forests, majestic
mountains and clear, crisp rivers and lakes. My riding is home
to Nancy Greene-Raine, a two time Olympic gold medalist and the
Canadian female athlete of the century. It is also home to the
Kamloops Blazers, winners of six WHL championships and three
Memorial Cups. My riding is home to Helmeken Falls, It Lake,
Shuswap Lake, Highland Valley Copper and some of the finest
cattle ranches in Canada.
The fine people in my riding sent me here with a mandate and a
very simple message for the Liberal government: Rome is burning
and it is time to stop fiddling.
* * *
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT WEEK
Mr. Stephen Owen (Vancouver Quadra, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
this week is International Development Week which brings together
a wide range of public and private institutions, NGOs, government
agencies such as CIDA, CUSO activities, CESO and the IDRC. They
work in a dedicated way toward the belief that development and
the reduction of poverty are absolutely essential to human
rights, democracy and peace worldwide.
The Government of Canada recognizes this importance. In the
budget of 2000 it increased spending for CIDA by $435 million and
the recent throne speech announces further increases to that
budget.
This properly recognizes the balance between Canada's enjoyment
of and success in the global economy and meeting its global
social responsibilities.
* * *
NUCLEAR MISSILE DEFENCE
Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern
Shore, NDP): Mr. Speaker, with the election of George Bush in
the United States it appears that the U.S. will move quickly to
deploy the nuclear missile defence shield. It is planning to
coerce an already gullible foreign affairs minister and an all
too willing Liberal government into joining them.
Last year my former colleague Mr. Gordon Earle of Halifax West
stated that a top U.S. defence official was quoted as saying that
for all practical terms Canada is the 51st state. The nuclear
missile defence shield program will not only give away more of
our sovereignty in terms of our defence policy, but it will also
suck away hundreds of millions of dollars from our already
financially starved armed forces. In the end it lead us down the
path of nuclear missile madness and accelerate the arms race.
1410
New Democrats across the country stress upon the government and
all political parties that instead of shielding us from other
countries, we should all work together toward a global initiative
on world peace, human rights, decent labour standards, fair
trade, world poverty and the environment.
* * *
[Translation]
SPEECH FROM THE THRONE
Mr. Richard Marceau (Charlesbourg—Jacques-Cartier, BQ): Mr.
Speaker, this month marks the second anniversary of the agreement
on social union.
Under that agreement, all the provinces, with the exception of
Quebec, agreed to let the federal government intrude into
provincial jurisdictions. Moreover, the throne speech recently
confirmed the government's intentions to continue to infringe on
provincial jurisdictions and, worse still, to build Canada by
denying the Quebec reality.
The intergovernmental co-operation that the government raves
about seems to apply only to provincial issues.
Indeed, the federal government has never agreed to co-operate
with the provinces in its own areas of jurisdiction, such as
monetary policy.
The choice that Quebecers will have to make is not between the
status quo and sovereignty. They will have to choose between a
Canadian state that is increasingly centralized and unitary, and
the country of Quebec.
* * *
[English]
EAST COAST MUSIC AWARDS
Mr. Shawn Murphy (Hillsborough, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am
pleased to announce that this weekend the city of Charlottetown
will be hosting the East Coast Music Awards. More than 1,200
delegates representing every facet of the music industry will be
in Charlottetown for talent showcases, jam sessions, workshops
and the nationally televised awards show.
The festival recognizes the finest singers, songwriters and
musicians in the region. Since its creation in Halifax more than
10 years ago, the East Coast Music Awards has grown into one of
the biggest entertainment events in the country. The highlight
of the weekend shall be the presentation of the director's
special achievement award, being awarded this year to Anne
Murray.
I congratulate the organizers of this event and I wish all
participants, organizers and fans a most enjoyable and rewarding
weekend.
* * *
HEATING FUEL REBATE
Mr. Norman Doyle (St. John's East, PC): Mr. Speaker,
Canadians are outraged. The government has so mismanaged the
heating relief fund that multiple cheques are going to some
households, prisoners are receiving the rebates and people who do
not pay for heat are qualifying for heating relief. Yet
Canadians who need the assistance to help combat the high cost of
heating fuel are not receiving these funds.
How could the government have administered this program so
poorly? Canadian taxpayers do not want to see their money being
given to people who are not bearing the burden of high heating
costs. The government has allowed all GST credit recipients to
qualify for this relief, at a cost of $1.3 billion. There is no
connection between receipt of a GST rebate and entitlement to a
heating fuel rebate.
The government has shown once again that it is governing by
default. Could the government tell us why some people are
receiving rebates when they are not paying heating fuel costs?
All we are asking for here is a bit of common sense.
* * *
BRAS D'OR—CAPE BRETON
Mr. Rodger Cuzner (Bras d'Or—Cape Breton, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise in the House today
to thank the people of Bras d'Or—Cape Breton for electing me as
their member of parliament. I extend a special thanks to my
family for their love and support and to all those committed
individuals who worked countless hours on my election campaign.
As the member for Bras d'Or—Cape Breton I will work to
represent the needs of my constituents. I will be a strong voice
on the issues of employment insurance and job creation. I will
work toward a strong, thriving economy to ensure that our young
people have a future on Cape Breton Island.
I look forward to working with and serving the people of Bras
d'Or—Cape Breton and once again thank them for their support.
* * *
HEATING FUEL REBATE
Mr. Randy White (Langley—Abbotsford, Canadian Alliance):
Mr. Speaker, here is another bit of brain surgery by the other
side. We know the federal government is giving natural gas
rebates. Are they based on the people who paid the bills in the
first place? Nope. They are based on the 1999 GST rebate.
Who is getting these rebates? Why, federal prisoners who have
not paid one cent in natural gas bills are getting the rebates.
People who are out of the country are getting the rebates. People
who are deceased are getting the rebates.
What is wrong with the government over there? Does it have no
sense? Does it have no sense of responsibility at all?
* * *
1415
[Translation]
AMERICONTACT 2001
Mr. Claude Drouin (Beauce, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I would like to
take a few moments to mention one of the many measures taken by
our government to support exporters in their efforts to
consolidate and diversify their export markets.
On January 22, the Minister of National Revenue and Secretary of
State for the Economic Development Agency of Canada announced a
non refundable contribution of $700,000 by the Government of
Canada for an economic forum organized by Americontact 2001.
This international event, which will take place from April 3 to
April 5, 2001, will be attended by business people from the
greater Quebec City region and by financial partners from the 34
countries that will participate in the Summit of the Americas.
This is a unique opportunity to promote the commercial,
scientific and industrial value of the Quebec
City-Chaudière-Appalaches region.
This is a clear commitment by our government toward the future
of Quebec and Canada.
ORAL QUESTION PERIOD
[English]
GRANTS AND CONTRIBUTIONS
Miss Deborah Grey (Edmonton North, Canadian Alliance): Mr.
Speaker, yesterday I asked the Prime Minister about his
involvement in arranging $2.35 million worth of immigrant
investor funds for the Auberge Grand-Mère. I remind the House
that the auberge had a golf course right next door to it, which
the Prime Minister owned at the time. He said there was no
conflict because the Quebec government administered that fund.
No such luck. In 1996 brokers decided where those immigrant
investor funds were spent and the Prime Minister met with those
brokers. Why is he denying the link between his meeting and
those millions?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, I have explained all that very clearly to everybody. I
receive visitors in my office. I receive all members who want to
come and have a picture taken in my office. A group came, took a
picture, and I never talk to anybody. I have nobody to take
notes.
What surprises me is that for two elections the member was
telling the people that she was holier than anybody else and that
she would never accept a pension from anybody. Now she is
elected and is entitled to a pension, she changes her mind. What
about hypocrisy?
Some hon. members: Oh, oh.
The Speaker: Order, please. We all want to hear the
questions as well as the answers. I invite hon. members to
restrain themselves while the questions are being put and the
answers being given. The restraint must apply to both sides of
the House.
Miss Deborah Grey (Edmonton North, Canadian Alliance):
Mr. Speaker, I know they changed the ground rules on the pension,
but we should not be surprised they change it on just about
everything.
In fact, the Prime Minister just reiterated what he said:
I receive members of parliament from both sides every day at 3
o'clock (now it is for photos) and visitors also come to see
me...We shake hands, discuss things for two or three minutes and
then they leave. This visit was of the same nature.
Now it is for photos. I could only imagine how many the
millions could have been raised if they had stayed for six
minutes in his office.
The Prime Minister needs to clarify this point. Did he have
more than one meeting with the immigrant investors?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, I met them. I never had any other meeting. I do not
remember the names of these people. I saw their picture later
on.
I meet hundreds of people and I try to be nice with everybody,
even if the hon. member comes to my office with some of her own
electors.
Miss Deborah Grey (Edmonton North, Canadian Alliance):
So, Mr. Speaker, here he is. He did not have relations with
those people.
There is an unbelievable connection here with a meeting that he
had with a representative of the immigrant investor fund and
money flowing to the Auberge Grand-Mère. He could try and
trivialize it away, but during the election campaign he said “He
has not invested a damn cent in that”. Surely he must know who
he is talking about.
The fact is we now know that $2.35 million was invested and
funnelled into his own riding. I am sure the Prime Minister
would never try to mislead Canadians during an election campaign,
so why did he deny that that money was ever invested?
Hon. Brian Tobin (Minister of Industry, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, the Prime Minister would have no reason to know what the
immigrant investor fund is investing or not investing. It is
administered by the government of Quebec, and the member ought to
know that.
Today is February 8. As recently as January 29, the ethics
counsellor wrote to the Leader of the Opposition in a two page
missive in answer to the latest allegations: “Therefore it has
been my position that the Prime Minister had no financial links
with either the golf course or the auberge”. It is time to stop
these scandalous attacks on the Prime Minister.
1420
Mr. Grant McNally (Dewdney—Alouette, Canadian Alliance):
Mr. Speaker, the new member for Vancouver Quadra says it is
dangerous when a politician bends the rules to benefit a
constituent.
When asked specifically about the Prime Minister lobbying the
president of the BDC, the member for Vancouver Quadra said “I do
not think any of us should be comfortable with the confusion and
the public unease that it caused”.
I have a question for the Prime Minister. Who is right on this?
Is it his new member, the former ombudsman for British Columbia,
or him?
Hon. Brian Tobin (Minister of Industry, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, I will tell the member who is right. Who is right is
the gentleman, and the only gentleman, who has done an objective
analysis of this issue.
He is not part of a partisan campaign. He was not part of the
same nonsense that was raised during the election and failed to
persuade the people of Canada. That is the ethics counsellor who
has answered every question with a clear statement that the Prime
Minister has acted with integrity. That is who is right.
Mr. Grant McNally (Dewdney—Alouette, Canadian Alliance):
Mr. Speaker, I wonder what the minister thinks of his colleague.
The member for Vancouver Quadra went on to say that a case like
this should be put into the hands of an independent conflict
commissioner and a special prosecutor.
Why will the Prime Minister not allow for a truly independent
investigation into his dealings in Shawinigan?
Hon. Brian Tobin (Minister of Industry, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, this matter has been looked into by an independent
ethics counsellor.
What has not been looked into by an independent counsellor is
the fact that the leader of the Alliance has personally benefited
from public funds to the tune of $800,000. That has never been
looked into but may in a court of law in the province of Alberta.
* * *
[Translation]
FOOD INSPECTION
Mr. Gilles Duceppe (Laurier—Sainte-Marie, BQ): Mr. Speaker,
yesterday, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food said in the
House, and I quote “We have one of the best food safety systems
in the world—”
This morning, we learned that not only does the auditor general
have doubts about this, but the agency's even said they are
unable to say when food inspection problems will be corrected.
Does the minister still stand by his statement about the
superiority of our inspection system, or does he intend to take
the necessary corrective action?
[English]
Hon. Lyle Vanclief (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food,
Lib.): Mr. Speaker, as we have always said, we appreciate the
comments and the review by the auditor general.
I believe the hon. member was referring to a specific area. The
auditor general was concerned with structural things. I think he
referred to such things as paint chips and rooms in facilities
that needed to be painted.
I assure the hon. member and all Canadians again that food
provided to Canadians through our food processing and
manufacturing facilities is safe.
[Translation]
Mr. Gilles Duceppe (Laurier—Sainte-Marie, BQ): Mr. Speaker,
the system is so good that the agency spokesperson tells us he
does not even know when it will be possible to correct the
problems and that they will not be corrected at all unless 500
inspectors are hired to do the work properly.
Does the minister in fact intend to hire the 500 inspectors that
would make the system the best in the world, as he describes it,
when this is not at all the case right now, and agency officials
are themselves questioning the quality of the job they are doing?
[English]
Hon. Lyle Vanclief (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food,
Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I do not think it is raising the level of
confidence or assuring the level of confidence in our food
system, which is there as our track record has shown very
clearly, when the hon. member makes those type of statements.
As a government we have put many more millions of dollars in the
last year into the food safety system through the Department of
health and through the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. We are
constantly adding resources and personnel to continue to assure
Canadians that our food system is one of the safest systems in
the world.
1425
[Translation]
Mr. Michel Gauthier (Roberval, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the auditor
general has pointed out that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency
has not been doing its job properly. Regardless of what the
minister has to say over and over again about our system being
one of the best in the world, this is of great concern to all
Canadians.
My question for the Minister of Agriculture is this: Does the
minister seriously believe his words are reassuring to consumers
when 75% of problem cases relating to cross contamination are
still not being settled within 12 to 28 months, and the agency
spokesperson cannot give any guarantee that this will change in
the coming year? How can he continue saying the same thing when
the experts are saying something that is virtually the opposite?
[English]
Hon. Lyle Vanclief (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food,
Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I want to clarify by suggesting to the
hon. member again that he not make statements which lower the
confidence of Canadians in our food system.
When the production or safety of food in a plant in Canada is
found to be in danger, the production of that product is stopped
immediately. If he would read the whole section of the report,
the auditor general refers to such things as chipping paint or
something like that in a room. The operation is given a period
of time to correct that. If it is not done over a period of
time—
The Speaker: The hon. member for Roberval.
[Translation]
Mr. Michel Gauthier (Roberval, BQ): Mr. Speaker, how can the
minister be so confident? How can he keep on saying there are no
problems in the system, that it is one of the best in the world?
Our auditor general is also one of the best in the world.
He says that the government and the agency are not doing their
job. Why should we believe the minister under these
circumstances, when even the experts at the agency are saying
that the problem would not be settled with 500 more inspectors,
even in a year. He should open his eyes before something
happens.
[English]
Hon. Lyle Vanclief (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food,
Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I will repeat. When the auditor general
points out situations like this one, which is his job, the
Canadian Food Inspection Agency and every other ministry move to
correct them and to find the resources as quickly as possible.
However, I repeat. The best statement about the Canadian Food
Inspection Agency and the work it does is the track record of the
safety of food in Canada, and it is second to none.
* * *
TOBACCO PRODUCTS
Ms. Alexa McDonough (Halifax, NDP): Mr. Speaker, we know
that tobacco kills. That is why the government spends taxpayer
money on anti-smoking campaigns.
Tomorrow the Prime Minister goes to China. He will bring with
him his toothbrush, his pyjamas, and a couple of tobacco
companies.
Why does the government think that selling toxic products to
Canadian children is bad but selling the same lethal product to
Chinese children is perfectly all right? Is that not the height
of hypocrisy?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, selling tobacco is not illegal in Canada; nothing is
illegal. We have some farmers in Canada who produce that product
and would like to sell their product.
They asked the government of Ontario to be members of the
delegation and the government accepted putting them on the
delegation to go with team Canada.
I think when we can help farmers in Canada it is our duty to do
so.
Ms. Alexa McDonough (Halifax, NDP): Mr. Speaker, why
does the Prime Minister want Canada to be a merchant of death?
Listen to this quote: “The fight against tobacco use is global.
It is hoped that other countries will benefit from Canada's
approach”.
Who said that? The Minister of Health said it last summer. By
promoting tobacco in China the government is doing exactly the
opposite of what the health minister advocates. Every year
800,000 Chinese die from tobacco related illnesses. How many
more is the Prime Minister willing to see die?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, they are saying that we should let farmers produce
tobacco for Canadians, but we should not let farmers produce
tobacco for the Chinese. I understand now why the Canadian
people think that party is completely irrelevant.
* * *
1430
ETHICS COUNSELLOR
Right Hon. Joe Clark (Calgary Centre, PC): Mr. Speaker,
the Prime Minister consulted the ethics counsellor in January
1996 to advise that no payment had been received for the Prime
Minister's shares in the Grand-Mère golf club. Less than 90 days
later the Prime Minister intervened with the Business Development
Bank, lobbying for a loan for the Auberge Grand-Mère which
adjoins and enhances that golf course.
With his ownership of the golf club shares still in question, how
can the Prime Minister possibly claim that there was no conflict
of interest?
Hon. Brian Tobin (Minister of Industry, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, in response to the question raised by the leader of the
Progressive Conservative Party, let me read from the letter dated
January 29, 2000. It states:
My conclusion, on November 21, 2000, was that “the Prime
Minister, in calling the President of the BDC, did not violate
any rule which has been established by the Canadian Government in
terms of Ministers dealing on behalf of constituents with
government agencies”.
The ethics counsellor went on to say that the ownership of those
properties were transferred in 1993 before the now member for
Shawinigan became Prime Minister of Canada.
Right Hon. Joe Clark (Calgary Centre, PC): Mr. Speaker,
the Prime Minister is familiar with Mr. Justice Ted Hughes who
headed the Vander Zalm inquiry in British Columbia. The Prime
Minister himself named him to head the APEC inquiry. He is a man
of unquestioned integrity and independence.
The Prime Minister wants this auberge issue settled. Would he
agree to name Mr. Justice Ted Hughes to examine all the evidence,
determine if there has been a conflict of interest in this case
and report to the House of Commons? This deserves an answer from
the Prime Minister of Canada.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh.
The Speaker: Order, please. I would caution the House
that I think booing is quite inappropriate.
Hon. Brian Tobin (Minister of Industry, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, yesterday the leader of the Conservative Party admitted
to the press that he had absolutely no proof of wrongdoing and
told the journalists “Let's leave it that I am fishing at this
stage”. Yes he is, and he has come up empty once again.
* * *
INTERNATIONAL LOANS
Mr. Charlie Penson (Peace River, Canadian Alliance): Mr.
Speaker, yesterday I questioned the logic behind the Liberal
government's $500 million low interest loan to Brazil because of
Brazil's policy to promote its aerospace industry with massive
subsidies.
The Minister of Finance told the House that Brazil never
exercised that option. However, page 33 of his department's
1999-2000 performance report states that Canada did indeed lend
the money to Brazil and that Brazil paid it back along with $20
million of interest.
Was the finance minister talking about an additional loan he was
making to Brazil, or would he just admit he was wrong?
