Mr. Speaker, today we are debating a motion on a question of privilege raised by the member for Bourassa. The member takes exception to members of Parliament communicating with Canadians on the subject of the sponsorship scandal. It is remarkable.
What we amazingly have in front of us is a motion that suggests that members of Parliament should not be permitted to discuss the sponsorship scandal with Canadians. Coming from the Liberal government that is not surprising, but as a democracy it is particularly alarming.
We should be permitted to discuss the most important issues of the day with Canadians of which the sponsorship scandal is perhaps the most important. We should not be surprised that the motion came from the government. It has consistently taken the stand that we should not discuss the sponsorship scandal. The government will do anything to keep that from being discussed by Canadians.
If we think back in recent months to questions asked in this very chamber, the Minister of Public Works consistently said that discussion of the sponsorship scandal represented mere allegation, therefore it should not be discussed. Thanks to Justice Gomery we now know that those mere allegations were not mere allegations. He found those mere allegations to be fact and accurate.
We also were told by the Minister of Public Works that we should not be permitted to comment on that evidence. The member for Bourassa is carrying on in the very same vein by suggesting that members of the House should not be able to communicate with Canadians about the sponsorship scandal. We have heard the government consistently try to shut down discussion. It is a pattern of cover-up. It is a pattern of whitewash. It is a pattern of preventing these issues from seeing the light of day in any way possible. We also see that pattern extended through the denial of opposition days, which have been shut down so these issues cannot be discussed with Canadians. Taken all together, we see a consistent effort by the government to suppress discussion and debate with Canadians on the sponsorship scandal. Now we have this motion.
We heard earlier from the member for Ahuntsic. She said that we should respect the institution and our rights and privileges. Perhaps the most important privilege in a democracy and in a democratic institution like Parliament is freedom of speech and expression. It is that very same freedom of expression that the member for Bourassa seeks to suppress with his question of privilege.
We have those rights that we hold dear. To me the right of freedom of expression is perhaps the most important of those rights. We are alarmed by what the motion by the member for Bourassa suggests and for our very right to express ourselves on these important questions.
Let us look at the substance of the sponsorship matter that he takes exception to us discussing with Canadians. The government does not want to see us communicating with Canadians. The substance is found very simply in the findings of Justice Gomery and his report entitled “Who Is Responsible?”.
Members of the government are fond of going into about 700 pages or so in the report to find some fine detail that can be taken out of context that suggests in some way somebody somewhere in the government did not know something about it or was not involved in the sponsorship scandal. If the government can find one person who is clear, then somehow the Liberal Party or the government is clear. Justice Gomery told us something very different.
The commission of inquiry found clear evidence of political involvement in the administration of the sponsorship scandal. That is a critical finding of Justice Gomery and is in his report in black and white.
He found deliberate actions to avoid compliance with federal legislation and policies, including the Canada Elections Act, the Lobbyists Registration Act, the Access to Information Act and Financial Administration Act, as well as federal contracting policy and the Treasury Board transfer payments policy. These are not, in the words of the Minister of Public Works, “mere allegations”. These are major findings of fact of Justice Gomery.
He found a complex web of financial transactions among Public Works and Government Services Canada, the minister's department which he does not want us to talk about, Crown corporations and communication agencies, involving kickbacks and illegal contributions to a political party in the context of the sponsorhsip program. Guess which political party? It is the Liberal Party, but he was kind enough not to mention that.
No wonder the government and the member for Bourassa do not want us to discuss this with Canadians. I can understand why. He does not want Canadians to hear about the Liberal Party receiving kickbacks.
Then the report states that five agencies received large sponsorship contracts, regularly channelling money via donations or unrecorded cash gifts to political fundraising activities in Quebec, with the expectation of receiving lucrative government contracts.
We know what that is. That is the offer of a payback. This is Justice Gomery's finding of fact, a major finding, that these people made donations because they expected to get contracts in return. The member for Bourassa does not believe we should be allowed to discuss this with Canadians. Through his motion, he is trying to suppress that debate, that freedom of expression and that exposure of the guilt of the Liberal Party in findings of fact by Justice Gomery.
Furthermore, Justice Gomery found, and it is in black and white, that certain agencies carried on their payrolls individuals who were in effect working on Liberal Party matters and that government money was being used to pay partisan Liberal Party workers. It is a clear conclusion.
Next he found “the existence of a culture of entitlement among political officials”. I guess that culture of entitlement extends so far that we cannot have the temerity to get up and question that entitled. If we dare suggest to Canadians that this culture of entitlement is wrong, the member for Bourassa will stand up and say his privileges have been offended and we should not be allowed to discuss that with Canadians.
It is a remarkable effort to shut down free speech and free discourse on perhaps the most important question facing Canadians. We have clear evidence by Justice Gomery, after having heard the testimony of dozens and dozens of witnesses, having sat for days and days, having been subjected to cross-examination, that we have a political scandal of enormous consequences, the biggest in Canadian history.
His finding of fact at the end, which is entirely consistent with what we see in the motion, is the refusal of ministers, senior officials in the Prime Minister's Office and public servants to acknowledge their responsibility. Not only will they not acknowledge their responsibility, but they do not want anybody else to point it out, even though Justice Gomery has said it is there, in black and white.
These are issues about which Canadians care. My constituents of York—Simcoe constituents care greatly about these issues. They care greatly about this matter of political corruption and that it should be addressed, debated and resolved. That is why this effort to shut down debate and discussion is most alarming to them and to me.
