House of Commons Hansard #14 of the 36th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was liberal.

Topics

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6 p.m.

Bloc

Jocelyne Girard-Bujold Bloc Jonquière, QC

Mr. Speaker, this is the first time that I comment on another member's speech in the House.

I was really stunned by what I heard today in the House. I believe the member across the way does not know how to read or has not seen the motion moved by the opposition. Either he has refused to read it, or he cannot read.

I did not come to the House of Commons to observe all the clowning around that has been going on in the House today. We are here to speak about the real issues. While people are unemployed, while young Canadians have no job, what are certain members doing? They are clowning around. They are making fun of issues that really must be raised. What I have seen here today is shameful.

The foundation of every democratic party is its financing, how it grows. Everything the members of the government said today is lies and foolishness. I am sorry, but the word is not strong enough.

I would like to ask our illustrious member across the way what he thinks of the real issue raised by the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie. What does he think of the financing of federal political parties with the fund they have now? As for us, members of the Bloc, our fund is open to everyone, and our financing comes from simple voters.

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6 p.m.

Liberal

Peter Adams Liberal Peterborough, ON

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Jonquière.

I spent three extraordinary weeks in the city of Jonquière during an immersion course. The course was excellent, even though the student was not that good.

I congratulate the member on her first reply to a speech in the House. She mentioned the important issues that are before us, and she is absolutely right, the unemployed and the environment and other important issues are what we should be discussing.

I would remind her that we have spent a whole day in the House debating a motion put forward by the Bloc because this is an opposition day, and the Bloc gets to choose the topic. We have done it willingly because democracy is at the base of dealing with the problems of unemployment and other important matters that the member raised.

The member should not blame us for the silliness that has taken place in the House today. However, I will relay to her that the answer to every single one of her questions is yes.

I would also say to her that in the House we try and respond to the interests of all Canadians, not just the people of one region. In my remarks I was trying to involve Canadians in the idea that they have a fine election system and that we do not need a day of debate to fix something which is not broken.

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6:05 p.m.

Reform

Darrel Stinson Reform Okanagan—Shuswap, BC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to address the last statement made by the member opposite.

We need more than a day of debate in the House to correct a system that is not flawed but badly broken. I would like to mention a few things about the speech of the member.

He mentioned provincial governments. Is the member aware of what is going on in B.C. in regard to its NDP government, the so-called sharing and caring government of our society? It had a habit of raising funds through charity organizations which were supposed to go toward the blind, the disabled and the handicapped. It ripped them off.

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6:05 p.m.

An hon. member

Where did the money go?

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6:05 p.m.

Reform

Darrel Stinson Reform Okanagan—Shuswap, BC

Right into its pockets, to help fund its campaigns.

A case is coming before the B.C. courts right now regarding the NDP government, a different NDP government, about misinformation, or what could be called lies, that it put out during its provincial campaign in order to get elected. These are just a couple of cases in B.C.

Let us look at what has been in the papers lately in regard to the fundraising tactics of the Liberal government. Whether it is true or not, it is in the papers right now and it is before the public. If what is written in the papers is true, the Liberal government makes Al Capone look like a child when it comes to arm twisting to get money for themselves.

If it is proven to be correct about the way the money was raised, and if this member believes in democracy and I believe he does, would the member opposite not agree this is a perfect case for the right of recall in the country?

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6:05 p.m.

Liberal

Peter Adams Liberal Peterborough, ON

Mr. Speaker, I would say to the member opposite that the cases he has cited became known and were dealt with because of our system.

Even the rumours, which he admitted were rumours, possibly true, possibly not, are in the public domain. Not only are they in whatever newspapers he reads but here in the House of Commons in a debate on the funding of our electoral system. I think the member should be very careful about this, but to me that is a part of the system about which we are all so proud.

Human beings are fallible. NDP governments are fallible. If an NDP government has concerns about bingo funds, I have heard talk that the Reform Party is considering a bingo parlour here in the national capital region. I see it in the media but I do not jump to conclusion and ban bingos all over the country. I look at the case. In the election system there are mechanisms for looking at those cases. That is the best we can do. Next year or the year after it might be something that the member has not anticipated.