Hon. Paul Martin (Minister of Finance, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, the loan that is being raised, in terms of Brazil, on
behalf of all the countries was made not by individual countries
but by the Bank for International Settlements. It is the one
that provided the loan and a number of G7 countries guaranteed
parts of the loan. Canada guaranteed $500 million of that loan.
The loan was paid back. The guarantee was never exercised, as I
said yesterday.
Mr. Charlie Penson (Peace River, Canadian Alliance): Mr.
Speaker, I guess we should send back the $14 million in interest
that we received as a result of that loan.
Does the finance minister not understand the irony of the
situation of loaning money to Brazil which allowed them to
subsidize their aerospace industry to the detriment of Canadian
companies such as Bombardier?
Liberal bungling may have put Canada on both sides of this trade
war.
Why were the Liberals so careless about protecting Canada's
interests? Were they too busy playing international boy scout
to remember their national responsibilities here at home?
Hon. Paul Martin (Minister of Finance, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, I would suggest that the hon. member ask his researcher
to look it up. The loan was not made by Canada. The loan was
made by the Bank for International Settlements. What Canada did
was to provide a guarantee, for which we were paid. The
guarantee was never exercised. I said that yesterday and I am
saying it again today. That is the fact.
1435
More important, to the point about Canada's international
responsibilities, we are a G7 country. As a G7 country we will
exercise those responsibilities on behalf of the vast assembly of
nations. At the same time we are capable of—
The Deputy Speaker: The hon. member for Mercier.
* * *
[Translation]
SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS
Ms. Francine Lalonde (Mercier, BQ): Mr. Speaker, Canada is
currently negotiating a free trade agreement with governments of
the three Americas, which will affect the daily lives of
Quebecers.
People want to know what is contained in the working documents
in order to debate them. Did the Prime Minister himself not say
the following before the OAS on Monday, and I quote: “Canada
believes that openness and transparency are vital to building
public acceptance”.
Along the same lines as his statement, will the Prime Minister
undertake to make public the working documents, before the Summit
of the Americas is held, as people are asking him to?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
I explained to the House a few days ago that Canada had made its
position known. It made it public, put it on the Internet, and
it is accessible to everyone.
The positions of the other governments are a matter of
discretion for them and for them to make public if they so wish.
I think the United States has decided to make its position
public, but the position of other countries cannot be made public
if they do not want it to be.
Ms. Francine Lalonde (Mercier, BQ): Mr. Speaker, let the
Prime Minister understand me clearly. We are not asking for the
positions of the other countries, but the working documents that
are used in preparing the positions each of them will be
negotiating.
We also want the Prime Minister to promise to debate these
documents in the House and for there to be no ratification
without parliament's approval.
[English]
Mr. Pat O'Brien (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister for
International Trade, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the member should
know that there has been a collective process put in place to
receive written submissions from different civil organizations in
the province of Quebec.
Indeed every day on our website the comments of Canadians are
welcome. Canada is again showing leadership in encouraging other
countries to welcome the participation of their civil societies.
* * *
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Mr. Monte Solberg (Medicine Hat, Canadian Alliance): Mr.
Speaker, there has been another disturbing allegation involving
foreign affairs officials covering up crimes within our country.
In this case officials are accused of covering up several cases
of foreign diplomats smuggling children into Canada, abusing them
as underpaid embassy domestics and sexually assaulting them.
Does the minister have any evidence of such incidents? Has he
asked his officials to investigate these allegations, and if not,
why not?
Hon. John Manley (Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, I have asked for an investigation of these allegations.
I expect it to be part of the report I receive from the
department concerning the situation with respect to the Russian
traffic accident, as well as other incidents where diplomatic
immunity has been sought with respect to incidents that have
occurred in Canada.
Mr. Monte Solberg (Medicine Hat, Canadian Alliance): Mr.
Speaker, I thank the minister for that answer.
This is a serious allegation. We know that in the past there
have been diplomats who have engaged in behaviour that has harmed
Canadian citizens. This is a different situation. We are
talking about people who are not Canadian citizens being abused,
but nevertheless it is extraordinarily serious.
Can the minister give his assurance to the House that if
diplomats are found engaging in this kind of activity they will
be expelled from Canada?
Hon. John Manley (Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, incidents, such as the one the hon. member has pointed
out, may not be affecting Canadian citizens but nevertheless
represent activities which are not permissible under Canadian law
and which are not condoned in any way by Canadian values and
certainly not by the Canadian government. Those people should be
asked to return home.
* * *
[Translation]
CINAR
Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères—Les-Patriotes, BQ): Mr.
Speaker, in response to a question put to him on Tuesday, the
Minister of National Revenue stated in this House that, in
addition to voluntary disclosures and decisions based on the
discretionary authority of the Minister of National Revenue,
there were, and I quote, “many more ways of resolving files”.
1440
Could the minister tell us which other ways, in addition to
voluntary disclosure and a discretionary decision, can be used to
settle a case?
Hon. Martin Cauchon (Minister of National Revenue and Secretary
of State (Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions
of Quebec), Lib.): Mr. Speaker, there are two important factors
here. First, I cannot comment on any file—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh.
Hon. Martin Cauchon: I would like to be able to finish
answering the question.
Section 241 is very clear on that. The second important element,
which I have mentioned several times, is that the Minister of
National Revenue must not get involved in any of the
investigations that may be conducted by the department.
Third, there are indeed various ways used by the investigations
branch to settle all the issues. It goes without saying that a
number of investigations must be conducted. The hon. member of
the opposition should look up the Income Tax Act.
Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères—Les-Patriotes, BQ): Mr.
Speaker, there is something interesting about these
investigations. In a press release issued on January 18, the
Canada Customs and Revenue Agency indicated that there is only
one way to settle a case, that is through voluntary disclosure,
and this option is only available if there are no investigations
or proceedings.
How does the minister explain that the agency for which he is
responsible is contradicting him by saying that there is either
voluntary disclosure or else an investigation followed, if
necessary, by legal proceedings?
Hon. Martin Cauchon (Minister of National Revenue and
Secretary of State (Economic Development Agency of Canada for the
Regions of Quebec), Lib.): Mr. Speaker, generally speaking we
look at the Income Tax Act.
There are indeed cases which may involve legal proceedings. Then
there are other ones that may involve voluntary disclosure. There
are a number of ways to deal with a file. Each case must be
examined on its own merit. We must look at the global picture.
Again, I would refer people, and particularly members of
parliament, to the Income Tax Act.
* * *
[English]
ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Andy Burton (Skeena, Canadian Alliance): Mr. Speaker,
on Tuesday the minister of Indian affairs stated that the
Sagkeeng band was in third party management. What he neglected
to say was that the first third party manager was fired on
January 31 for reportedly contributing to the ongoing deficit
problems on reserve and that the new managers are insensitive to
the needs of the band members.
We have spoken with these band members and they are discouraged,
fed up and feel complete mistrust for band leadership and Indian
affairs.
When will the minister do the right thing by opening all of the
Sagkeeng band books and initiating a full forensic audit?
Hon. Robert Nault (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern
Development, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, it is the normal practice of
the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development to work
with first nation communities across the country in a situation
where there is a deficit.
It is not new to any government in Canada to have a deficit.
What we do is we work to build capacity in those communities in
order to put the administrative finances in proper order. We are
doing that in Sagkeeng. We do that in other communities. We are
working very closely with them to build the capacity to run good,
solid governments and to deliver services to their community
members.
Mr. Andy Burton (Skeena, Canadian Alliance): Mr.
Speaker, I am pleased to hear this response, but the Sagkeeng
band of Manitoba has much to be financially accountable for.
Band members have formally questioned the sincerity of the chief
and council over a new school project. The general contractor
has been forced into bankruptcy due to unpaid bills on this
project.
The auditor general confirmed on Tuesday that Indian affairs has
a poor educational funding record. Third party managers do
little to address past wrongs.
Why will the minister not resolve this issue today and get the
much needed school built?
Hon. Robert Nault (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern
Development, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, one of the issues that we
confront on a daily basis is the fact that first nation
communities have the fastest growing population in all of Canada.
With that comes a lot of financial issues and a lot of stress on
the department of Indian affairs to keep up the building of
schools right across the country.
If the member would look, it is a well known fact that this
department spends some $140 million a year in capital projects,
many of them involving the building of new schools. We are
looking at Sagkeeng to help them and we will continue to do that
all across the country.
* * *
[Translation]
ROAD TRANSPORT
Mr. Raymond Lavigne (Verdun—Saint-Henri—Saint-Paul—Pointe
Saint-Charles, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the
Minister of Transport.
Since all studies to date have shown that the Champlain Bridge
will not be able to handle the increased traffic between the
South Shore and Montreal and that it is necessary to take some of
the load off the bridge and to improve public transit across the
river, could the minister tell the House whether any money will
be invested to follow up on the project for a light rail transit
system on the bridge's ice control structure?
1445
Hon. David Collenette (Minister of Transport, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, I thank the member for the question, which is an
important one. The member for Brossard—La Prairie is also
working very hard on this issue.
I am pleased to announce today that the Government of Canada
will invest $7 million in the preliminary design study required
for a light rail transit system on the Champlain Bridge in
Montreal.
This is an important step forward in this project, which is so
vital to the economy of the greater Montreal area.
* * *
[English]
THE SENATE
Hon. Lorne Nystrom (Regina—Qu'Appelle, NDP): Mr.
Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. As he knows
there are now 12 vacancies in the Senate.
Since the government now has the majority in the Senate and
there is no necessity to have immediate appointments, and since
there is no election in the immediate future, will the Prime
Minister, in the spirit of democratic reform, at least place a
temporary moratorium on the appointment of new senators and
instead contact the premiers and ask them to join him in
beginning the process of abolition of the existing unelected,
undemocratic and unaccountable Senate, which nobody in the
country supports except the senators themselves?
The Speaker: Before the Prime Minister answers, I know
that the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle is aware of the rules
of the House that prohibit members from speaking disrespectfully
of the other place and I know he would want to restrain himself
in any subsequent question.
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, here in the House of Commons sometimes the
interpretation of statements is stretched perhaps a bit and some
people around me are telling me “Jean, he would like to go to
the Senate”.
* * *
HEALTH
Mrs. Bev Desjarlais (Churchill, NDP): Mr. Speaker, drug,
alcohol and solvent abuse are serious problems in many first
nations communities. Treatment and healing centres are vitally
important in the fight against substance abuse.
We now know that Health Canada knew about the mismanagement
going on at the Virginia Fontaine Treatment Centre, long before
it became public, but kept signing the cheques. Meanwhile, other
first nations were struggling to provide treatment and healing
and could not get a dime from the department.
Could the health minister tell us why he waited until the
mismanagement became public before he cut the funding? Why did
he allow the waste of first nations health dollars to go on for
so long?
Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Health, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
the record is clear that as soon as it came to my notice there
was any suggestion that public funds were being misused I did
three things immediately.
First, I directed that a forensic audit take place. Second, I
told lawyers for the government to go to court and ensure that we
got every document we needed to trace the funds. Third, I
directed that no further funds be paid to that centre until all
outstanding questions were responded to.
The government believes strongly that all public moneys have to
be accounted for carefully. I assure the House that we will do
whatever is required to trace public spending at the centre.
* * *
PUBLIC WORKS
Mrs. Elsie Wayne (Saint John, PC): Mr. Speaker, on August
17 last year, the minister of public works initiated a maritime
helicopter program to replace Canada's outdated Sea Kings.
Canadians now know that the terms and conditions of the contract
have the potential to eliminate key helicopter industry bidders.
Could the minister explain to the House why he has chosen a
restrictive procurement approach that will limit competition and
could well predetermine who is awarded the contract?
Hon. Alfonso Gagliano (Minister of Public Works and
Government Services, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I do not agree with
the premise to the hon. member's question.
We are now consulting with the industry on the procurement. It
does the contrary to what the member claims. As a matter of fact
it will allow a more open competition and more companies to
participate. We will make sure to get a better price and better
equipment and naturally protect the interests of Canadians who
will be paying.
Mrs. Elsie Wayne (Saint John, PC): Mr. Speaker, the Sea
King replacement program has already been the subject of one
complaint to the Canadian International Trade Tribunal and could
possibly face further legal challenges in the courts.
I do not have to tell the minister that helicopter industry
stakeholders have suggested significant changes to the process or
they are still awaiting various rulings concerning them from the
government.
1450
What assurances could the minister of public works give the
House today that not just delivery dates for the process will be
made but that the process will—
The Speaker: The hon. Minister of Public Works and
Government Services.
Hon. Alfonso Gagliano (Minister of Public Works and
Government Services, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the process will be
open and transparent. What is more, we invite everybody to
participate. Yes, there was one company that took us to the CITT
and the case was dismissed.
We believe we have a fair process. We continue consulting the
industry. I am sure we will get the best equipment at the best
price, and the sooner the better.
* * *
HEALTH
Mr. Rob Merrifield (Yellowhead, Canadian Alliance): Mr.
Speaker, several senior health bureaucrats, including the
assistant deputy minister, knew beforehand that last fall 70
staff members from the federally funded Fontaine Foundation were
going on an all expense paid Caribbean cruise. It is not the
first trip members of this foundation have taken.
The health minister waited for this issue to become public
before trying to save his political face by calling for an audit.
The foundation was flagged for mismanagement for many years. How
high does the mismanagement go within his own department?
Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Health, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
my senior officials assure me they were not aware in advance of
this cruise that there was any suggestion public funds were being
used for it. At no time did they give authorization or approve
the use of public funds.
The member knows the very day that news became public I directed
the forensic audit. We subsequently went to court to ensure that
all public moneys were traced fully. I have given my assurance
to the House, which I repeat now, that we will not rest until we
trace every dollar and account for it publicly.
Mr. Rob Merrifield (Yellowhead, Canadian Alliance): Mr.
Speaker, I am assured of that. The minister said he would call
an audit and get to the bottom of the matter.
Yesterday it was revealed in court that there may be no books to
audit. The minister's own auditors knew that there were
irregularities in the Fontaine Foundation books back as far as
1995.
It has been six years, $37 million, over 70 vacations, and
several audits later. How much longer will it be before the
minister takes responsibility for mismanagement within his own
department? How much longer will he take?
Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Health, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
it is apparent even from the question put by the member that we
are now doing everything possible to ensure that all documents
are examined and all moneys are traced.
That effort will continue. We will do what is required to
ensure the public money is accounted for to the public.
* * *
[Translation]
OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ): Mr. Speaker, yesterday
we learned that Air Canada is currently surveying passengers on
its regional flights in the west as to whether they prefer
service in English or in French. In this way, Air Canada hopes
to get out of its obligation to provide services in French if at
least 5% of its clientele demand services in both official
languages.
Can the Prime Minister tell this House whether this 5% figure is
the one he had in mind when he introduced in the throne speech
the concept of “sustainable minority community”?
Hon. David Collenette (Minister of Transport, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, with the air industry restructuring legislation, our
government has ensured that not only Air Canada but also all of
its subsidiaries in all regions of Canada provide services in
both official language, where demand warrants under the terms of
the Official Languages Act.
Official languages are governed by this legislation, not by Air
Canada.
* * *
AIR TRANSPORT
Mr. Mario Laframboise (Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, BQ): Mr.
Speaker, Air Canada is not only preparing to renege on its
commitments with respect to the use of French on its flights in
Canada, but, with its government approved monopoly in Canada, is
severely cutting back its regional service.
How can the Minister of Transport tolerate the behaviour of Air
Canada, which is literally destroying regional air service, as
was the case in November, with the Baie-Comeau—Quebec City link?
Is the minister going to continue to sit and do nothing for much
longer?
Hon. David Collenette (Minister of Transport, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, Air Canada is honouring its agreement with the
government, that is Bill C-26. It is our intention to have air
service throughout the country conform to the provisions of the
Official Languages Act.
* * *
[English]
ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Richard Harris (Prince George—Bulkley Valley, Canadian
Alliance): Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Indian Affairs and
Northern Development appears to be quite ready to let the town of
Burns Lake in my riding be hung out to dry for about $1 million
in municipal taxes owed to them by the Burns Lake Indian Band.
1455
To help this along the minister appears to be ready to spend an
estimated $10 million over the next five years to duplicate the
same services that are now offered to the band for which they
have not paid their back taxes and refuse to pay any more.
This is an urgent situation. Will the minister meet with the
mayor of Burns Lake and his officials on an urgent basis within
the next two to three weeks to get this impasse resolved?
Hon. Robert Nault (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern
Development, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the member would know that
the answer to that question is yes, because I told him yesterday
that I would.
Mr. Richard Harris (Prince George—Bulkley Valley, Canadian
Alliance): Mr. Speaker, that is not exactly correct. In fact
the minister told me that he would be willing to meet with the
mayor and his officials in a month or so. A month or so is not
good enough, because water and sewer services to the band will be
cut off at the end of March.
The minister is prepared to spend about $10 million over the
next five years to duplicate these services for a 59 person band
rather than try to solve the current problem immediately like he
should be.
Hon. Robert Nault (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern
Development, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, if the member has such a
short memory I will do him a favour and talk directly to the
mayor. I think his memory will be better.
* * *
[Translation]
EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Ms. Carole-Marie Allard (Laval East, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the
Secretary of State for Latin America and Africa met the new
President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Joseph Kabila,
in New York last Friday. Could he tell us the outcome of the
meeting?
Hon. David Kilgour (Secretary of State (Latin America and
Africa), Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I informed President Kabila of
Canada's position, including our support for a negotiated
solution to the conflicts based on the Osaka agreement and the
appropriate resolutions of the Security Council.
We support a dialogue among the Congolese, which would lead to
democratic institutions and, if necessary, the deployment of UN
forces.
In short, Canada like other countries is looking for a viable
solution to the conflict to put an end to the enormous suffering
of the Congolese people.
* * *
[English]
VETERANS AFFAIRS
Mr. Roy Bailey (Souris—Moose Mountain, Canadian
Alliance): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of
Veterans Affairs. In 1975 the government's task force said that
it owed money on interest it had held in trust for disabled vets.
Again in 1985-86 the auditor general gave the same warning, but
in 1990, rather than listening, the government passed a law
saying that veterans could not sue for the money owed them.
Last year a judge said the government's law was illegal, but
rather than act in the best interest of disabled vets the
government has appealed the decision.
Will the minister now do the right thing and return the money
owed to the vets, or will he drag this issue through the courts
indefinitely?
Mr. Carmen Provenzano (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of
Veterans Affairs, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for
Souris—Moose Mountain for his question. The fact of the matter
is that the decision of the lower court in what is known as the
Authorson class action has implications for the operations of the
Canadian government. That is why the government has appealed the
decision.
In fact yesterday the department filed its appeal papers with
the Ontario Court of Appeal. To comment further on a matter
before the courts would be inappropriate.
Mr. Roy Bailey (Souris—Moose Mountain, Canadian
Alliance): Mr. Speaker, rather than correct a past injustice
the government is dragging this issue through the courts and we
wonder for how long.
The minister is quite right that in October the Ontario Court of
Appeal said that the government was wrong and that what it had
done was illegal.
The courts say that the government owes these vets money. Will
the minister now do the honourable thing, drop the appeal and
negotiate with the vets? Will he do the right thing and do it
now?
Mr. Carmen Provenzano (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister
of Veterans Affairs, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the member knows
that a decision of a lower court is not a final determination.
Until the appeal process has been exhausted there will be no
final determination. Again I repeat that until that is done it
is inappropriate to comment.
* * *
1500
[Translation]
CHINA
Mr. Antoine Dubé (Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, BQ): Mr.
Speaker, Bloc Quebecois members have expressed their support to
the Dalai Lama in his efforts to initiate a rapprochement with
China and begin a dialogue between Tibet and Chinese authorities.
In the coming days, a Canadian trade mission will travel to
China.
During his visit to China, does the Prime Minister intend to
raise the issues of Tibet and Falun Gong's freedom of religion?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
we have always had a very frank dialogue with the Chinese on
human rights issues.
In fact, when we first started going to China, we could not even
use the words “human rights”. During our last visit, I was
invited to deliver a speech on human rights at the University of
Beijing. This was a first.
When the chairman came to Canada, I even told journalists to put
questions on human rights in China to him directly. A lot of
progress has been made and I intend to raise these issues again
next week.
* * *
[English]
CHILDREN AND YOUTH
Mr. Tony Tirabassi (Niagara Centre, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
my question is for the Secretary of State for Children and Youth.
Most people today understand that the first years in a child's
life are most important. These are the years when the
foundations for success are laid. These are the years when our
country's future prosperity is determined. However all levels of
government are still struggling with the complexities of early
childhood development.
Could the secretary of state tell us what the government is
doing to help develop the best possible social policies, programs
and services that will be of the greatest benefit to Canadian
children and to their families?
Hon. Ethel Blondin-Andrew (Secretary of State (Children and
Youth), Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the member for Niagara Centre
raised a very important point. That is why on January 16 the
government announced it would invest over $2 million over five
years to help establish the Canadian child and youth development
research network.
The network will be made up of research centres at the
University of British Columbia, the University of New Brunswick,
the University of Montreal and McMaster University. It will
provide a unique way to gather and share information to help
ensure that we continue to improve the development of our
policies to support children and families.
* * *
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Chuck Strahl (Fraser Valley, Canadian Alliance): Mr.
Speaker, I wonder if the government House leader would inform the
House of the business for the rest of this week and into next
week, and particularly if he has any comment on the very
interesting proposals on parliamentary reform both in the
procedure and House affairs committee and in the debate today.
Does he have anything that he would like to highlight in that
area?
1505
The Speaker: I hope the government House leader will
stick to the business of the House in his response. He may have
some of that in the business, but I would not want him to wander
off on other subjects on the normal Thursday question, despite
the open invitation from the opposition House leader.
[Translation]
Hon. Don Boudria (Leader of the Government in the House of
Commons, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we will continue
with the Alliance Party motion.
Tomorrow, we will complete the Address Debate. Votes from
Thursday and Friday will be deferred to Tuesday evening, in
accordance with an agreement between the parties.
On Monday, we will begin debate on the financial institutions
bill. Later that day we will return to Bill C-2, the employment
insurance bill.
On Tuesday, I hope to call Bill C-6 respecting boundary waters,
and Bill S-2 on marine liability.
I should like to advise the House at this time that it is the
Government's intention, continuing in the spirit of parliamentary
reform, to propose that Bill C-6 be referred to committee before
second reading, pursuant to Standing Order 73.
Next Wednesday, I expect to call Bill C-7, the youth justice
bill. Next Thursday will be an Allotted Day.
[English]
In the area of parliamentary reform, I am pleased to inform the
House that I have offered all House leaders full briefings on the
international trade issues relevant to the Quebec City Summit of
the Americas. I hope members will avail themselves of this
opportunity.
[Translation]
The Speaker: Order, please. I have been informed that
certain members had some concerns about the French wording of the
opposition motion, saying that it did not render what the English
version said.
I have contacted the Translation Bureau and have been told that
the wording of the motion is taken directly from the French
version of the Liberal red book.
Copies of the quote are available on the desk for any hon.
member wishing to obtain one
* * *
[English]
SPEAKER'S RULING
ALLOTTED DAY SUBAMENDMENT
The Speaker: Before I call orders of the day, I wish
to deliver to the House my ruling on the point of order raised
earlier this day.
I am now ready to rule on the point of order raised by the hon.
House leader of the official opposition, the hon. member for
Fraser Valley, concerning the procedural acceptability of the
subamendment proposed by the hon. government House leader on the
amendment to the opposition day motion concerning the ethics
counsellor.
I wish to thank the hon. opposition House leader, the hon. House
leaders of the Progressive Conservative and New Democratic
Parties, the hon. whip of the Bloc Quebecois, and the many other
members who sought to assist the Chair on this matter.
The Chair has considered the interventions made on either side
of the argument. As I said earlier in my remarks this morning,
as a former practitioner of the art of dealing with opposition
days, drafting motions and amendments from either side of the
House, I have considerable sympathy for the point of view
expressed on either side of the issue in the House today.
There is little doubt that the authorities are clear on the
nature of opposition days. In the oft quoted words of Mr.
Speaker Lamoureux on March 16, 1971:
[Translation]
As it says on page 727 of House of Commons Procedure and
Practice:
Amendments which have the effect of providing the basis for an
entirely different debate are not in order.
[English]
However, Standing Order 85 states:
Only one amendment and one subamendment may be made to a motion
proposed in the Budget Debate or to a motion proposed under an
Order of the Day for the consideration of the business of supply
on an allotted day.
In fact, a review of our practice in this regard indicates that
deftly worded amendments can and have been used to render
opposition motions more palatable to the government.
For example, on February 12, 1992, on a motion regarding a final
GATT accord that was phrased “to call on the government to
support unequivocally” any final GATT accord, an amendment was
proposed to replace those words with the words “supports the
government's efforts toward reaching”.
On June 7, 1994, when the House debated a lengthy opposition
motion that began “That this House strongly affirm and support
the desire of Canadians to remain federally united as one
people” and went on for eight lines describing the terms of such
union, an amendment was deemed acceptable that deleted all the
words after “Canadians to” and substituted simply “continue to
live together in a federal system”.
1510
Perhaps the closest to the situation we face today is a
precedent from October 28, 1997, where an opposition motion
calling upon the government “to establish a comprehensive
national fisheries policy” was amended to delete the word
“establish” and substitute the words “continue the
implementation of”.
[Translation]
However, the situation that concerns us today does not involve
an amendment, but rather a subamendment. Once again,
Marleau-Montpetit is very useful, because it states, on page 454:
Sub-amendments must be strictly relevant to the amendment and
seek to modify the amendment, not the original question; they
cannot enlarge on the amendment, introduce new matters foreign to
the amendment or differ in substance from the amendment.
[English]
The restrictions on subamendments are therefore severe. Indeed
a student of the evolution of House procedures might well suggest
that the current practice, where the mover of an opposition day
motion splits his or her time to allow another party member to
move a single word amendment, was in fact developed in order to
thwart the proposing of amendments that would transmogrify the
original opposition motions into propositions acceptable to the
government. The possibilities for amending a single word
subamendment are by their nature extremely limited.
Such, I believe, is the case before us today where the
government House leader has made a valiant, though not
successful, attempt to propose a subamendment. I must conclude
that the proposed subamendment does not modify or refine the
amendment but seeks rather to amend the original question.
Accordingly the subamendment is not in order and cannot be put to
the House.
I thank all hon. members for their interventions on this point.
GOVERNMENT ORDERS
[English]
SUPPLY
ALLOTTED DAY—ETHICS COUNSELLOR
The House resumed consideration of the motion and of the
amendment.
Mr. Steve Mahoney (Mississauga West, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
let me remind you that just before we had to leave the debate and
go to question period and members' statements a point of order
was raised by an opposition member questioning the relevance of
my speech.
I do not want to spend the entire nine minutes reiterating what
I said, but I was pointing out that some questions of ethics were
coming from the other side. Notably there was one from the
leader with regard to his lawsuit and the $800,000 bill that he
left foisted upon the taxpayers of Alberta. Also there was the
$50,000 payout to Jim Hart to free up a seat so that the hon.
Leader of the Opposition could run, after that individual said
Mr. Hart left voluntarily, voluntarily with his pockets bulging
with money I might add.
I also question the fact that, contrary to the public statements
two members made in the past castigating the pension plan, they
decided to reinvest $89,000 for Edmonton North and $50,000 for
Medicine Hat into the pension plan.
The relevance of all of that is quite clear to me and I think to
taxpayers. They cannot have it both ways. They cannot say that
they will bring a new attitude to parliament somehow, that the
pension is awful, and then buy back in and create a million
dollar asset for themselves. They cannot say that they are
prepared to deny an individual charged under the laws of this
land his due right to defence in law and then duck the bill when
it comes in as a result of a slander charge.
1515
The point of the relevance here is that we do not need lectures
from opposition members about ethics. They have shown no
character, no moral fibre, no ability to stand behind the words
they have uttered for pure crass political advantage on their
part. They have misled the Canadian public by coming into the
House holier than thou and saying parliament needs to appoint an
ethics counsellor.
One cannot in parliamentary terms use words like hypocrisy, so I
will not. However the things members opposite have said in
public and with their own constituents border on questionable
judgment.
Let me talk a little about the ethics counsellor. The ethics
counsellor has upon request appeared in the past before
parliamentary committees. Is it reasonable to assume that is the
method that would be used for any official to answer to
parliament? Do we expect the ethics counsellor, or any other
official, would be allowed to walk into the House and answer? I
do not think so.
In the normal course of business we would expect any official
appointed either by the Prime Minister or by the governor in
council, with a job to do which relates to public business, would
appear upon request before a parliamentary committee.
It is puzzling to me how opposition members can stand in their
places, in spite of the litany of unethical activities that have
occurred within their own ranks, and say that the ethics
counsellor does not report to parliament. Of course he does.
The leader of the fifth party, the former prime minister, wrote
a letter asking for action and investigation on certain subjects.
He received a response.
During the election campaign the Prime Minister did not duck the
issue. When accused of having done something wrong he asked the
ethics counsellor to report immediately, unlike the Leader of the
Opposition who asked that his court date regarding slander
charges against him be conveniently deferred until after the
election.
Our Prime Minister said to the ethics counsellor “Here are the
allegations. Yes, I am in the middle of an election campaign. I
want you to report now. I am not afraid of anything. I am not
prepared to hide, duck and run like the Leader of the
Opposition”.
The ethics counsellor wrote the letter which says that there was
no conflict or wrongdoing. It puzzles me, although I guess it
should not, how the opposition has interpreted what he said. The
counsellor has examined the issue at least twice and reported as
such. He has done so in a letter released publicly. Is that not
accountable to the place?
To then turn it around is the game that is played. This is not
about the ethics counsellor. Opposition members are still bitter
about what happened in the election. They cannot believe it.
They are still in shock. They think the Canadian people made a
mistake.
I have been on both sides of electoral activity. I have won and
lost in 11 election campaigns. I lost three and won the rest. I
believe that in every one of those eleven campaigns the voters
were right. When they make a decision that they do not want an
individual around again that is their right. The voters are
never wrong. I do not care if members like it. I do not care if
they think it is unfair. The voters are always right. It is a
clear message in a democracy. They have the authority and only
they have the authority to make those decisions.
What happens? We come back here again. We have five parties in
this place. We have 172 seats. We have a resounding majority.
We have representatives from sea to sea to sea.
1520
The Prime Minister is elected for the third successive majority
government and what happens? Not even two weeks past the
opening of parliament and the Prime Minister is attacked every
day. They get into the gutter. They accuse. It is personal.
I have not heard questions about issues other than a few from
the backbenches. The frontbenches of the opposition parties seem
bent on personal assassination and destruction of one of the
greatest parliamentarians the House has ever seen. Like him or
not, the man's credentials are impeccable.
When they cannot deal with the issues and realize the people
have shown confidence in the government, what can they do? The
only thing left to do is to get personal. That is sad. It
frankly shows a lack of depth, a lack of ethics and a lack of
moral fortitude within the ranks of the opposition that is quite
shameful.
Whenever I talk in the House I get an e-mail from someone in
Vancouver who gets upset, bent out of shape and tells me what a
terrible person I am because I say these things. Let us be
clear. The games played in this place are for nothing more than
political advantage. They have nothing to do with good
governance. They have nothing to do with representing individual
constituencies when we get into this kind of nonsense.
Members opposite know that full well. They have even said it. I
could read quote after quote about the ethics counsellor from
members opposite. Even today one member opposite stood in the
House and said “I am not talking about the individual; he is an
honourable person”. The opposition House leader at one point
accused him of being a barking dog, which was most unfortunate.
Then some of his colleagues stood and said it was not true and
that they thought he was an honourable gentleman.
They are trying to portray the ethics counsellor as an appointee
of the Prime Minister who only talks to the Prime Minister, even
though he has appeared before a legislative committee and
answered in a public letter all accusations and charges.
Those members should be ashamed of themselves. Instead of
harping on personal attacks against the Prime Minister, why do
they not look at the agenda and deal with things that Canadians
care about like health care and education and EI reform? Let us
deal with substantive issues that make Canada the greatest
country in the world, and let us try to make it better.
I am sorry to be so fervent about it, but it is a disgraceful
display by opposition members and a waste of a parliamentary day
at great cost to the taxpayer. They have no business pointing
the finger at this side of the House.
Mr. Jim Abbott (Kootenay—Columbia, Canadian Alliance):
Mr. Speaker, speaking of moral fortitude, I am rather surprised
at the member because he should know, with respect to the leader
of the Canadian Alliance, that the reason it was decided the case
would not go to court is best known to himself. A judge made the
determination that no jury would be allowed. That is absolutely
unprecedented in Canadian history.
The fact is that almost $500,000 was spent to that point by the
government of Alberta. It then recommended that the Leader of
the Opposition not go to court because he obviously would not
have a fair opportunity to present his case.
The member should also know that the independent ethics
commissioner in Alberta, who answers to the legislature,
instructed the leader of the Canadian Alliance when he was the
Alberta finance minister that he could not raise independent
funds and was to see the case through with this method of
payment. The member knows that, and I am surprised he said
things that were simply not true in his earlier statement before
question period.
1525
My question for the hon. member is: What is wrong with asking
the Liberals to live up to their red book promise of 1993? What
is wrong with the words that the Liberals put in their red book
and that the Prime Minister said they would be following through
on at every opportunity they had? Why does the Prime Minister
choose to hold himself and his cabinet ministers to a lower
standard than the premiers of Alberta, British Columbia and
Ontario?
I do not understand this. Perhaps the member can help me with
this one.
Mr. Steve Mahoney: Mr. Speaker, I highly doubt that I
would be successful at helping the hon. member.
The Prime Minister has appointed an ethics counsellor—
Mr. Jim Abbott: Not independent.
Mr. Steve Mahoney: —an independent ethics counsellor who
has reported to a parliamentary committee and has written letters
that have been made public. I do not know exactly what the hon.
member wants, other than to portray this as something it is not.
In reference to the member's remarks with regard to his leader's
shameful position, I want to point out that the former speaker of
the Alberta legislature, who happens to be a former colleague of
the Leader of the Opposition, is issuing a court challenge as of
9 o'clock this morning mountain standard time wherein he claims
it was not only unethical but also contrary to the rules of the
Alberta legislature that taxpayer funds were used to settle the
Alliance leader's defamation lawsuit.
The hon. member can give me all the justification he likes for
that decision, but the Leader of the Opposition should pay the
$800,000 that he generated because of his shameful activity. He
could have settled the case earlier for $60,000 but refused to do
so.
Mr. Peter MacKay (Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, PC):
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate you for your wisdom in your first
official ruling from the chair. It certainly breathes new hope
and aspirations for your humble servants in this place.
I have listened to hon. members on both sides of the House trade
barbs and attack each other's leaders. Fortunately in the
Progressive Conservative Party we do not have to defend the
ethical standard set by the right hon. member for Calgary Centre.
Let us turn back to the matter at hand, the matter of an ethics
counsellor.
First, stripping away the rhetoric and passion that he brings to
the debate, does the hon. member opposite not agree that it would
be in the interest of Canadians to have the ethics counsellor
report to parliament and to have an impartial committee of the
House determine the appropriateness of the ethics counsellor so
that there would be no question as to the person's arm's length
attachment to any member, be it the Prime Minister or any member
of this House who might be questioned about their behaviour?
Would it also not benefit this Chamber, this institution, this
parliament to allow all members of the House to have input on the
appointment of that person?
Second, would it also not benefit the credibility of that
individual, after going through that process of selection, to
report directly to parliament and not to the Prime Minister or
the cabinet or the executive branch?
Would it not also benefit the ethics counsellor's credibility to
not appear after the fact before a committee, which is what has
happened in this instance, and not to leak out in dribs and drabs
correspondence and information that might have been exchanged
between the PMO and this person?
Would Canadians not benefit if the government simply lived up to
its red book promises? We know commitments have been broken. We
can talk about that ad nauseam.
Would the hon. member not agree that this is a preferred option,
which is the intent of this particular motion?
Mr. Steve Mahoney: Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for
Pictou—Antigonish for his usual ability to bring some calm back
to the debate. I accept that he is sincere, unlike the official
opposition. However, I would say to the hon. gentleman that Mr.
Wilson was appointed after consultation with leaders of the
parties in the House.
I think it would be unfortunate to call into doubt the integrity
of Mr. Wilson, which I do not think was the member's direct
intent. It certainly could be construed as such, but I am sure
he would not want to do that.
1530
There was agreement that he was an acceptable candidate, an
acceptable person to act as an ethics counsellor. It is quite
standard, if we look at all of the agencies where individuals are
appointed by the Prime Minister and by order in council, to have
them appear before a committee to defend their actions and to
answer for their department. That was exactly what happened
here.
The ruling by Mr. Wilson was clear when he said:
Let me answer that, sir, by saying that it's my view that Mr.
Chrétien does not have an interest in this matter. He sold his
interest. He sold it. According to his lawyer, this is an
unsecured sale. In other words, the only way he's going to be
able to recover payment is either to take the individual in
question to court or, as is now happening, try to organize a way
by which the payment will be made.
He has investigated it. He has ruled. He has been clear that
if we were unhappy with it then we should go to committee and put
a motion to call him before the committee and question him just
as we would do for any other official.
That is accountability to parliament through the processes in
place, and the member knows that full well.
Mr. Grant McNally (Dewdney—Alouette, Canadian Alliance):
Mr. Speaker, I am always interested in hearing what my colleague
from Mississauga West has to say. Although he may engage in
nuclear rhetorical warfare at times, he does have some positive
things to say. I am not sure that this is one of them.
I would like to rebut a couple of the comments he made. One of
them had to do with his interpretation of consultation. It is my
understanding that when he talks about consultation, what it
means is that the House leader or the member of the government
phones the other House leaders and says to them that this is the
person they are appointing. That is the definition of this type
of consultation.