What you need is the mechanism for dealing with it, not something which is so intricate that every one of these things is dealt with immediately.

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6:05 p.m.

Kenora—Rainy River Ontario

Liberal

Bob Nault LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Minister of Human Resources Development

Mr. Speaker, I would like to touch on one issue in the short time I have and ask the member what his beliefs are.

He touched on one particular area that is very fundamental to our system and that is the spending limits and the balance between private and public in our system.

Our friends opposite like to think that the best system is to have all private sector funding with no limits. This is one of the major faults in the American system where all the scandals occur. I have many friends in the American houses. My riding borders on the U.S. and we meet on a fairly regular basis. They tell me that the system is so bad that they have to spend almost all of their time raising funds in order to be able to compete to get re-elected. They get millions of dollars in order to compete.

I would like the member's opinion on why it would be a good system to have in Canada rather than the one we do have.

I will give you one quick example. Because of my financial situation, I could never have been elected in a system like that because I could could never have competed without the public system. I would like to know what his comments are in that regard.

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6:10 p.m.

Liberal

Peter Adams Liberal Peterborough, ON

Mr. Speaker, I picked out the spending limits as the parliamentary secretary just noted.

You will recall in a recent state election in California someone with private money spent $30 million, all presumably earned legally. I have no reason to believe he did not amass that fortune himself. He was allowed to spend $30 million.

The strength of our system is exactly what the parliamentary secretary has pointed out. We control in a transparent public way how money is collected. There are limits on donations and the way it can be done. At the other end and equally transparent we control spending.

To go back to the Reform member who spoke previously, in both cases it is entirely transparent and there are mechanisms to deal with the wrongdoing in the event something goes wrong.

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6:10 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

I believe there is agreement that the debate will proceed until 6.30 p.m. and the question is then deemed put. Is that agreed?

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6:10 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

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6:10 p.m.

NDP

Nelson Riis NDP Kamloops, BC

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues in the House for extending the debate until 6.30 p.m. to enable me to comment.

I thank the mover, the hon. member from Laurier—Sainte-Marie. The motion before us is that the House condemns the attitude of the government which refuses to introduce in-depth reform of the legislation of the financing of political parties even though the existing legislation allows for a wide range of abuses.

That is a good motion and it should be debated again. I join my friend from Shuswap in saying that we need more of this discussion.

I wonder how my Liberal friends feel when they open their newspapers. They must shudder because the newspaper headlines are talking about Liberal sleaze, kickbacks and pay-offs.

Mr. Speaker, page after page—

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6:10 p.m.

Liberal

Bob Nault Liberal Kenora—Rainy River, ON

They are not talking about the bingo scandals.

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6:10 p.m.

NDP

Nelson Riis NDP Kamloops, BC

My friend can laugh and say “Isn't this funny”. I am not saying it is only the Liberals. I can talk about the long list of Tories that are in jail in Saskatchewan for all kinds of misdeeds.

Let's face it, to a certain extent there are problems across the political spectrum. Today we are talking about Liberal kickbacks, Liberal tollgating and Liberal fundraisers going to people and saying “If you contribute to the Liberal Party of Canada prior to this election I will ensure that you get a government contract”.

This is not new. It has been going on probably since the first election in this country. That is one of the reasons why people are so cynical about national and provincial politics. They know that certain people have undue influence and they obtain that undue influence by, if you like, bribing political parties or politicians.

There have been a number of books written. I remember Stevie Cameron's book On The Take . By the time you finished reading the book you were disgusted with that government.

They were not people who just made a few thousand dollars on a kickback. They were making millions of dollars. There were pages and pages of accusations against backbenchers and cabinet ministers and not a single person has taken Stevie Cameron to court. All the accusations were there.