Would the member agree with his House leader who said earlier
today that the ethics counsellor does report to parliament? Would
he agree with me that it is clearly the case the ethics
counsellor does not report to parliament on matters having to do
with the minister or the Prime Minister in terms of all the
details of that investigation? Would he agree with that comment?
Mr. Steve Mahoney: Mr. Speaker, if the Leader of the
Opposition would like to recant the consultation and the
consultative agreement that was made to appoint Mr. Wilson, I
would invite the member to go to his leader and have him do that
either in the House or in a letter.
If he does not like it now then he is trying to turn the tables.
If the consultation took place and the leaders agreed to the
appointment, it is a little tiring to hear the complaint. It is
quite obvious what they do not like. They do not like the
conclusion that Mr. Wilson arrived at, or they would not have the
motion on the floor and they would not be consistently trying to
attack and personally assassinate the character of the Prime
Minister during question period.
That is all this is about. They cannot get their teeth into any
of the programs the government is putting forward for the
betterment of Canadians, including tax cuts and reinvesting in
health care, so they attack personalities.
Mr. Keith Martin (Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, Canadian
Alliance): Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the
motion. I will be splitting my time with my hon. friend and
colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands.
We are talking about ethics and credibility. We should ask
ourselves whether or not we truly have credibility in the eyes of
the public. That is what we are dealing with today. That is why
my party has put a motion today on the floor of the House for
which there should be widespread agreement because it comes from
the Liberal 1992 red book.
It stated that the Liberal government would appoint an
independent ethics counsellor to advise both public officials and
lobbyists in the day to day application of the code of conduct
for public officials.
The ethics counsellor would be appointed after consultation with
the leaders of all parties in the House of Commons and would
report directly to parliament. We are putting the motion forward
today because the government has not done this.
1535
We have heard time and time again the cry of why there are not
more ethics in parliament. Why do we not have a system of
accountability in parliament? We have heard from the auditor
general, Mr. Denis Desautels, eloquent interventions to the House
on why we need ethics in the way we engage in governance today.
He despaired again this week of the absence of ethical decision
making in the way in which we engage in governance. He
repeatedly made reference to the willy-nilly spending on the part
of government bureaucracies, with little or no accountability and
little thought as to why or where these moneys were being spent.
He said that underlying all this was the absence of a culture of
ethics.
A culture of ethics would only come from those who practise
ethical leadership. Some may wonder why we should have ethical
leadership. In the application of ethical leadership we develop
a system or a structure beneath us that engages in ethical
behaviours because their behaviours are patterned on the moral
ethical behaviour they see. That is what all this is about.
Many of the large flaws and mistakes that occur are based in
errors in ethics. My party and other parties have repeatedly
raised examples in this regard. We saw it in the HRD scandal.
The auditor general echoed that gross abject failures in the
spending of the public's money and violations of the public trust
took place time and time again because there was a lack of ethics
ingrained into the culture of that organization.
I want to make sure that everyone understands there are many
good people in the public service who are working hard to do the
best they can, but in the cases we brought forward there was an
absence of ethical leadership within the organization.
In the department of aboriginal affairs we saw an absence of
ethical leadership in the application of moneys that should be
going to those people who are most in need. My party and members
out there in the aboriginal community are becoming more vocal
because the moneys are not going to the hard edge of helping
these people who are most in need in society.
Aboriginal people have some of the worst health care parameters,
the worst housing circumstances, the greatest unemployment, the
highest maternal mortality, the highest infant morbidity, and the
highest infant mortality statistics in Canada, as a direct result
of the absence of ethical leadership at the highest levels of the
department and an absence of appropriate spending of those moneys
for the benefit of those people most in need.
I know the minister would very much like to see that those
moneys are spent wisely. I know the members that he serves would
like to see it spent wisely. However, if there is an absence of
ethical leadership, these problems will not be addressed and the
culture that supports the absence of ethical behaviour will not
change.
That is why my party and the government have said that we need
an ethics counsellor that reports to the House, an ethics
counsellor that reports publicly to the people who pay the bills
of the House and pay that person's salary.
It was interesting to hear what the government proposed. It
proposed the ethics counsellor as I mentioned before. It
proposed an ethical review of government contracts and ethical
government advertising. The government House leader said that
there should be established within the House of Commons a
non-partisan nomination confirmation procedure for order in
council appointments such as officers of the House and that the
committee reviewing the procedure should have a veto power.
If we were able to do this and if it were supported by an ethics
counsellor, the public would have a greater faith in what we do.
Our House leader and many other members of my party have put
forth ideas on how we could reform parliament.
Why? Because, if we do not have parliamentary reform, if we do
not democratize the House, which has become a veritable
dictatorship, then we will not be able to engender the faith of
the public. We will not be able to engage, invigorate and
stimulate the public in the decisions that take place in the
House.
1540
We all know there are members from across party lines that share
the utter frustration of living in the other virtual democracy
that we have today. The proof of the pudding can be found in the
behaviour of the public during elections. As we saw in the last
election, fewer and fewer Canadians are actually voting. They do
not seem to think there is any relevance to the process of
voting. They feel disempowered, disaffected, disinterested and
not engaged in the House and, to a large extent, they are
absolutely right.
If we were able to engage in the parliamentary reforms that my
party has put forth, that indeed the government House leader put
forth when his party was in opposition and that members of
cabinet put forth when their party was in opposition, then we
could make the House a democracy, a vibrant place where ideas
could be thought over, constructive ideas could be battled over
and at the end of the day we would have action on the big
problems that affect all of us.
On the issue of free votes in the House of Commons, I am pleased
to hear that the government House leader mentioned electronic
voting. It is about time. How about making committees more
responsive to the public and less responsive to the Prime
Minister and the minister at hand? How about removing the
parliamentary secretaries from all committee structure? How
about bringing government bills in draft form to committee? It
is what is being done in England. Westminster is engaged in the
same process as we are and is frustrated by the lack of democracy
and accountability that exists. Its system is far more
democratic than ours but its members are apoplectic at their lack
of power to represent their constituents.
The public has moved from anger to disinterest to apathy over
this House. What a profound tragedy to have in the House the
amazing potential that exists with all members across party
lines, that we cannot employ their talents and use their ideas in
the House and in committee. We could apply those ideas, as the
previous speaker from the government side said, to the big issues
of health care, economics, social program renewal, demographic
changes that affect us, aboriginal affairs and the environment.
One of the things I suspect all members find greatly
disheartening is to sit in committees and hear wonderful ideas
come from members of the public, ideas that if employed would
have a positive impact upon the lives of Canadians. However, we
know in our hearts that those ideas will be put into a document
that will be put on a shelf to collect dust forevermore. Maybe a
few years down the line the government of the day will see fit to
study the issue once again.
Where is the action? We need an ethics counsellor to keep all
of us on our toes. We need an ethics counsellor who has the
power of reporting like the auditor general does. We need to be
held to account to act on what we have been tasked to do. If we
do that, we will have a positive effect on the lives of Canadians
and all of us in the House will be a much happier lot.
At the end of the day the public would be very interested to
know that the House is a demoralized House. The House is
yearning for change. The House is yearning to apply the skills
and talents of the people in the House and the skills and talents
of the people in the public to come to bear on the problems that
we have.
We beg and plead for the government to live up to its red book
promise that said we need an ethics counsellor, to live up to its
promise of democratizing the House and reforming parliament, not
to give lip service to it, but to truly make the fundamental
changes that will not damage its power nor its ability to shine
in the public but that would strengthen its position and the
position of all members.
1545
Mr. Murray Calder (Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey,
Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I listened with a lot of interest to the
speech across the way. The member talked about ethics and
credibility. I am 100% in support of what he said but I have a
question for him.
However, we are not quite three months after the election and
just recently two of his colleagues, the member for Edmonton
North and the member for Medicine Hat said they would be taking
the pension. However, in the last three elections they campaigned
against taking a pension.
How fair is that to the voters in those two ridings who listened
to these two individuals at all candidates debates say they would
not take a pension? Then, less than three months after the
election they reversed their decisions. That is the party that
talks about recall. Should ethics not demand that those members
voluntarily put themselves forward for recall and that a
byelection be called in their ridings to give the voters a chance
to vote on this?
Mr. Keith Martin: Mr. Speaker, let us talk about some
truth on the issue of pensions. I am glad the member brought it
up.
First, when we were elected in 1993 our position was to have
parity with the public service. Second, when we were elected in
1993, the MP pension was far more lucrative than it is today.
Why? The then Reform Party brought up solutions and forced the
government to change the pensions so that there would be no more
double dipping and MPs could not receive a pension when they left
after six years. Now MPs receive the pension after the age of 55
and the pension is far less lucrative.
That is what this party did. It would have never happened if
the Reform Party had not come on the scene. We are looking for
equality and parity with the public service. We have pushed the
government far along those ways and we have a lot of which to be
proud.
[Translation]
Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold (Jonquière, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I want
to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your election as
Speaker of the House of Commons. I am satisfied, based on what
you said concerning a government motion, that we will have a
very good Speaker of the House.
I would like to put a question to my colleague in the Canadian
Alliance.
I am finding that, at the moment, the members of the Liberal
Party are arrogantly trying to cloud the issue, instead of
debating the text of the motion taken from their 1993 red book.
Our Liberal colleague who asked a question before me
surprisingly spoke of pensions, after the Canadian Alliance
members accepted pensions.
We are talking about an ethics counsellor. We are not concerned
with the person who is the ethics counsellor, but rather the
rules that should be set in order to give this counsellor real
powers under the authority of parliament or of the leaders of
the political parties. At the moment, the Prime Minister makes
the appointment, with his rules, and is the one to whom the
counsellor is accountable.
I would like to ask my colleague in the Canadian Alliance how
his party's motion, a verbatim copy of the 1993 Liberal Party
red book, should be understood and accepted so that we may
proceed with real parliamentary reform?
[English]
Mr. Keith Martin: Mr. Speaker, absolutely, this
particular motion comes directly from the government's red book.
It is a promise the government made.
We agree with the government's position in the Liberal red book.
The simple question we are asking is why has it not implemented
the promise for an independent ethics counsellor. It is that
simple.
We are also saying to the government that it has widespread
agreement on all party lines on its promise to have an ethics
counsellor. Why has it not implemented an ethics counsellor? I
do not know why that is. That is why we are asking these
questions. Not one member of the government has stood up today
and given us one rational answer as to why they have not
implemented their original promise.
1550
Mr. Gary Lunn (Saanich—Gulf Islands, Canadian Alliance):
Mr. Speaker, I too would like to commend you on your decision. I
was very pleased to see that and hear the reasons for your
decision. We look forward to your speakership over many years to
come.
The debate we are having today is all about one word. It is
about ethics. I listened to the Liberal members. I hope they
will take this in all sincerity. It is time we start to bring
about changes to the House for the betterment of all Canadians
and for all members, not just the members on this side. We do
need to make changes and they know it.
There is far too much power surrounding the office of the prime
minister which has evolved over the years. It has grown and
grown and has got stronger and stronger, even more so since the
Liberals took power. It is time we changed that.
We have a House of 301 members. We are not all utilized in the
House. There are great ideas that we bring forward from our
constituents. When I was first elected to the fisheries
committee in 1997, we wrote unanimous reports. Those reports are
now collecting dust.
The motion is a small step that we can bring forward for a
positive change. It is a change that one would think the
government would be open to, particularly as the Liberal red book
of 1993 said:
A Liberal government will appoint an independent Ethics
Counsellor to advise both public officials and lobbyists in the
day-to-day application of the Code of Conduct for Public
Officials. The Ethics Counsellor will be appointed after
consultation with the leaders of all parties in the House of
Commons and will report directly to Parliament.
The key is reporting directly to parliament to ensure that we
have openness and transparency.
I heard some members say a few minutes ago that there were
consultations with the leaders of all parties on the appointment
of the ethics counsellor, Mr. Wilson, and I am sure is a man of
integrity. At that time, it was the Reform Party and the member
for Calgary Southeast was the leader. I spoke to him about
the consultation. He described the consultation as being a phone
call from the Prime Minister who said Mr. Wilson was being
appointed as the ethics counsellor. We have seen that time and
time again from the executive of the government. Its idea of
consultation is to tell us what it is going to do.
The government talks about partisanship, and how dare the
official opposition bring this motion forward. It says it is
trickery and all of that. I point out that there are five
official parties in the House of Commons and that the Canadian
Alliance, the Bloc, the Progressive Conservative Party and the
New Democratic Party are all united on this motion. They just
happen to be all in opposition. All of these parties agree that
this is very important and that it is the right thing to do. Some
of the speeches I listened were quite passionate about this.
If the Liberal Party was in opposition there is no question that
it too would agree with this. Let me give you some quotes from
when it was in opposition. On February 17, 1993, the government
House leader moved the following motion::
That this House condemns the government for its continued failure
to establish and to adhere to a clear and high standard of public
sector ethics, for its incessant inability to function within the
framework of existing legislation, guidelines and standards, and
for its reluctance to bring forward strict new codes and
legislation with regard to conflicts and other public ethic
matters
1555
When the Prime Minister was the leader of the opposition, he
said “In order to achieve this agenda's integrity and public
trust in the institutions of government are essential”. He went
on about the word trust. Right now we have an ethics counsellor
who does not report to parliament. He reports in secrecy to the
Prime Minister. There is no openness. There is no transparency.
Unless all 301 members of the House have the courage to stand up
and start doing what is right and start bringing about changes to
this institution, the public's perception of this institution
will continue to decline. We can change that if we want to want
to bring back meaningful debate.
On Monday the Board of Internal Economy will be voting on
whether the committee chairs should be voted in by secret ballot.
There is another opportunity for government members who sit on
that board to do what is right.
When the backbenchers step outside this door, when they are not
on the record, they tell us all the time that yes, we need
changes. They say they would like to have some influence with
the government. Many of the government members will argue that
they have less influence than the members of the opposition.
Again, it is time that we start earning respect. We will earn
that respect only if we have the courage to bring about these
changes.
The motion put forward the Canadian Alliance was drafted by the
Liberal Party. I know it was drafted before the Liberal Party
was elected to government. It was a 1993 election promise which
they have not fulfilled.
I ought to emphasize that, setting patronage aside, the four
opposition parties passionately want to see this happen. It is
time that the members on the other side have the courage to do
what is right so that they can look at themselves in the mirror.
It is time they start bringing about changes to this institution.
It is essential that we do that.
I want to commend the one member from the government, the new
member for Vancouver Quadra. I do not know if someone from the
House leader's office has got to the new member yet and rapped
his knuckles, but he had the courage to speak out and do the
right thing.
This new member for Vancouver Quadra, the former ombudsman for
British Columbia, was asked about this very issue on the weekend.
Again, I would like to commend Vaughn Palmer from the Vancouver
Sun for writing about this and bringing it to the attention
of all Canadians.
I will quote the Liberal member for Vancouver Quadra. He said:
We've led the country in conflict-of-interest legislation. Our
special prosecutor legislation is unique in Canada and in the
Commonwealth.
He went on to say:
One of them is the conflict-of-interest commissioner who is a
legislature officer rather than part of the executive of the
government and therefore independent of the executive.
It is not so in the federal parliament. He continued:
We've gained good experience, proud experience and the federal
government may want to look at that.
This is the Liberal member for Vancouver Quadra who was putting
forward positive ideas that were absolutely in sync with this
motion. I have to say that the member was completely open and
forthright.
1600
When asked about the Prime Minister lobbying the federal
business development bank three times on behalf of a constituent,
the member said he was not comfortable with what happened with
the Prime Minister and the federal business development bank.
The member said:
I don't think any of us should be comfortable with the confusion
and the public unease that it has caused. This is something
we've learned earlier in B.C., that you need to make the rules
very explicit, that you need to make the review processes very
transparent and independent. I think this is something I can
take with experience to Ottawa.
Let me sum up. We have to earn the trust and confidence of
every Canadian and they want to see changes. We can make this
institution so much more effective. We can utilize the talents
of all 301 members from all sides of the House if we have the
courage to do so.
On Tuesday the government members will have the opportunity to
vote on their own idea, their own motion that they drafted back
in 1993. I hope they will have the courage to do what is right
and start taking the first baby steps toward bringing positive
changes back to this institution.
Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I
had an opportunity to look at the transcript of the ethics
counsellor's appearance before the industry committee in the last
parliament, which I think would be useful as a preamble here. It
states that the provisions of the conflict of interest code
apply to members of the cabinet, parliamentary secretaries,
spouses and dependent children, members of ministers' political
staff, and essentially all full-time Governor-in-Council
appointees—in other words, the senior members of the executive
branch of government. This involves approximately 1,200 persons,
with another 1,900 part-time appointees subject to the principles
of the code.
Interestingly enough, the code does not apply to other members
of parliament or to senators. I think it is a very important
point, because both the last speaker and the previous speaker
talked about how we need this ethics counsellor so that we can be
kept on our toes. In fact it is not applicable to MPs. It opens
up quite a different question if that is what the member is
proposing.
However, my question to the member would be maybe more
fundamental. Could the member advise the House what it is
members of parliament would be able to do if the ethics
counsellor reported through a reporting system and a committee
that they cannot do today under the current arrangement? What
exactly can they not do today?
Mr. Gary Lunn: Mr. Speaker, let me take the questions in
order. First of all with respect to the point that opposition
members and backbench government members do not come under the
purview of the ethics counsellor, I agree with the member.
Absolutely we should. There is nothing wrong with that. I agree
100%. Right now the power is surrounded, in the Prime Minister
and the executive. The member is quite right and I would support
that. It would be another positive step that all members should
be made accountable.
On his second question about what we cannot do now, the ethics
counsellor reports only to the Prime Minister. We cannot get
those reports. They go only to the Prime Minister. They do not
go to all members of parliament. They are not tabled in the
House. That is what would change. If we had that openness, that
transparency, that total public scrutiny, it would hold all
people to a much higher level of standards. I believe it would
probably lead to keeping some of them a whole lot more honest.
Mr. Peter MacKay (Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, PC):
Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the previous speaker. I
know he is very sincere in his remarks and he brings the
appropriate tone to this debate.
He began his remarks by speaking of the main issue being ethics.
I think the majority of people who have participated in the
debate would certainly agree. However, there has to be
credibility behind those asking the questions as well. There has
to be an element of accountability.
That is to say that a person is on solid ground when he or she is
asking the questions or, in this instance, that when the ethics
counsellor is tasked with overseeing the activity of the Prime
Minister or another member of the House, he or she has that
credibility and that accountability to this place.
1605
The member has honed in on the difficulty of that position here.
It is not personal. It is not about Mr. Wilson. It is about the
office and the position he holds. Would the member not agree
that the intent was that he would report to the House, that he
would do just that? Would the member not agree that was
certainly the intent when the Prime Minister and his government
went before the electorate representing to the public that this
commissioner was going to report to parliament?
I want to quote from the backgrounder that was attached to the
original release when it was announced that the position of
ethics commissioner—counsellor at that time—would be created.
It said “The ethics counsellor will be available to the Prime
Minister to investigate allegations against his ministers and
senior officials involving conflicts of interest or lobbying”.
The difficulty is that if he is available to the Prime Minister,
he is not available to the House when he is investigating the
Prime Minister. Would the hon. member comment on that
suggestion?
Mr. Gary Lunn: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member
from the Progressive Conservative Party. He is absolutely right.
If I understand him correctly, what he is referring to is this:
not only is it important, as this motion says, that the ethics
counsellor reports directly to parliament, but it is also
important that all members of parliament and other people have
access to the ethics counsellor during the investigations so that
they can put forward submissions, so that they can have a
dialogue. Right now that ethics counsellor is only available to
one person, the Prime Minister, the person who appoints him.
Mr. John McKay (Scarborough East, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I
will be splitting my time.
It seems to me that when we are talking about ethics, the first
way to derail the conversation is to trash talk and put the
opposition, or in the other case the government, on the
defensive. At the end of the day all we end up doing is maybe
improving our eligibility to be NBA players. Beyond that it does
not seem to add much to the debate.
Possibly we can refrain from discussing specific instances and
try to deal with the merits of the case. I appreciate that this
may be a novel concept in this Chamber.
The motion reads:
That this House adopt the following policy from Liberal
Redbook 1 and call for its implementation by the
government: “A Liberal
Government will appoint an independent Ethics Counsellor to
advise both public officials and lobbyists in the day-to-day
application of the Code of Conduct for Public Officials. The
Ethics Counsellor will be appointed after consultation with the
leaders of all the parties in the House of Commons and will
report directly to Parliament.”
On the face of it there does seem to be merit in the motion. The
response of the government to the red book promise in 1994 was to
create an office of an ethics counsellor who is independent. I
would dare to say that we have done that. We have created the
office of an independent ethics counsellor to advise public
officials, mainly the government, the cabinet and parliamentary
secretaries, and lobbyists, which is a separate item altogether,
of the day to day application of the code of conduct. That has
been done.
The nub of the issue is whether the ethics counsellor should
report directly to parliament. The ethics counsellor is to
review ethical issues that come before the Prime Minister and
ministers of the crown, to deal not only with real conflicts of
interest but with perceived conflicts of interest. He is there
to give guidance and counsel. He has additional responsibility
under the Lobbyists Registration Act, which, as I said, is not
relevant to this debate.
1610
I take it as a given that the opposition is not seeking an
expansion of the role of the ethics counsellor; rather, they are
merely wishing to change the reporting function from what it is
presently, namely to the Prime Minister, to directly to
parliament. Again on the face of it, there does seem to be merit
in the position of the opposition—if opposition members had no
access to the decisions made by the ethics counsellor.
However, as members of the opposition know, the ethics
counsellor is a compellable witness before a House of Commons
committee. He is even compellable before the House. Indeed, his
decisions and his material are subject to freedom of information.
It is hard to imagine a more accessible officer. If a member
wants to review the activities of the ethics counsellor, a
committee can summon him to appear, regardless of what the Prime
Minister thinks.
The essence of the debate is therefore quite simple. Should an
ethics counsellor report directly to the Prime Minister with an
additional reporting function to a parliamentary committee and,
indeed, parliament, or should he have a statutory responsibility
to report directly to parliament?
It seems to me that if there is to be a change from reporting to
the Prime Minister with a potential of reporting to a committee,
as opposed to reporting to parliament directly, then there has to
be a case made by the opposition that the work of the current
ethics counsellor is deficient in some respect. May I suggest
that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
At this point it is my view that the opposition has not made its
case. In fact, a number of members of the opposition have
indicated that they believe that the ethics counsellor is a man
of untarnished reputation. I appreciate the concession on the
part of the opposition that this is not a personalized attack on
the ethics counsellor.
The next question therefore becomes, is there material before
the House which would lead a reasonable person to conclude that
the current ethics counsellor is not doing his job in a fair or
impartial manner?
Having listened to the representations of the opposition members
and having read in the press about interpretations and
representations of all members, I am not at all persuaded that
there has been any evidence produced that this ethics counsellor
is not doing his work in other than optimum conditions, and I am
persuaded that he speaks with a force of moral authority to
members of the government, which requires those members to take
action. On the face of it, members of the cabinet, the Prime
Minister and parliamentary secretaries respond very quickly to
what the ethics counsellor has to say.
I suppose the best evidence is that in the course of three
elections and subsequent mandates, there has not been a taint or
a whiff of scandal or conflict among the members of cabinet, the
parliamentary secretaries and the Prime Minister himself,
notwithstanding vigorous attacks by the opposition and the press.
Indeed, the press seems to be somewhat fatigued by the exercise.
The biggest endorsement, of course, is three majorities in a
row. My recollection of the election is that notwithstanding the
effort on the part of certain opposition parties to call into
question the integrity of the Prime Minister and indeed to raise
the spectre of a charge under the criminal code, it in fact had
no impact on the result of the election.
The opposition has started to circle in on an issue and
obviously the most political one concerns the Prime Minister and
a golf course in Shawinigan. The report of the ethics counsellor
exonerated the Prime Minister. This is somewhat regrettable if
one is a member of an opposition party, but it is a little like
calling the system of justice into question because we do not
like an individual judge's decision: if we do not get a decision
we like, perhaps we should change the forum so that a better
decision can be obtained.
I am therefore persuaded that this system does seem to work and
I have some confidence that this ethics counsellor is doing a job
under conditions that he sees as satisfactory. I have yet to
hear the ethics counsellor himself complain that the conditions
under which he finds himself working and the person to whom he
reports in fact compromise anything he might do. I can recollect
no evidence of any comments by this counsellor which indicate
that he feels that his work is compromised by the system.
It seems, therefore, that the opposition needs to show that the
ethics counsellor is compromised by the process. It needs to
give concrete and specific examples which show that the ethics
counsellor and the process are compromised. It needs to show
that the existing system does not work.
1615
The opposition has demonstrated that the current system of
reporting to the Prime Minister on request to a parliamentary
committee, and indeed if requested to parliament itself, is a
fair and open process whereby members of all sides have access to
the decision and the decision making process.
In conclusion, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The system is
currently working. I cannot see any compelling reason for the
arguments on the part of the opposition.
Mr. Grant Hill (Macleod, Canadian Alliance): Mr.
Speaker, there is one compelling argument for changing the system
as it exists. The compelling argument was a document that the
member campaigned on in 1993. He knows that he campaigned on the
document. He knows that he campaigned on this principle.
We are asking him and his colleagues to keep their word on what
they said they would do. It surprises me how they can talk
around the issue and say there is no compelling reason to keep
their word.
If there has been a change in circumstances I would like to have
the member tell me what is that change in circumstances, because
a change in circumstances would mean that the promise was null
and void. If there is no change in circumstances from 1993 when
he campaigned on the red book and this issue, I would ask him to
vote for the principle because he campaigned on it. I ask him to
tell me how he could do otherwise.
Mr. John McKay: Mr. Speaker, I am not that old. For the
record I did not campaign in 1993.
Having said that, I want to go through the details of the
election promise. It stated that a Liberal government would
appoint an independent ethics counsellor. That part was done.
The ethics counsellor has been in place since 1994 and has
rendered decisions, which possibly the government did not really
like.
It stated that the government would advise both public officials
and lobbyists in the day to day application of the code of
conduct for public officials. The Lobbyists Registration Act has
been passed and has been put in place. I am assuming that public
officials means the government, the cabinet, the Prime Minister,
parliamentary secretaries, and so on. Again, that has been done.
It stated that the ethics counsellor would be appointed after
consultation with leaders of the parties. I understand that has
been done. Possibly certain members of the opposition did not
see that as being a satisfactory form of consultation.
It also stated that he would report directly to parliament. The
point of the debate is whether he has to report directly to
parliament by statute or whether he has to report directly to
parliament through the Prime Minister or through parliamentary
committees on request. As I said, I do not see circumstances
which compel that to change.
Mr. Peter MacKay (Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, PC):
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the member opposite. I
know he thinks in a very technical and reasonable way. He has
given the example of a judge in this instance and I want to draw
an example to his attention.
Let us take an individual named Jean who is to go before a judge
to be judged. Before he goes before the trial judge on
allegations he gets to pick and appoint the judge. Then Jean
appears before the judge. While Jean is there, he is the only
one who gets to present the evidence. Jean presents his case to
the judge that he appointed and hired. After the judge has heard
Jean's submissions he then retires. After making his decision on
the evidence presented by Jean, he then reports back to Jean. He
reports back to the person who hired him and then passes
judgment.
The hon. member talks about the perception. I know he
appreciates the nuance. The public should have confidence in the
office of ethics counsellor which in and of itself includes the
important distinction of ethics. Would he not agree that the
perception here is wrong?
Would he not agree that the in this instance the Prime Minister
is being judged by a person he has appointed and who reports only
to him? Does the hon. member not see something wrong with the
perception here?
1620
Mr. John McKay: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member raises an
interesting question. My belief is that the answer is in the
difference in the quality of the office, between what is a judge
and what is an ethics counsellor.
A judge necessarily needs independence in the process. A judge
necessarily hears evidence in an open and impartial manner. A
judge necessarily gives a judgment which has consequences.
However, we are talking about an ethics counsellor. An ethics
counsellor gives advice. An ethics counsellor gives counsel. An
ethics counsellor gives guidance. There are no sanctions. It is
in the area of morality and ethics. It is not in the area of
legal precedent.
Hon. Anne McLellan (Minister of Justice and Attorney General
of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, since this is my first
opportunity to rise in the House since you have been elevated to
your august position, let me say congratulations and all the very
best to you as Deputy Speaker in the months and years ahead.
I rise today to speak against the opposition day motion. As we
are all aware, members of the House are proud of our traditions
as a parliamentary democracy. A parliamentary democracy means
that the Prime Minister and ministers are accountable to
parliament. This includes the ethical behaviour of ministers.
As a government we know the importance of ethical behaviour. We
have a Prime Minister who is personally responsible for the
government's ethical behaviour. We have a record of taking
action and we have made sure that a commitment to ethical conduct
reaches all levels within the Government of Canada and is part of
its everyday ongoing work.
Public service is a trust, and trust in institutions is vital to
a democracy. The Prime Minister is personally accountable to
Canadians and to the House for the conduct of his ministers and
his officials. The Prime Minister's responsibility for the
ethics counsellor reflects this.
The ethics counsellor provides reports to parliament on his
duties under the Lobbyists Registration Act. To establish a
similar reporting on his duty in advising the Prime Minister
would undermine the Prime Minister's responsibility for
ministerial conduct. At the heart of the Canadian system of
government is collective ministerial responsibility. This means
that the government is responsible to parliament and it must
maintain the confidence of the House in order to govern.
Collective responsibility requires cabinet confidentiality.
Initiatives to strengthen integrity and transparency in
government include more opportunity for policy debates in the
House, changes to the pension plan for MPs to end double dipping,
a conflict of interest code available to the public, a
strengthened Lobbyists Registration Act, and the possibility for
the auditor general to report to parliament up to four times a
year.
We on this side of the House oppose the Canadian Alliance
opposition day motion on the ethics counsellor. The opposition
day motion suggests that the government is not accountable to
parliament for its ethic's policies and behaviour. Nothing could
be further from the truth. Our government is accountable to
parliament. Parliament considered and passed the Lobbyists
Registration Act. The auditor general can now report to
parliament up to four times a year.
A strengthened code of conduct for public officeholders has been
tabled in parliament and the Prime Minister and ministers
continue to be accountable to parliament for their policies and
ethical behaviour.
An independent ethics counsellor has been established to advise
the Prime Minister on ministerial ethical issues. The ethics
counsellor is independent and reports to the Prime Minister. The
Prime Minister reports to parliament. The opposition was
consulted on the selection of the ethics counsellor. The ethics
counsellor reports to parliament on his duties under the
Lobbyists Registration Act. The ethics counsellor can be asked
to appear before parliamentary committees and in fact has done
so.
As we have heard from my colleague, the hon. member from
Scarborough East, not only has he appeared, but if necessary, he
is a compellable witness before parliamentary committees.
1625
In other words, not only have our actions reflected the spirit
of our red book commitments on ethics and integrity, we have
exceeded those commitments. Our position is that we are
implementing our red book commitments and that is why we are
voting against the opposition day motion.
Mr. James Moore (Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam,
Canadian Alliance): Mr. Speaker, my first question to the
minister has to do with the ethics counsellor. When an ethical
blunder that may be worthy of rebuke is reported to the Prime
Minister why are the criteria not released to the public?
Second, the minister made constant reference to ethics,
policies, great behaviour and integrity. She said that the
government has exceeded those expectations. I am curious to know
what steps have been taken to rebuke the unethical comments made
by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration during the
election campaign?
Hon. Anne McLellan: Mr. Speaker, in relation to the hon.
member's last unfortunate and gratuitous comment, it is most
inappropriate for him to bring those comments into a debate that
was begun today by the opposition in relation to the role of the
ethics counsellor.
I would suggest that red herrings, such as the one he just
raised, are inappropriate if we are to take the debate in
relation to the ethics counsellor seriously.
The hon. member's first question was—
An hon. member: What about Debbie's pension?
The Deputy Speaker: Order, please. I just want to remind
members on both sides of the House to please make their
interventions to one another through the Chair.
Hon. Anne McLellan: Mr. Speaker, I have here the conflict
of interest code for public officeholders. In fact, it is a
public document. It clearly outlines the principles of the code
of conduct. It begins with objects, principles, the
interpretation thereof, the duties of the ethics counsellor and
compliance arrangements. It is a very detailed outline in terms
of what any one of us has to do in relation to our assets and our
liabilities, gifts, hospitality and other benefits. It lists
failure to comply, failure to agree and consequences thereof,
compliance measures.
I cannot imagine what more information the member would need
than this. The information is available. All he has to do is
take it off the net.
[Translation]
Mr. Réal Ménard (Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I wish
the minister had the grace to admit what the Bloc Quebecois and
its leader pointed out during the election campaign, which is
that we all stand to gain from a process in which the ethics
counsellor is selected, appointed and recognized by parliament.
I think that all the opposition parties would support rapid
action in this direction. There would be no doubt as to the
integrity, legitimacy and relevance of the duties of a bona fide
ethics counsellor.
Will the minister admit, as a parliamentarian, that this kind of
appointment must be the prerogative and the responsibility of
all parliamentarians and not just of the Prime Minister, who
uses it for partisan ends?
[English]
Hon. Anne McLellan: Mr. Speaker, I fundamentally disagree
with the premise of the hon. member's question.
1630
In fact, as I have already indicated, the ethics counsellor is
appointed by the Prime Minister after a process of consultation
with leaders of the opposition parties. For the hon. member to
suggest that there is anything dishonest or dishonourable, either
in relation to this particular ethics counsellor or this office
of the ethics counsellor, is certainly unbecoming.
I have already indicated that our system is one of parliamentary
democracy and accountability. The Prime Minister is accountable
to the House. He is accountable to the Parliament of Canada.
Therefore, to suggest that somehow in the appointment of the
ethics counsellor we are in any way treating the House lightly is
a mischaracterization of the situation.
Unlike in most functioning democracies, the Prime Minister comes
here virtually every day and is accountable to everyone in the
House for everything he does, including the appointment of the
ethics counsellor.
Mr. Peter MacKay: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of
order. Given the importance of the issue and given the presence
of the justice minister, who is without a doubt the highest
ranking lawyer in the country, I wonder if we could have
unanimous consent of the House to continue the question and
answer period with her for another 10 minutes.
The Deputy Speaker: Is there unanimous consent?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
Some hon. members: No.
Mr. John Williams (St. Albert, Canadian Alliance): Mr.
Speaker, I can quote the Minister of Justice from just a couple
of minutes ago, when she said that our system is one of
parliamentary democracy. I believe she also said that public
office is a public trust.
What we see today in the debate on the motion and in the
response and the defence being put on by the government is that
the government really does not believe that we have a working
parliamentary democracy. I do not think they appreciate that
public office is a public trust.
The reason I say that is that it does come down to the heart of
accountability. Human nature being what it is, unless we are
accountable to someone else or to some external force, human
nature tends to suggest that we cover up for ourselves. We do
things that are not totally proper, but then we hope to get away
with them.
Here is how I define accountability. I have done a lot of work
on the topic. I was chairman of the public accounts committee in
the House in the last parliament and a member of the committee in
the parliament previous to that, and I deal a lot with
accountability. I work a lot with the auditor general who, in
his way, tries to hold the government accountable by releasing
his independent reports, his criticisms and the problems that he
finds. Sometimes they are overlooked by the government.
Accountability means that one is responsible to forces that one
does not control and that will affect one's behaviour. If the
forces are not totally and absolutely out of one's control, if
one can manage them, manipulate them and dominate them, then
there is no accountability, regardless of what the justice
minister says.
Parliament was created and then evolved over several hundreds of
years in the U.K. It started off with a monarch who had absolute
autocratic authority. He did what he wanted. He hung people,
imprisoned people, taxed people and went to war. He did whatever
he wanted with absolute, total, autocratic authority, and the
people said no. Over several hundred years, the people wrestled
from the monarchy the right to hold the government and the
monarch accountable.
In the House, as 301 parliamentarians, perhaps excluding the
government benches, it is our role to hold the government
accountable. Unfortunately, we in this House either tend to
think that we are part of government or, on the opposite side of
the House, we hope that we become government. Therefore we lose
our focus on what we in the House should be doing, which is to
hold the government accountable.
As long as the Prime Minister says that he is doing his bit,
that he has an ethics counsellor who reports to him, it is an
outright sham when it comes to accountability.
For the justice minister to speak in the House about how
accountable the government is and to say that they will vote
against the motion indicates the disdain by which they hold the
House and the members who sit in the House.
1635
We only have to look in the recent past at the HRDC billion
dollar boondoggle. There were numerous HRDC audits in the last
number of years, internal audits that did not cause change.
However, when the final audit got into the public domain and the
minister could no longer control the response to it, we finally
had some real accountability because the minister had to respond
to forces outside her control.
We had the Minister of Health, just yesterday, answering
questions about the native treatment centre scandal in Manitoba.
Why is that a scandal? Because there is no accountability.
The financial statements are not available. The chief said that
once the money flowed to the reserve it was no longer public
money and he did not have to answer to anybody. Now we find
after years that thousands and millions of dollars have gone
astray.
We find that people are off on Caribbean cruises and they call
it training. How can that be? The minute it becomes public and
the minute that the chief no longer controls the responses and
the demands for information, we find there is real
accountability.
We had the Shawinigan affair in the Prime Minister's riding. Let
us compare the ethics counsellor reporting to the Prime Minister
and the chairman of the business development bank who lost his
job because he was suggesting that he did not do what the Prime
Minister wanted. I would expect that the ethics counsellor would
have lost his job too if he did not do what the Prime Minister
wanted. That is a great affront.