Then there was Claire Hoy who wrote Friends in High Places . It was on the same theme, that if you knew the right people in the Mulroney government you could make lots of money. A lot of the wealth of today's millionaires in Canada, the people who are on their yachts in the harbours or driving Jaguars, can be traced back to well connected friends in the Mulroney government.

Have things changed with the Liberal government?

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6:15 p.m.

Reform

Jason Kenney Reform Calgary Southeast, AB

No, sir.

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6:15 p.m.

NDP

Nelson Riis NDP Kamloops, BC

My friend says no. Should we be surprised?

I have the 1996 results of political contributions. Guess what political party got a lot more money from business than any other political party in Canada? Yes, it was the Liberal Party which got $7.8 million in business cash. What does that mean?

If we believe that people who spent nearly $8 million to fund a political campaign will not have any leverage in terms of policy making, we must believe pink elephants are floating around here as well.

Let us acknowledge a certain trend which has developed over the last number of years. I trace it back again to the beginning of the Mulroney government. A decision was made to start phasing out very professional people at senior levels.

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6:15 p.m.

Progressive Conservative

Elsie Wayne Progressive Conservative Saint John, NB

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I bring it to your attention that no one can wave any instrument while they speak. I believe the hon. member was waving an instrument while he was speaking.

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6:15 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

I thought the hon. member might have been waving a book. I thought he was about to quote from the book and that is why I did not interrupt him.

He knows it is improper to use props. I have reminded the hon. member of that before.

I am sure he would not want to do that and break the rules of the House. He would want to set a good example for all the new members.

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6:15 p.m.

NDP

Nelson Riis NDP Kamloops, BC

Mr. Speaker, you were absolutely correct. I was going to start quoting from On the Take and Friends in High Places , but I was so disgusted by reading them that I did not want to bring the debate down any lower than it is at the moment. Therefore I will not quote from those books.

This is not a prop. It is just facts that I had in my hand. I want to identify what I believe is a very dangerous trend which has developed in Canadian national politics and government during the last 15 years.

When the Mulroney government was elected it started to phase out some senior professional bureaucrats. These people had dedicated their entire lives to developing good public policy for Canada and Canadians. One of the reasons we had such good public policy over the years was because of the professional dedication of these men and women. They were professional and they worked long hours. They were motivated by one thing only and that was to do a good job for the people of Canada and for the government of the day.

I am afraid to say that most of those people are gone. They have been let go, laid off or were so demoralized they quit. They just could not take the lack of leadership and the sell-out to the private sector that has occurred over the last 15 years.

There are still some very good people around, but by and large the best have left and most of them have left because they were forced out of the system.

That created a huge vacuum at the senior levels of the bureaucracy in terms of public policy creation. Who has filled that vacuum? The paid lobbyists, the people the government hires on contract from the banks to develop amendments to the Bank Act or lobbyists from pharmaceutical corporations to change laws regarding the pharmaceutical sector and so on.

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6:15 p.m.

Liberal

John O'Reilly Liberal Victoria—Haliburton, ON

Or the CAW.

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6:15 p.m.

NDP

Nelson Riis NDP Kamloops, BC

I look forward to the day when the government hires the CAW for anything. The government is against working people. It has demonstrated time and time again that it is against working men and women. To suggest that it would consider even talking to a senior union is inappropriate.

This void has been filled with paid lobbyists. Their priority and motivation is not the people of Canada. It is the clients who are paying for them. They are the people who are advising the government. I hate to say it but it is true. They were advising the previous government and look what we got.

Of course we got NAFTA. All my Liberal friends across the way were saying this was bad for Canada. Then they switched across the aisle and now they are saying this is good for Canada. It is so good that they are going to introduce a NAFTA in steroids called the MAI.

Who is behind the MAI? The Canadian Manufacturers' Association, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Business Council on National Issues, and the list goes on.

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6:20 p.m.

An hon. member

The people who can create the jobs.

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6:20 p.m.

NDP

Nelson Riis NDP Kamloops, BC

I thank the member for that.