I draw attention to a parallel a couple of weeks ago in the U.K.
parliament. The minister for Northern Ireland, Mr. Peter
Mandelson, was economical with the truth. He gave some
information to a junior minister who reported to parliament that
turned out to be a bit shy of the whole story. Within two days he
was no longer a minister. If that type of thing happens in our
parliament, unfortunately it is glossed over and it is business
as usual.
In the last few days the Minister of Foreign Affairs admitted to
the House that he had not been in full command of all the facts
in his department and his department had not been in full command
of all the facts regarding the Russian diplomat who was expelled
from Canada. He has by and large mislead the House because he
was not up to his job.
The Deputy Speaker: Order, please. I am having some
difficulty with the last statement made by the hon. member. I
would hope that he might continue his remarks by being somewhat
more judicious.
Mr. John Williams: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Foreign
Affairs has provided us with more information as the days go on
which does not support what he said in the days before. He has
suggested that he now is in command of more facts he has a
different story to tell.
We can draw whatever conclusion we want from that. Had it been
in the U.K. parliament he would have been gone. There is no
question about that, none whatsoever. It did not cause a ripple
in this place. That is why there is very little accountability
here. That is why the Prime Minister is getting away with an
ethics counsellor that reports to him rather than to the House.
It is time the House wrestled back the responsibility it should
have never given up to hold the government accountable.
We cannot expect the citizens on the street who are going about
their daily lives to hold the government accountable. That is
why we were elected.
1640
The Parliament of Canada should hold the Government of Canada
responsible. For the Prime Minister to suggest anything else
would suggest that he is more of an autocrat than a democrat.
Members of the House are getting fed up with stories about the
ethics commissioner saying no rules were broken and that
everything is fine. No rules were broken because there are no
rules to break. That also speaks volumes.
Lack of accountability led to a billion dollar boondoggle at
HRDC. Lack of accountability in the native treatment centre in
Manitoba led to a huge waste of money. We now have all kinds of
misgivings about the deal going on in the Prime Minister's
riding. The auditor general is talking about gross incompetence
in the Minister of Canadian Heritage's department because due
diligence was not performed on 19% of the files.
Across the frontlines the government does not respect the fact
that parliament's job is to hold it accountable. We
unfortunately have given up far too much of our power. It is
time we got it back. It is time the government was answerable to
us and the Canadian people.
Mr. Derek Lee (Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the
Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I
suggest to the hon. member opposite that there may be a profound
misunderstanding, wilful or inadvertent, on the part of some
members about what the ethics counsellor is or does.
I heard the hon. member refer to the ethics counsellor as an
ethics commissioner. There is a very big difference. The
opposition is clearly seeking someone who will be an enforcer, a
policeman, a judge, someone who will do his or her job in
enforcing a code of conduct or ethics. The ethics counsellor is
none of those.
The ethics counsellor is a counsellor to those who are
appointed, who are ministers, who are parliamentary secretaries,
so that they can avoid the difficulties of conflict of interest
and pre-empt difficult situations. That issue has been addressed
back and forth today.
Let me put another issue to the hon. member. All of us in the
House are busily holding forth on the issue of compliance with a
code of conduct which would exist for ministers, for
officeholders and for parliamentary secretaries. There is no
code of conduct. For all of those here who are holding forth,
there is no code of conduct for members of parliament. They are
very willing to hoist upon the other officeholders a code of
conduct, but not one element of a code of conduct applies to
members in the House. That is business that we have to do.
Before we wax eloquent on what is missing in all of the other
codes of conduct, I suggest we get our own House in order. I ask
the member to comment on that.
Mr. John Williams: Mr. Speaker, the member was talking
semantics about counsellor and commissioner. The Prime Minister
is not accountable to the House and he should be. The intent of
the red book motion was that the Prime Minister and the
government be accountable. If the forces are beyond our control
to manage then we are not accountable.
With regard to the second point raised about members of
parliament not having a code of conduct, the Council of Europe
has developed a clear code of conduct for its parliamentarians. I
will be glad to work with the member to see if it can be
introduced in the House.
I hope members of the House can move on, hopefully with the
encouragement of the Prime Minister and the government. The
justice minister said public office is a public trust. I hope we
can rise to that level to ensure that our constituents have faith
in us as we perform our responsibilities.
Let it start with the Prime Minister. Let him demonstrate how
he will rise above the smelly little scandals that seem to be
cropping up each and everywhere. He could set them aside by
rising to a higher level of principle and ensuring that the
government is accountable to the House.
1645
Mr. Peter MacKay (Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, PC):
Mr. Speaker, I must agree with the hon. member who just spoke.
There are a lot of semantics and careful, niggling little words
being used in characterizing the office.
It is clear that the intent in the red book was to bring about
accountability. The hon. member knows well about accountability.
He very much makes it his passion in this place. He is the
fiscal thistle who often brings out barbs of information against
the government and its accountability to the House and to
Canadians.
I want to put to the member the chronology of how things have
unfolded. The Prime Minister owned a property. The Prime
Minister sold the property. The property sale did not go
through, therefore in some form it came back to him. It may have
been in a blind trust, but it was a blind trust with a lot of
peripheral vision. However, during the time that the property
was not sold, when it was in an inbetween, purgatory stage, the
Prime Minister was making representations to the Business
Development Bank to assist an individual, well known by the Prime
Minister, in the sale of a property adjoining his own that would
therefore enhance the value of the property held by the Prime
Minister.
Is this perception or reality? Is this not a conflict of
interest that should be viewed by an individual with
impartiality, not connected to the Prime Minister in any way,
shape or form? That is what is at the crux of the issue that has
led to this debate.
Does the hon. member have a comment with respect to the
perception of the public in the chronology that I have just laid
out?
Mr. John Williams: Mr. Speaker, in the words of a wise
person, whom I cannot remember at this time, if we have to ask if
it is a conflict of interest, we can bet our boots that it is.
Therefore, if we are ever concerned that we may be in a conflict
of interest then we probably are in a conflict of interest.
Mr. James Rajotte (Edmonton Southwest, Canadian Alliance):
Mr. Speaker, let me congratulate you on your appointment as
Speaker. As a new member I will certainly look to you for
guidance as I deliberate in the House of Commons.
It is an honour and a privilege to stand here today in our
national parliament on behalf of the people of Edmonton
Southwest. Since this is my first address in this distinguished
Chamber, I take this opportunity to express my sincere
appreciation to the people of Edmonton Southwest. They have
bestowed upon me a tremendous honour, but also a tremendous duty
and a tremendous responsibility.
I also thank those people without whose efforts I would not be
standing here today, not only for their efforts but also for
their love and support. I especially thank my family,
particularly my mother and father. One could not ask for more
supportive parents. It is to their credit, as well as a credit
to the democratic principles of our citizens, that the son of two
school teachers can rise and be selected by his fellow citizens
to represent their concerns and aspirations in our national
parliament.
I also thank my friends, mentors and colleagues at the
University of Alberta, particularly in the department of
political science. I am quite cognizant to the reality that many
individuals there may not have intended to help mould a Canadian
Alliance member of parliament, but I am genuinely appreciative of
their goodwill over the past number of years.
Last, I thank the previous member of parliament for Edmonton
Southwest, Mr. Ian McClelland, with whom I worked for four years.
This hon. gentleman is well known to members of the House and
achieved something notable during his time here: respect from
members on both sides of the House.
Since my arrival in parliament, many members have told me that I
have big shoes to fill, in more ways than one. Ian himself would
likely describe this as a Sisyphean challenge, but it is a
challenge I readily and heartily accept.
The residents of Edmonton Southwest, if I can characterize them,
are tough-minded, warm-hearted and principled people who focus on
big issues and offer pragmatic solutions. They are very honest
in their critiques, but when there is work to be done they roll
up their sleeves and get to work.
During the recent election I noticed that their concerns related
primarily to fiscal responsibility and the democratic nature of
government.
1650
That is why I am pleased to speak today to the official
opposition motion. This motion speaks to the broad themes of
democratic and parliamentary reform, accountability and
transparency in government.
The motion states that the House adopt the following policy from
Liberal red book one and calls for the immediate implementation
of it by the government:
A Liberal Government will appoint an independent Ethics
Counsellor to advise both public officials and lobbyists in the
day-to-day application of the Code of Conduct for Public
Officials. The Ethics Counsellor will be appointed after
consultation with the leaders of all parties in the House of
Commons and will report directly to Parliament.
While this motion is specifically related to the ethics
counsellor, it does relate to the broader themes of parliamentary
and democratic reform, fiscal responsibility, accountability and
transparency, and members of parliament themselves.
During the recent election, people in Edmonton spoke
passionately about the need for accountability from the
government to ensure they were respected as citizens and that
their taxpayer dollars were treated as funds in trust.
They were very frustrated by the spending problems within the
Department of Human Resources Development, but were more
frustrated by the unwillingness of the government to take
responsibility for those financial problems.
They were particularly upset by the revelation that the auditor
general was not able to present his report to the respective
committee because of lack of attendance by government members.
When this was combined with report of the information
commissioner, in which he detailed concerns about the lack of
openness in this government, people expressed grave concern about
the lack of accountability and transparency of a government
elected to serve their best interests.
A common frustration I encountered from people was that public
officials did not seem accountable to them as citizens. They
felt the only control they had was the opportunity every four
years, or three and a half in this case, to walk into a polling
booth and mark an X on a ballot.
One of the most serious problems facing Canadian democracy today
is the concentration of political power within the Prime
Minister's office and the lack of checks and balances to that
power.
Canada today has what political scientist Donald Savoie called
court government as distinguished from the cabinet government and
parliamentary government of earlier political eras. We have
almost reverted to what the hon. member for St. Albert was
talking about, a monarchy style of government with a court that
advises the monarch.
The Prime Minister's office has grown in size and scope since
the 1960s. This size and corresponding increase in power is a
threat not only to our fundamental rights and duties as
parliamentarians, but also to our basic liberties as free and
equal citizens.
Those are strong words, but I ask my fellow parliamentarians and
fellow citizens to consider the powers currently exercised in
Canada by one individual: the power to appoint all the members
of the cabinet; the power to appoint all the members of the
Supreme Court of Canada, which has become more involved in public
policy decisions and our daily lives; the power to appoint all
the members of the second national legislative body, the Senate;
the power to influence and appoint all the chairmen of the
parliamentary committees; and the power to control the House of
Commons by disallowing free votes through a misuse of the
confidence convention.
We have to ask ourselves whether having so much power in one
office with one individual is healthy for our democracy. I
believe we even have to question whether we are fulfilling those
democratic traditions and principles we hold dear.
Regardless of the political party in power, regardless of the
person in the office, the concentration of political power,
combined with the extension of the state more and more into our
everyday lives, is a serious threat to our fundamental rights as
citizens. As more and more decisions are made that impact our
lives, we as citizens have less control, if any, over these
decisions.
One step to address the problem is to restore parliament to its
proper role. With the increasing power of the Prime Minister's
office and the increasing influence of the judiciary on public
policy, the third aspect of our democracy, the legislature, has
declined in importance. This is an unfortunate trend for a
nation that was established in the British tradition of
parliamentary democracy, where parliament was intended to be the
highest institution of political authority.
Apart from historical reasons, one of the best reasons today for
reinvigorating parliament and empowering parliamentarians is to
fully utilize the talents of members in the House.
1655
In my previous life as a political assistant and in my short
time here so far, I have had the opportunity to witness some fine
parliamentarians, men and women from all parties who are
intelligent, independent minded individuals.
The current function of parliament within our institutional
framework, combined with the manner in which this place operates,
both of which are primarily caused by the concentration of
political power, means that the skills of these thoughtful and
deliberative MPs are not fully realized. I would argue in fact
that they are barely realized.
One only has to think back to the debate this morning, when a
member from another political party, the hon. member for
Winnipeg—Transcona who I think all members would agree is one of
the more thoughtful, deliberative parliamentarians spoke. He is
has been in opposition almost his entire career. Think of what
he can effect in terms of change? Are we fully utilizing the
talents of members of parliament such as him if we simply sit on
two sides of the aisle and have power so concentrated within the
Prime Minister's Office?
In my view this motion attempts to tilt the balance back from
the Prime Minister's office to parliament by having the ethics
counsellor being appointed only after genuine consultation with
the leaders of all parties and by having the ethics counsellor
report directly to parliament.
This reporting directly to parliament will ensure the process is
open and transparent to all Canadians. It will make public
officials and lobbyists truly accountable for their actions. It
will begin to make parliament and parliamentarians resume their
rightful place as the institutional guardians of the public
trust.
I would encourage all members on both sides of the House to
reflect seriously on the motion and join with me in supporting
its passage and implementation.
Mr. John Bryden (Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot,
Lib.): Mr. Speaker, a previous speaker alluded to the fact
that there is no code of conduct for MPs in the House.
I would like to ask the new member whether he feels there should
be a code of conduct for MPs and whether that code of conduct
should be enforced by an ethics counsellor, some person outside
of parliament who reports to parliament. Would he like to see
such a situation?
Mr. James Rajotte: Mr. Speaker, the best control over
parliamentarians is the voters. As parliamentarians, we are
directly responsible to the voters.
There is a difference between the government and parliament, and
I think the hon. member for St. Albert alluded to this. There is
a difference between the cabinet, which is responsible for
ministries and departments, and parliament.
The change that happened in the Magna Carta was fundamental. It
is fundamental that parliament, as the representative of the
people, control how the cabinet exercises and disburses the
money.
Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I
am going to be splitting my time with the hon. member for
Waterloo—Wellington.
Congratulations on your appointment as Deputy Speaker. It is
good to see you there. I am very comfortable with you being
there.
I would like to extend my condolences to the family of the late
David Iftody, our colleague who died so suddenly this past week.
I would also like to say hello to our colleague from
Vaudreuil—Soulanges who has not been able to join us yet. His
wife has been quite ill. We send our best wishes to him, to his
wife and to his family.
I will start my comments by relating to the House some of the
testimony of the ethics counsellor, Mr. Howard Wilson, which he
gave in the 36th parliament to the industry committee. It is
interesting that the ethics counsellor is appearing before a
parliamentary committee. The members should know that one of the
opportunities we have is that the ethics counsellor can be
summoned to committee and in fact has been summoned to committee.
1700
In his testimony, and it was related to many of the issues that
have been raised in debate today, he referred to the conflict of
interest code. The most recent version was tabled in the House
of Commons by the Prime Minister in 1994. The member who just
spoke should note that it applies not just to cabinet ministers,
it also applies to parliamentary secretaries, their spouses and
dependent children, members of ministers' political staff and
essentially all full time governor in council appointees, senior
members of the executive branch of government as well as part
time appointees. In total the conflict of interest guidelines
apply to an estimated 3,100 persons.
Imagine the number of times questions of ethics may come up with
that many people. Imagine what would happen if all of a sudden
the ethics counsellor were required to prepare a report or report
through committee on the activities of his office in regard to
some 3,100 people. Imagine the allegations that could be made.
Even with the debate today, allegations have been made with
regard to some of the current issues allegations have been made.
All of these have been shown to be unsubstantiated allegations.
All members would have access to all of this information, and it
puts us in a very awkward position.
I really have some concern about having the ethics counsellor
being a position where at the whim of parliamentarians they could
start to get into a lot of the details of the operations of that
office.
The parliamentary secretary to the House leader indicated that
there was a difference between an ethics counsellor and an ethics
commissioner. Much of the discussion today has taken place with
regard to the policeman, the person who would be judge and jury.
That is not exactly the description of the ethics counsellor. I
wanted to put that on the table because we have to put this in
context.
We also need to confirm that the code of ethical guidelines does
not apply to members of parliament, nor to senators. Imagine the
allegations that would be made, never mind by another member of
parliament, perhaps by people in the public generally. Members
will know from experience with their constituency offices that
there are some fairly inquisitive people. Imagine if someone
bought a $50 or $100 ticket for a fundraiser and then all of a
sudden the person got an appointment. Someone in the House,
regardless of what side, would jump up and say it was a conflict
of interest or influence peddling and all kinds of things.
There is an incumbency on all members of parliament to be
honourable members of parliament. We are taken at our word and
when we speak in this place we always speak the truth. To
suggest that a member has misled or lied or whatever is contrary
to the rules of this place. We are all honourable members of
parliament.
With that as a preamble, I would like to address specifically
the details of the motion that is before this place. It is with
regard to an undertaking that the government made in the 1993
election about establishing an ethics counsellor in the first
place.
There are a number of elements to it. The government itself is
accountable to parliament. We considered and passed the
Lobbyists Registration Act and the ethics counsellor must enforce
the provisions of it. The auditor general now reports to
parliament up to four times a year. He can report almost as
often as he wants in certain circumstances. The code of conduct
has been strengthened for public officeholders. That was tabled
in parliament and a copy is available to all Canadians on the
parliamentary website. The Prime Minister and his ministers
continue to be accountable to parliament for their policies and
ethical behaviour.
We are accountable in this place. We are accountable for all of
the things that we do. All of the information that passes
through this place is available to members in one fashion or
another, whether it be in the House during question period, or
during debate, or during committee or other forums as well.
An independent ethics counsellor was established in accordance
with the undertaking back in 1993. Principally, his job is to
advise the Prime Minister on ministerial ethics issues. This is
where I think the big responsibilities lie, because there is such
a breadth of operations and responsibilities on our ministers.
1705
It is important for Canadians to know that there is a very
comprehensive code of ethics and guidelines on a variety of
requirements. Members of parliament must declare their assets.
They must establish blind trusts for certain assets. They are
restricted in terms of certain outside activities. There are
rules with respect to gifts and hospitality to ensure that there
would not be in fact or an appearance to be out of line with
hospitality type items to the avoidance of preferential
treatment. It also sets out what happens in the conditions of
failure to comply. It is a very important code of ethics that
has been presented to the House by the Prime Minister.
In its totality what has happened so far fully complies with the
spirit of the undertaking of the government that was laid out
back in 1993. The Prime Minister has an ethics counsellor to
ensure that he has the advice on all material matters of ethical
conduct so that he can ensure that he is kept apprised of areas
where there may be risks or problems of an ethical nature.
I stress though that we are not talking about illegal acts.
Illegal acts are dealt with by our judicial system and by the
RCMP. Members will know that RCMP investigations have been
raised with regard to a number of allegations, whether they be
HRDC or other matters that have come up over the years through
the House.
In a fundamental sense because the ethics counsellor discharges
those responsibilities, he is accountable to the House from the
standpoint that he can and has been subpoenaed to appear before
committee to answer questions.
Throughout the debate today we heard about a particular issue
that had to do with the Prime Minister. The question is
fundamental. Does the prime minister, when he becomes prime
minister, cease to be a member of parliament? Do the
constituents of the prime minister's riding give up their
opportunity to be served and assisted by their member of
parliament? It is an interesting question. It is pretty hard to
imagine anyone not knowing that their member of parliament was
also the prime minister. That fact alone, which is indisputable
and certainly there is not much one can do about it, probably
would have some influence in certain corners.
Fundamentally a member of parliament has to have the opportunity
to represent the interests of his or her constituents, and in
this particular case the Prime Minister did.
Today, I heard so many people rave about the allegations of
impropriety of wrongdoing, when in fact the ethics counsellor,
who was given a vote of confidence by all parties after
appropriate consultation, opined on that. He said the Prime
Minister had sold his interest in the golf course on November 1,
1993.
Mr. Jim Abbott (Kootenay—Columbia, Canadian Alliance):
Madam Speaker, it has been rather interesting to watch respected
members, and I say that about this member, of the Liberal Party
attempting to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
This issue is very simple and straightforward. With the
greatest respect, I point out to the member that we are not
talking about the spirit of what was promised by the Liberals. We
are talking about the words that the Liberals promised.
Apparently, there is a big difference between those two things.
The difficulty is that when the ethics counsellor does not
report directly to parliament, and the Prime Minister sets the
rules for the ethics counsellor, then the ethics counsellor will
make the ruling based on those particular rules.
1710
We all know that from time to time the House has to alter the
criminal code. It has to alter the Health Act. It has to alter
things to do with metric measurement. Things do evolve. In this
instance, as long as it is out of the reach of parliament to set
the rules, which a person of integrity like Howard Wilson will be
deciding on, then it is not doing the job.
In 1993 this member and other Liberal members campaigned on the
principle that the ethics counsellor “will report directly to
parliament”. Those are five simple words. Let us not worry
about the spirit. Let us worry about the words on which they
campaigned. Why is the member trying to thread the needle here
in such a way as to say that they are already doing it and that
they do not need those words? We are simply asking him to do
what he promised in 1993.
Mr. Paul Szabo: Madam Speaker, the ethics counsellor is
independent and the member will not even acknowledge that. The
rules are not set by the Prime Minister. The rules guiding the
conduct and the role of the ethics counsellor are set out in the
conflict of interest and post-employment code for public office
holders of June 1994, under which the ethics counsellor operates.
I think the hon. member maybe misspoke himself in describing what
the facts really are.
Second, the question comes down to whether it is better that he
report to parliament. I do not know exactly what that means.
Maybe it means to report annually to a committee or something or
to allow us to go on a fishing expedition. The point is that I
believe members of parliament, as demonstrated by what has
happened so far, can have the ethics counsellor appear before
committee to answer all the questions and to be fully accountable
for all questions on matters that are his responsibility.
Third, members also have the opportunity to receive from the
ethics commissioner any reports on anything. In fact the Leader
of the Opposition and the leader of fifth party wrote letters
asking for information and received it.
I do not believe that changing the instrument or vehicle in
which the ethics counsellor operates could at all change what
rights or opportunities members currently have. It would not
change anything other than the fact that it might give
parliamentarians an opportunity to go on wild fishing expeditions
with regard to 3,100 persons who are covered by this code of
ethics.
Mrs. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine,
Lib.): Madam Speaker, have listened to quite a bit of the
debate on this motion today. I am going to give a hypothetical
case because it has not happened in parliament but it has
happened in a provincial legislature.
I would like to ask the member for Mississauga South whether he
believes that the fact that the ethics commissioner is appointed
by the Prime Minister would have any impact whatsoever on the
ethics counsellor's integrity and independence in judging a
complaint about a leader of an official opposition party
benefiting to the tune of $800,000 of taxpayers' money to settle
a private—
The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos): The hon. member
for Waterloo—Wellington.
Mr. Lynn Myers (Waterloo—Wellington, Lib.): Madam
Speaker, first, I had an opportunity to review this opposition
day motion. Quite frankly it is crass politics at its worst. It
simply comes from the dying days of the campaign prior to
November 27, when the reformed alliance people were floundering
and did not know which way to turn, so they came up with this
smear campaign against the Prime Minister.
This is a man of enormous integrity, a man who has fought all his
life to ensure good, decent and honest government, but here we
have the kinds of antics we saw not only today but certainly
leading up to the election as well, antics that denigrate the
good character of the Prime Minister and others associated with
him. I find it objectionable. I want to go on record as noting
that. I think the good people of Waterloo—Wellington do as well.
1715
We need to be very clear in terms of what has taken place.
First, the ethics counsellor has repeatedly said that the Prime
Minister at every step acted with great integrity and did not
show favouritism or any kind of partiality. He did so on behalf
of his constituents. Next, the highest court, the court of the
electorate, spoke on November 27 and, first, re-elected the
Liberal government but, second, noted that there were in fact
some questions about the integrity of the leader of the reformed
Alliance group.
Let us consider the evidence on that fact. First, as was
pointed out by the hon. member in her question to the other
member who spoke, the leader of the opposition has $792,064 worth
of reasons why he should be looking at his own nest before he
starts considering others. This was taxpayers' money that was
paid out as a result of ego, arrogance and error. He could have
settled with Mr. Goddard for $60,000. Did he do it? No, he did
not. He let the taxpayers of Alberta pick up the tab.
It is hard to take when we put that in the context of the
grandstanding we are seeing today. It is doubly galling when we
think of the fact that on this very day, at nine o'clock mountain
standard time, a civil court challenge is being launched by none
other than the former Speaker of the Alberta legislature, who
happens to be a colleague of the Leader of the Opposition. The
former Speaker claims that that $800,000 price tag—for ethical
or unethical behaviour, take your pick—was in fact unethical but
also contrary to the rules of the legislature of Alberta and that
taxpayers' funds were indeed used to settle a private defamation
lawsuit. How ironic that it is happening on this very day.
Let us not forget another little story that took place about a
month ago. When he was seeking a seat in the House of Commons
last summer, the Alliance leader claimed that Jim Hart, the
sitting member for Okanagan—Coquihalla, had willingly and of his
own volition offered to give up his seat. Only recently did we
find out that the seat had a price tag of $50,000.
Well, is it not so ironic that those people opposite, those
holier than thou, reformed Alliance people, can always be on the
side of the angels, depending on which way they spin their little
web in their zealotry and other things? Fifty thousand dollars
is a lot of money. In the Ottawa Sun of January 24, 2001,
there is a quote which reads, “People would find it shocking.
Fifty thousand bucks is a lot of money”. That was the member
for Wild Rose saying this about his very own leader and his very
own colleagues. There is a joke circulating on this point which
says that the Alliance leader had the Albertans pay for his mouth
and the Alliance Party pay for his seat. Whether or not that is
funny I will leave for you to decide.
This is all on the heels of the former leader having a secret
fund of $40,000 for clothing and other things. Here we go again
with the duplicity and the hypocrisy.
Speaking of duplicity, hypocrisy and other matters, ethical or
unethical, let us remember the member for Edmonton North, the
high priestess of principle herself on pensions. There were pigs
squealing, buttons in the House, pigs on the front lawn and other
things, but she has found it in her heart, bless her dearly, to
find $90,000 to buy back into the pension.
1720
Do we not read today that the member for Medicine Hat has found
$50,000 to do the same? He says he is finding it quite difficult
to square with his constituents. Is it not always interesting to
note that at one time they say one thing to certain groups of
people in parts of the country when it is convenient to their
purposes and quite another to another set of people at another
time? It does not always seem to jibe, and the circle always
does not get quite squared, but holier than thou as they are,
they keep plugging away.
I will say here and now that we as a government take pride in
the fact that we have provided an excellent service to Canadians.
We have provided good governance in the keeping of Canadian
values and institutions. The Prime Minister, the cabinet and
this government brought forward the Lobbyists Registration Act,
for example, on the heels of the election after the first mandate
in 1993. The Prime Minister and the cabinet brought forward the
notion of the ethics counsellor. We did so knowing it was in
keeping with the will of the people and knowing that we would be
transparent and accountable in a manner consistent with what
Canadians want and consistent with what I believe Canadians
deserve.
We have maintained and held onto those high ethical standards,
in keeping, then, with what parliamentary democracy is all about,
in keeping with the constituents' wishes. We have ensured that
we have the kinds of appointments and ethical considerations in
place that keep us moving in a way that is consistent with what
Canadians want us to do.
Why did we do it? When we took power in 1993, what a rogues'
gallery there was under the Mulroney era. Need I remind the
House that as a direct result of that, it was the ethics
counsellor who brought forward the kinds of things that we now
have in place because of what took place with the Tories prior to
1993. I could go through the list. There were Sinclair Stevens
and the royal commission that concluded there were violations of
14 different conflicts of interest. I could talk about André
Bissonnette, the Minister of Transport, who left cabinet as a
result of flipping land that went from $800,000 to $3 million in
11 days. I could talk about Roch LaSalle and others. I could go
on to Michel Coté and Senator Michel Cogger.
Earlier I wanted to ask the Conservatives something, because
they were getting on their high horse too. They were going on
about the kinds of clean and ethical things that they are capable
of, yet we saw the rogues' gallery that preceded us in 1993. I
want to know why Conservative Senator Eric Berntson is still
sitting as a member of their caucus. If they are on such high
moral ground, they should be asking for his resignation. They
should be booting him out.
Do we remember that corrupt government of Grant Devine and the
kinds of things that were happening there? He is still sitting
as a member of their caucus. If they are on such high moral
ground, the first thing they should be doing is getting him out.
I find that at the end of the day this government has acted with
honesty and integrity and continues to do so on behalf of the
people of this great country. For the reformed Alliance people
to bring in this kind of crass political motion and to do so in
light of their pension flip-flop, in light of the $800,000 that
their leader has squandered on behalf of the taxpayers of
Alberta, in light of paying $50,000 for Jim Hart's seat, in light
of point after point of questionable ethics and doing it with the
holier than thou attitude that only those people opposite have, I
can tell you this: the good folks in Waterloo—Wellington do not
cut to that kind of chase. They see hypocrisy where it is every
time and I can tell you that on this day in this parliament it
resides on those benches.
Mrs. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine,
Lib.): Madam Speaker, I really appreciate some of the
examples that the member from Waterloo—Wellington gave about
some of the incidents we could qualify as conflict of interest
incidents or as unethical.
1725
Does the member perchance have any other examples on the part of
the official opposition party or perhaps on the part of the
former government party, the Progressive Conservatives? I, as
well as those in my riding, would be most interested.
Mr. Lynn Myers: Madam Speaker, I am interested in these
kinds of matters. I find it interesting to do the research to
get to the bottom of these kinds of issues.
I can tell the House that the Conservatives under Mr. Mulroney
had a decade of arrogance and high-handness when it came to the
issue of conflict of interest and the unethical behaviour that
took place. What happened was a crying shame. Members will note
that under the leadership of the Prime Minister and this
government that has not been the pattern.
I could go on at length about the reformed Alliance people,
those holier than thous who sit on that side of the House and
preach the gospel of always being on the moral high ground when
in fact they are down in the gutter to the extent of $800,000.
We have to think about the member for Edmonton North and her
pension. I was playing the tape not so long ago and listening to
the pig sounds. The snorting was incredible. The pigs were out
on the front lawn of this great parliament and there were pig
buttons, and all of a sudden that is all supposed to be
forgotten. Those members ran a couple of elections on the fact
that they would never buy into pensions and now it is “oh, let
us conveniently forget it”. The member for Medicine Hat said
that it was hard to square with his constituents, but he wants
back in. It is unbelievable.
The hypocrisy, the duplicity, the flip-flopping, the
holier-than-thou-ism are unbelievable. It is so sacrosanct, and
yet at the same time they are sucking and blowing whenever they
think they can get away with it. I object and so do the people
on this side of the House, as do my constituents of
Waterloo—Wellington and most Canadians, because Canadians spot
hypocrisy and duplicity every time, especially from those who
always claim the moral high ground. That is when it galls the
most and that is exactly what we are seeing here today.
Mr. Loyola Hearn (St. John's West, PC): Madam Speaker, I
listened with interest to the hon. member. There is no doubt
that many of us here in the House would agree that there are
certain basic rules and principles that we should adhere to.
The member, in his holier than thou attitude, basically set the
parameters under which we should all operate. He looked at
examples of the past and, perhaps rightly so, pointed out
individuals and occasions about which none of us can hold our
heads high and say that we agreed with what people did. In
saying so, the member himself undoubtedly is saying he does not
agree with this either.
Is the member then saying that because he does not agree with
this underhanded work, the conflict of interest we have seen in
the past, his leader, the Prime Minister, should meet his
Waterloo—not to pun the member's district—and perhaps step
aside? He is in the same boat as many of the others the member
was talking about.
Are you also saying that your leader is wrong? That is the
impression you have given the House.
The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos): I remind the
hon. members to address the Chair and not each other.
Mr. Lynn Myers: Madam Speaker, I can clear this up very
quickly. That is not at all what I said.
What I was pointing out about the previous Tory administration
is that between 1986 and 1988 there were no less than 14
incidents of conflict of interest. We had to clean up that mess.
That is exactly what the Prime Minister, the cabinet and the
government did. We cleaned up that mess. As a result, we now
have good conflict of interest guidelines in place. There is a
conflict of interest person who, under the ethics commission and
counsellor, does what is required.
1730
Mr. Grant McNally (Dewdney—Alouette, Canadian Alliance):
Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for
Prince Albert. As this is my first speech in the new 37th
parliament, I will begin by thanking the people of
Dewdney—Alouette for entrusting me with the honour to serve them
for a second term.
I thank my wife Wendy and my four wonderful children for their
continued love and support. I thank my entire family, my
campaign team and my supporters who worked so hard for so long.
I also thank my hard working staff, Tara, Randy and Mark, for
their endless hours of support, encouragement and dedicated
efforts, and give great thanks to God for his grace and guidance
in my life.
The motion before the House today is one of significant
importance. I believe the motion before us and the subsequent
vote provides all members of parliament a landmark opportunity to
debate and work together to achieve a very important change in
the way the government conducts its business.
The action which we are championing with a non-partisan nature
is one which could signal to Canadians that those of us who have
been sent here to represent the people are willing to put aside
bitter partisan bickering for the greater good of the nation.
In the recent election fewer people came out to vote than in any
time in our country's history. We can draw many conclusions from
this. However I think it is obvious that our people are
withdrawing. More and more of our citizens, particularly young
people, are deciding that it simply does not matter what they do
at the polls, that things in Ottawa will never change.
This is an attitude that more and more of our citizens are
developing across regions, across age groups and in all
cross-sections of Canadian society. The simple fact is that
fewer people are involved in the political discourse of the
country. As members of parliament this should be of great
concern to all of us.
It is of great concern to me. On a personal level, I learned
through my father's experience as a veteran of the second world
war the great price that was paid for our freedom, for our
democracy, and for what we hold dear in this great country. I
will never forget my father's admonition to be involved and to
take the opportunity to vote always. I have done that and I
encourage others to do the same, to be involved.
As public figures we face the rigours of public scrutiny. We
need to be held accountable for our actions, as all people do. We
have been entrusted with a really great responsibility. People
are looking for leaders who are willing to be transparent, honest
and ethical. All successful organizations which stand the test
of time are committed to these principles.
It is true that organizations could flourish for a time even
though they may neglect these ethical principles, but ultimately
the lack of principle would lead to that institution's eventual
demise. That is why I believe that we can work together to pass
a motion which was developed by the governing Liberals
themselves.
We must give credit where credit is due. The motion to appoint
an independent ethics counsellor who reports directly to
parliament was promised to Canadians in red book one. We will
allow the government to take credit for the initiative it brought
forward.
I will take a minute to rebut some of the arguments by the
government that I have heard today. There have been many
attempts to deflect attention away from the motion by focusing on
other issues. It is a staid old measure in the government
members' arsenal to deflect attention about their own actions by
attacking others. We are used to that. Canadians are tired of
those kinds of tactics.
I will address specific points raised earlier in the House by
the government House leader. On several occasions in debate he
said that the current ethics counsellor reports to the House of
Commons. He stated that the ethics counsellor reports on
lobbyists activities and reports to parliamentary committees in
regard to the estimates.
Let me be very clear and let Canadians understand the process
under which the current ethics counsellor must operate. He is
appointed by the Prime Minister, paid by the government and
reports to the Prime Minister in regard to conflict issues
involving himself and his ministers.
The Prime Minister will not release the guidelines that the
ethics counsellor uses and he is under no obligation to release
any of these reports. The ethics counsellor does not have
investigative powers. In essence, he is bound from being able to
do what really needs to be done in order to have an independent
investigation.
The assertion made by the government House leader in regard to
the independence of the ethics counsellor was simply inaccurate
due to the current process that is in place. The government
House leader went on to argue that if we did not have the current
provisions in regard to the ethics counsellor in place brought in
by the government, a future prime minister might say with regard
to questionable activities “It is not my fault; ask the ethics
counsellor”. That was a point made by the government House
leader.
1735
I assert that this may not only happen in the future but it is
exactly what is happening with regard to the current Prime
Minister's Shawinigan circumstances. That is the current defence
being offered by the Prime Minister in regard to the many police
investigations into grants and loans in the Prime Minister's
riding and in regard to his involvement with the Business
Development Bank.
I submit to my colleagues that it is cold solace to any minister
of the crown, or Prime Minister, to be cleared of any wrongdoing
by a process that is so obviously flawed. Would it not be better
to have an independent ethics counsellor who could delve into
allegations with investigative powers to clear up all details
having to do with a conflict case? That simply does not happen
now under the current process.
Subsection 23(3) of the conflict of interest code states:
A public office holder shall not accord preferential treatment in
relation to any official matter to family members or friends or
to organizations in which they, family members or friends, have
an interest—
It is a bit beyond all credibility for Canadians to accept the
fact that the Prime Minister can pick up the phone for any of his
constituents and call the president of the Business Development
Bank of Canada and encourage him to grant a loan to a high risk
file against the president's better judgment. That is simply too
far of a stretch, but that is what the Prime Minister wants
Canadians to believe in regard to the Duhaime case.
The Prime Minister called the president on behalf of Mr.
Duhaime, a friend who had taken the Grand-Mère hotel off his
hands. The most powerful elected official in the country
intervened on behalf of a friend. Something is very wrong with
this picture.
It has become clear through the course of debate today that the
government is unlikely to support its own idea promised to
Canadians in its own red book. The government, earlier today,
attempted to pull some procedural tactics to change the entire
intent of the Canadian Alliance motion, which I believe has the
support of all opposition parties in the House. It is indeed a
sad day when the government engages in these types of tactics in
an attempt to extricate itself from a very difficult situation.
There is hope though. The Canadian Alliance will continue to
work together with others in a non-partisan manner to bring forth
suggestions, even suggestions presented by others, including the
government, as is the case with the motion today.
Why are we willing to do that? The opportunity for change is
before us now, today. Let us work together to make some concrete
changes to restore the dignity of all members and the House of
Commons. Let all of us together signal to Canadians that we are
less concerned about being right and more concerned about doing
what is right for our country.