I have a list here that goes back to 1996. This was not an election year. I can imagine when we get the figures for 1997 that they will be hot stuff. Who contributed to the Liberal Party of Canada in 1996? There was the National Bank, CIBC, Wood Gundy and the Royal Bank of Canada. We are not talking about thousands of dollars or tens of thousands. We are talking about many, many tens of thousands of dollars of political contributions.

I could go on. The Toronto-Dominion Bank coughed up $66,000. I have a list of all bank and financial institutions that contributed to the Liberal Party. The total comes to almost half a million dollars for last year. Does it not seem that they have some access that other firms do not have because of that pay-off? Of course they do.

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6:20 p.m.

Liberal

Roy Cullen Liberal Etobicoke North, ON

How much did labour give to the NDP?

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6:20 p.m.

NDP

Nelson Riis NDP Kamloops, BC

My hon. friend raises the interesting question on how much organized labour contributed to the New Democratic Party. It is a fair question.

Let us agree first that before any union makes a contribution to a political party, regardless of whatever the political party might be, the decision is made by officers elected by the membership. How many bank presidents contact their bank shareholders before they make a contribution to the Liberal Party of Canada? Not many. Therein lies a pretty fundamental difference in terms of who is contributing.

I could refer to my friends in the Conservative Party, but they only obtained 46% of their financing from business. Reform is quite far back in the pack at 12% and 3% of New Democratic Party federal contributions for 1996 came from small businesses across the country. The numbers are 55% for the Liberals, 46% for the Conservatives, 12% for the Reform and 3% for the New Democrats.

It is important to know who pays for the Liberal Party's operations. I mentioned the banks and financial institutions. Every one, from what I can gather from the list, contributes significantly to the tens and tens of thousands of dollars annually. Bell Canada of course.

Third on the list is Bombardier. Remember the big contract Bombardier got and gets repeatedly and repeatedly. When we look at the top echelons of Bombardier and the lobbyists who work on their behalf, they are all well connected to the Liberal Party. They coughed up $85 million. BrasCan is in there. BrasCan is always in there supporting the Liberals. Canada Trust is in there. The CBA, the Canadian Bankers Association, makes a healthy contribution. The CNR, CPR and all major accounting firms.

Then we have Glaxo Wellcome and Merck Frosst, two of the large multinational pharmaceuticals. These are the ones that are well connected. They have as their top lobbyist a former member of Parliament and cabinet minister, Judy Erola. She does a wonderful job. From what I can gather, looking at the legislation that governs pharmaceuticals, they write the legislation. Perhaps the minister puts the final signature on it and maybe crosses the odd t or dots the odd i , but basically the legislation is written by the pharmaceutical lobbyists.

Is that the kind of country that Canada wants to be? Is that the kind of country that Canada has become? Unfortunately yes. That is why this nonsense has to change. We need a full investigation into how political parties are funded.

I will not stand here and say the funding of the New Democratic Party is perfect or anything else, but let us open up the system.

My hon. friend did an excellent job in saying that our system is better than the American system. That is praising with very pink praise. That is the most bizarre system where everybody just buys influence in the United States. We are far removed from that, but when we read the headlines and listen to the accusations and comments from across the aisle, it appears that people are buying influence from the Liberal Party. We know they bought influence from the Tories.

A number of Tory cabinet ministers ended up in court, some on their way to jail and some backbenchers who made their living on kickbacks and saying “Listen, give the local association a political donation, give the party a political donation, and we will ensure that you get government contracts”. It went on and on and on.

I will go as far as to say that every significant major contract offered by the government and the Parliament of Canada under the Mulroney era probably involved kickbacks of one kind or another. I could list all sorts of examples that I am aware of personally, but I do not have the facts. I just heard people tell me that if they did not pay the kickback they were laid off, lost their jobs, lost the contract and so on.

I am making those accusations on the floor of the House of Commons. I hope to hear some people say that is not right. Stevie Cameron made them in her book, 600 pages of accusations, and not a single Tory has taken her up on her challenges.

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6:25 p.m.

Progressive Conservative

Elsie Wayne Progressive Conservative Saint John, NB

I can take her up on her challenges.