I urge all members to support this positive motion, first
suggested by the government itself, brought forward by the
Canadian Alliance today, and supported by all opposition parties.
If we do that today, make a change and move forward, I believe we
will set a positive tone in this place and restore the dignity
and honour accorded to all hon. members from all parties who have
made a great sacrifice to be here on behalf of their
constituents. If we are able to do that today, I believe we can
send an important message to all Canadians. Let us do that today
and move forward on this initiative.
Mr. Gerald Keddy (South Shore, PC): Madam Speaker, I
would like to ask the member for Dewdney—Alouette a direct
question. I will resist taking a shot at him because of the
ethics counsellor, the promises made, the level of debate in this
place, the way we treat one another, the amount of respect we
have for the House and the amount of respect we have for each
other as parliamentarians.
I would like to ask the member a question that I was dying to
ask the member for Waterloo—Wellington when he was up showing a
complete lack of respect for this institution and the members
who sit in this institution. I want to put forth to the member
from Alouette a question on the behaviour of the Prime Minister.
1740
This question was asked of the Prime Minister this morning, but
we did not get an answer, so I will ask the member from
Dewdney—Alouette. In January 1996 the Prime Minister confided
to the ethics counsellor that he still had shares in the golf
club adjacent to the Auberge Grand-Mère. Although he thought he
got rid of his shares in 1993, he found out in 1996 that he
actually still owned those shares, which he had never received
payment for. We must understand that the value of these shares
in the golf club adjacent to the Auberge Grand-Mère would be
directly enhanced by any improvements made to the hotel.
How could anyone say there was not a conflict of interest? The
Prime Minister, within 90 days, was lobbying the president of the
Business Development Bank of Canada on behalf of the owner of the
Auberge Grand-Mère. How can anyone say that did not directly
influence and enhance the value of the shares in that golf club?
I would like to hear an answer from the hon. member.
Mr. Grant McNally: Madam Speaker, my colleague makes a
good summary of a lot of details having to do with what appears
obvious to most Canadians, that is, there is a conflict here with
the Prime Minister and the things that have been happening in his
riding.
With regard to the issues he raises, I think it is obvious to
many people that although the Prime Minister claimed to have been
cleared by the ethics counsellor, that process is broken and does
not entirely reflect the facts of the matter. If we were to get
to the bottom of the facts and the details that are shrouded in a
cloud of bureaucratic secrecy through the process the Prime
Minister has established, I think it would be apparent to all
that there is in fact a conflict in the situation.
Mr. John Bryden (Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot,
Lib.): Madam Speaker, I want to put a question to the member
opposite. There has been a lot of talk this day about
ministerial and MP accountability. Is it not true that the
statement from the red book that forms the basis of the
opposition motion under debate today makes no reference
whatsoever to members of parliament or ministers?
In fact, I do believe what the statement says is “to advise
both public officials and lobbyists”. Could the member explain
if he does find anywhere in the motion reference to ministers and
members of parliament?
Mr. Grant McNally: Madam Speaker, I believe the motion
that we brought forward encapsulates the meaning directly from
red book one. That is my understanding. We took some time to do
that, because the Liberals, in bringing this item forward, had a
very good idea.
That is why we would be surprised should the government choose
to vote against such a motion, which it in fact introduced as a
promise to Canadians in red book one. I invite my colleague and
all colleagues to support the motion. It would be a positive
step for now and for the future.
* * *
[Translation]
MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE
The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Bakopanos): I have the honour to
inform the House that a message has been received from the
Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed certain
bills, to which the concurrence of this House is desired.
* * *
[English]
SUPPLY
ALLOTTED DAY—ETHICS COUNSELLOR
The House resumed consideration of the motion and the amendment.
Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick (Prince Albert, Canadian Alliance):
Madam Speaker, I have some preliminary comments on the matter.
1745
I am a new member of the House. Many voters told me in the last
election that I was wasting my time coming to the House. In
their view, their members of parliament did not have an effective
voice or say in the government of this country. Many of them did
not believe they were on the bus. They were not in the back
seat. They were on the outside looking in.
Many of our academic people today have examined our
parliamentary system and know it very well. Basically, their
conclusion is that we are creating a system of government which
is presidential and does not really have any effective checks or
balances built into it. Mr. Diefenbaker many years ago pointed
out some of the things that were happening in the House.
I come to the House with an open mind. I come here with the
idea that we, as members of parliament, can improve the system of
government, and I will give it a fair trial. However, I come to
the House with a lot of doubts in my mind. Some of the things I
heard this afternoon only confirm some of my worst beliefs about
this place.
The question that I would like to start off with is; can Mr.
Wilson, the ethics counsellor, given the process established by
the Prime Minister's office, truly carry out this mandate in an
impartial, objective and independent manner? In no way do I
question this individual's integrity in any way. I believe Mr.
Wilson to be an honourable and decent individual. However, it
has been my experience in life that a system dictates the
results. Excellent systems create excellent results, average
systems create mediocre results and bad systems produce poor
results.
In my view the process that has been established to investigate
and report on serious wrongdoings by the Prime Minister or the
ministers is a flawed, poor system. People who work in a poor
system are helpless to deal with that system and to affect the
result.
I intend to point out some of the obvious defects with the
system which have been created. First, the Prime Minister's
office has established the code of conduct for the Prime Minister
and the ministers. This is like asking the hockey coach to make
up the rule book.
Second, the ethics commissioner is hired by the Prime Minister's
office and in all apparent respects is placed in a position of
master-servant with the Prime Minister being the master. Once
the ethics counsellor is finished with the allegation, he reports
directly to the boss, the master, who is the subject matter of
the very investigation. The ethics counsellor is not directly
accountable to the men and women who have been elected to the
House to govern the country.
There is a very old saying in our justice system, and I am sure
all members have heard it before; not only must justice be done,
it must appear to be done. Because of a very flawed process,
thousands upon thousands of Canadians do not believe in the
integrity of the findings of the ethics commissioner. They
simply do not believe that those are correct results or an
accurate assessment of what has taken place.
1750
Much has been said about Saskatchewan. I am a member from
Saskatchewan. Anybody from Saskatchewan would realize, based on
our experience, that we have to prevent these sorts of abuses of
power from occurring again. That means fixing the system and
having a system in place that prevents those sorts of abuses of
power.
In many respects the circumstances I heard in regard to this
incident remind me of the sorts of incidents that occurred in
Saskatchewan, but this is the Government of Canada. I think many
people in Saskatchewan see many similarities in some of these
circumstances. Everybody in the House should be concerned about
those sorts of problems.
For this system to have the appearance of fairness and
objectivity that people expect, the ethics counsellor must be
dealing in a complete arm's length position, vis-à-vis the Prime
Minister. It is fairly apparent that a person with that type of
position should be very akin to a judge. He should have that
sort of independence that we expect to find in our judiciary.
Those two points, as far as I am concerned, are not even close
to being reality. I would encourage all members of the House to
support this very worthy motion.
Mr. John Bryden (Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot,
Lib.): Madam Speaker, I cannot resist a comment. I find it
very difficult to sit in the House and hear a member who has
arrived here for the first time condemning what I believe is one
of the best parliaments in the world. It is also completely
inappropriate and disrespectful of this place for him to make
allusions to the problems that occurred in the legislature in
Saskatchewan, which were of a deplorable and even criminal
nature.
This is not the type of thing that we expect from a brand new
member in the House. Maybe he should go back to his riding and
consider that perhaps he has come to the wrong place for him.
Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: Madam Speaker, I would remind the
member of what I believe I said and that was that I was coming to
the House with an open mind.
Where I come from the reality is a large number of people firmly
believe that the House of Commons is irrelevant. The polls show
that. I am here to try to make this place relevant. I want to
see this federal system updated and reformed with a small r
to make it relevant to people across the country so that
everybody feels that they are part of it. Then we would have no
need to talk about alienation or disgruntled people.
If the learned member on the other side of the House does not
realize that this system has to be updated in Ottawa, then he is
living in a world that is out of touch with reality. We have
got to update our federal system and this is the time to do it.
Mr. Murray Calder (Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey,
Lib.): Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to the
member across the way. Quite frankly, any time any one of us in
this House has run for politics, we have always been trying to
make Canada a better place. We put forward our ideas to the
voters. We take the chance and give the voters the opportunity
to vote on whether or not they want us.
Would the member answer this question for me. I will go to the
issue of the pension on his side of the House. The member for
St. Albert had the fortitude to stand in front of his voters and
say “I am going to go back into the pension”. He put that up
front so they could vote on it. The members for Edmonton North
and Medicine Hat went in front of the voters and were not honest
with them. They ran on the fact that they were not going to take
the pension. Then, less than three months after the election
they vest back into the pension. That is not fair.
1755
That party across the way talks about recall. I would like the
member to make a comment on whether or not he feels that these
members should go back on recall to their voters and let their
voters vote on whether or not they are going to take
the pension.
Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: Mr. Speaker, I remember how that
was such a charged issue in the early 1990s. Much of the public
thought that was a sign that this place was irrelevant when these
things were happening.
I believe the predecessor party had a major impact on effecting
the regimes in every province. Alberta seriously reformed its
gold plated pension plan. It was one of the first things Mr.
Harris did in this province. In Saskatchewan Mr. Romanow
reformed its pension plan.
The only place that really has not reformed its pension system
in a meaningful way I would say is the House. The only way it is
ever going to be changed is if people on this side of the House
get more than 151 people on that side of the house.
Mr. Grant McNally (Dewdney—Alouette, Canadian Alliance):
Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague for
Prince Albert on his first speech.
I think that the hon. for member for
Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey is under the assumption that my
colleague has been here for seven years. Perhaps he could be a
little more observant. He is in the current pension plan but he
does not have a pension because he has only been here for a
couple of weeks.
On another matter, I would like to ask my colleague a question—
The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos): I am sorry the
members time has expired.
Mr. John Bryden (Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot,
Lib.): Madam Speaker, I sat through this debate for most of the
afternoon and you will forgive me if I sound a little cross every
now and then because one of the things that bothers me deeply is
the kind of debate we have in the House when the opposition, in
their zeal to score points against the government, which is right
and proper, but in their zeal it attacks parliament and the
integrity of members of parliament rather than attacking the
government and this is the case in point. They have it all mixed
up and very seriously confused. They have mixed up the issue of
public service accountability and the accountability of members
of parliament.
The very pith of their motion is that they have gone to the
Liberal red book of 1993 and brought out a paragraph that deals
with the creation of an ethics counsellor. They have taken that
paragraph and put it in their motion. The motion says that the
House adopt the red book policy that says:
It goes on to say that the ethics counsellor will be answerable
to the House of Commons.
They are having a little problem in reading. That which I just
stated makes no mention whatsoever of ministers or members of
parliament. Yet the debate throughout the entire day, not just
with one opposition party but with other opposition parties, has
been primarily targeting in on ministerial responsibility and
ministerial accountability. I might point out that the
opposition members have very conveniently glossed over the
question of MPs' accountability. They all should know that there
is in fact no code of conduct for members of parliament.
Let us just consider that for a moment. If we want a code of
conduct for members of parliament, to whom do those members of
parliament answer to?
1800
I think the key to this debate, to understanding what the real
issue is or what the real issue is not, is the reply that the
Canadian Alliance member for Edmonton Southwest made to my
question earlier in the debate. I asked him whether he felt that
MPs should be subject to a code of conduct and whether they
should report to an external person such as an ethics
commissioner who would be responsible for policing that code of
conduct.
The member for Edmonton Southwest is a new member. Probably
because he is a new member of the Canadian Alliance, he was
capable of replying with more candour than is normal for the more
veteran members of the Canadian Alliance. What he said in reply
to my question was that in his view the best way to have control
of parliamentarians was by the voters themselves and that we were
directly responsible to the voters themselves as
parliamentarians.
That raises an interesting issue because there are things that
we might say as MPs. We might ask whether we are always ethical.
Certainly there are issues that affect us as MPs which raise
ethical questions. Some of those ethical questions may pertain
to how we deal with people who come to our riding offices and
seek favours. Those are real problems sometimes.
Individual MPs sometimes have to search their conscience. They
also have to ask themselves when
they defend someone who comes to their riding for some government
grant or another, they also have to search their conscience and
ask whether they have done due diligence on that
person. If they have not done due diligence and are supporting
someone then theoretically they have made an ethical breach.
It is the same with other members. For instance, I know of one
member no longer in the House, so I can probably safely make
reference to him. He and other members too, in fairness, were
inclined from time to time to take trips that were sponsored
sometimes by foreign governments and in other instances by
corporations. It is a very real question in some of our minds.
We do not all share the same opinion, but I can say as a former
journalist that to take trips sponsored by a corporation or a
foreign government was absolutely against the rules. As a former
journalist with the Toronto Star, we had a code of ethics,
a code of conduct in a thick book which governed everything from
what kind of gifts we could accept, how expensive those gifts
could be, and absolutely condemned taking favours from
corporations and foreign governments or anything else like that.
This is a question that could be before individual MPs, but if
we were to poll individual MPs I think we would find tremendous
variation in approach to what is ethical and what is not in this
very fine area of whether or not we should listen to our
constituents and what pressures or what favours we should take
from lobbyists. It is a serious problem.
The government did try to address it with the Lobbyist
Registration Act. I was around when the Lobbyist Registration
Act came forward in committee. It is due to come forward again.
I am glad it is coming back for re-examination because I never
liked it then; it was an inadequate piece of legislation. Even
so legislation was directed wholly toward the activities of
lobbyists vis-à-vis civil servants.
This is where we come back to the point that they are trying to
make. Of course we have to have rules that govern the way
lobbyists approach civil servants. It is a serious problem in
all governments when special interest groups with money bypass
the political process and reach directly into the bureaucracy.
That was a dreadful problem under the Conservative regime prior
to 1993. It was the subject of some books that would make one's
hair curl.
1805
The red book commitment was to bring public servants under a
code of conduct and to advise public officials and lobbyists on
standards of behaviour. We did that. We came out with a
conflict of interest and post-employment code. I have it here. I
am not allowed to show things in front of the camera, but however
I can assure people it is many pages long. It describes in
exquisite detail the responsibility of public officials. However,
it does not apply to members of parliament.
There is a fundamentally good reason why it does not apply to
members of parliament. Members of parliament are here to be
lobbied. We are here so that people will approach us. We are
here to listen to the people. We are here to listen to our
constituents. It is precisely the process of a democracy.
We then ask ourselves why not have a code of conduct for members
of parliament? When this issue came up about five or six years
ago, a joint House of Commons and Senate committee was struck to
study the issue of a code of conduct for members of parliament.
If it exists for journalists and public servants, why should it
not exist for members of parliament?
That joint committee deliberated for many months and I would
like to think it had on it some of the most powerful talent on
the Hill. It concluded in the end that no code of conduct can
apply to members of parliament because members are ultimately
responsible to the voters. The voters measure the integrity of
members of parliament.
The irony to that conclusion is it is precisely what the member
for Edmonton Southwest said in reply to my question.
That is another thing that distresses me sometimes. I have been
in the House for seven years. Whether there is or is not a code
of for MPs, I am willing to assure everyone in Canada who is
watching that this is one of the finest collection of individuals
with the highest level of integrity one could find in any corner
of the land.
That is why I was upset by the allusions made by the member for
Prince Albert who suggested in this place that members are not
working in the best interests of not only their constituents, but
in the best interests of the nation. I have been here and have
seen only people who work very hard. I have only seen people who
always search their consciences to determine if they are doing
the right thing.
It is sometimes difficult when a member is in his or her
constituency office and people approach and ask for help or the
mayor asks to get a company into the riding because if it does
not go into the riding there will be unemployment. One has to
balance these things.
I say in absolute honesty that I do not know of a single member
of the House who has in any way done something that I would have
felt breached fundamental ethics or morals. People have
dilemmas. They are not always sure what to do and whether it is
always right. I believe that the members of the House, and this
is the strength of the House, have always acted in good
conscience and with good heart.
We now come back to the question of the ethics counsellor and
the ministers and their relationship to the Prime Minister.
The reason why we cannot have the ethics counsellor accountable
to parliament and speaking to parliament is for the same reason
that we cannot have MPs reporting to an ethics counsellor who
then reports to parliament.
1810
We would have the ridiculous equation where MPs are reporting to a
person who reports to MPs. Quite apart from that foolishness,
the point is that ministers and the Prime Minister are members of
parliament as well. They are accountable to the voters. In the
end, the standards of ethics as perceived by the voters if
disclosed in revelations by the opposition; if they have the
goods on whatever ministers are doing then they disclose it in
the House; and if the people feel that the behaviour of the
ministers and indeed the behaviour of the Prime Minister is
wanting then they have the opportunity to exercise the ultimate
means of settling the matter. They can vote everyone out.
We are accountable; the Prime Minister is accountable and the
ministers are accountable to the voters. It is the voters that
determine the level of integrity in this place. We cannot
conduct ourselves in a manner that is unacceptable to the voters
and survive.
It was relevant in the debate today when allusions were made to
the flip flops that had been done by the Canadian Alliance
members with respect to the pensions that this is an ethical
problem and it is an ethical problem that will be measured by the
voters.
I could stand here for days and complain. After all the anger
that was generated about fat pensions from the member for
Edmonton Southwest and the member for Medicine Hat, do you know
what happened in my riding, Madam Speaker, as a result of all
that talk about gold plated pensions?
At one of my fall fairs I had a table with my Canadian flags and
my brochures to meet the public. The Canadian Alliance, the
Reform at that time, set up a table directly opposite me in the
laneway in the fall fair. They had pigs there, little pink pigs,
and labels that said “Sheila Copps”, “John Bryden” and “Bob
Speller”. Underneath the labels they had $750,000 for me and
$1.5 million for the Minister of Canadian Heritage.
It was the most embarrassing thing imaginable because some
60,000 people go through the Rockton International Fair on a
weekend. There they were promoting hatred for members of
parliament. If ever there was a case where members of
parliament have committed an ethical breach, it is those former
Reform Party members who, after criticizing the pension in such a
vicious fashion, have turned around and bought back into it.
This is not a question for an ethics commissioner. This is not
a question for an ethics counsellor. They keep on confusing
those terms. This is not a question of a code of conduct. This
is a question that is going to be settled by the voters in their
ridings.
That is the issue we are looking at today. The motion that they
have before us is about the accountability of public servants.
The government acted on the motion. There is no reason to
support the motion because it is already done, but they have used
the opportunity of a motion that is a misdirection to attack the
Prime Minister, to attack the integrity of all members of
parliament. I think that the people who will ultimately decide
the fate of those on the other side who would make such
groundless charges will be the voters.
The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos): It being 6.15 p.m.,
pursuant to the order made earlier today, all questions necessary
to dispose of the business of supply are deemed put and a
recorded division deemed requested and deferred until Tuesday,
February 13, 2001, at the expiry of the time provided for
government orders.
It being 6.15 p.m., the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at
10 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).
(The House adjourned at 6.15 p.m.)