We are told that the great offence committed is that the communication went into the member's constituency, that it came from another member, and I do not recall which member, and that is a terrible thing. Guess what I have in my hand? I have a piece of correspondence that went into my constituency entitled “A message from the Prime Minister”. The headline does not talk about the Prime Minister. The headline is a personal attack on the character and integrity of the member for Calgary Southwest.
This was not sent by some backbencher, rogue member of the government. The communication was sent into my constituency by the Prime Minister. Guess what he discusses in it? He discusses the Gomery inquiry and he attacks the member for Calgary Southwest, the Leader of the Opposition, for questioning the government about the Gomery inquiry because Justice Gomery should be left to do his work.
How dare the member for Calgary Southwest and the opposition try to hold the government accountable and how dare they ask Canadians to hold the government accountable. Is that not a terrible thing? I guess if the Liberals are trying to escape accountability every way, they may as well bring a motion like this to say that the opposition should not even be allowed to talk to Canadians about the corruption of the Liberal government. It is entirely consistent with the pattern.
What is more, some of the suggestions in the message from the Prime Minister about policy are entirely inaccurate. They are attributed to what my party or I myself would do as a member if I were in government and they are false. This communication from the Prime Minister is certainly far greater an offence of privilege than anything concerning the member for Bourassa.
When this went into my constituency I did not like it. I can understand the member not liking it, especially since there were falsehoods in this communication. However just because I did not like it I did not get up in the House and say that the Prime Minister should not be allowed to communicate with Canadians. I did not get up and say that my personal privileges had been offended as a member of Parliament. I said that was part of debate, democracy and freedom of speech and that I should be allowed to enter the debate and answer those concerns. That is how democracy is supposed to work.
That is the party that pretends to be the party of the charter and of freedom of speech standing up to suppress freedom of expression. It is remarkable. The Liberals are turning themselves inside out. Freedom of speech extends, according to the government, as long as no one criticizes the government, as long as no one exposes its corruption and as long as no one exposes its misdeeds, but as soon as one crosses that line to talk to Canadians about corruption, freedom of speech must stop. Forget the charter, forget parliamentary privileges, forget the debate that should take place in this institution and forget the debate that should take place outside.
The Liberals seek to avoid accountability at every opportunity possible, which is why they did all the remarkable things, including a deal that cost $4.6 billion. They made announcements of $26 billion in the weeks of late April and early May to try to avert an election and that accountability. Those tactics will cost every family in Canada, a typical family of four, $3,030 of their own tax dollars to avoid accountability.
The government takes the tax dollars and the Liberal Party uses those tax dollars to fund its own partisan activities. It uses those tax dollars to stay in office by hook or by crook, by whatever deal they can make with whatever party, by doing whatever it can to keep the numbers and avoid the accountability.
Now that the accountability has been rendered in black and white by Justice Gomery, accountability that the Liberals know will be communicated some more, they launch their initiative here in the House to suppress further debate and discussion of the findings of Justice Gomery. That is what this is all about.
Members should make no mistake about this. This is an effort to shut down that debate. In fact, if it were not for this motion being brought forward, paradoxically, this is the only way we are getting to debate this question in the House. What an irony that the only way we can do it is in response to an effort to shut down debate. I am sure the member for Bourassa did not anticipate that when he brought forward the motion but that is the implication.
When things like this happen, it is called democracy. It is called debate. When I look at the communication in question, I see quite a few things with which I do not agree. I happen to believe passionately in my country and in the importance of keeping this country united. My friends in the third party in the House do not share that view but I do not believe their right to speak on that issue or any other issue or to expose the government's corruption should be shut down because it is inconvenient or uncomfortable.
The reason I became involved in politics is because my family roots go back to Estonia where my family grew up. My mother and grandparents only came to Canada because with World War II came successive waves of Soviet and Nazi occupation. Because many in the family had the temerity to have views and to believe in democracy and freedom, they were seen as enemies of the new Soviet state of the occupying forces.
Many of my relatives were sent to Siberia where they lost their lives. Some were brutally murdered in their beds by Red Army soldiers or other Communist sympathizers, or killed in any remarkable number of other fashions in that conflict all because they believed in democracy and freedom and wanted to live their lives in peace. They wanted to enjoy the democracy they had enjoyed as a free country for a number of decades.
I was fortunate in that my mother and grandparents did manage to flee to Sweden and, ultimately, to Canada. They reason they chose Canada was because it was a land of hope and opportunity but, most important, because it was a land of freedom. It was a land where they thought that democracy flourished and the country did treat them very well. I have been fortunate to enjoy the benefits of that country myself and fortunate to enjoy our democratic process.
My family did not choose Canada because they thought freedom of speech was suppressed here. That is what they were fleeing. They did not choose Canada because they thought it was a country with a corrupt government run for a narrow self-interest. No, that is what they were fleeing.
The question we are debating, which is whether we should be allowed to discuss these questions and communicate with Canadians about them, is very profound and very deep. It is one of our greatest freedoms. No, it is not always nice to hear certain things being said about us. Sometimes there are personal attacks and I do not like them, but there is a difference between what is poor form, what is rude and what is actually wrong. Freedom of speech includes the right to say things that people may not want to hear and sometimes, as the government is discovering, the truth is quite painful and we do not want to hear the truth. However the country and democracy are strengthened when the truth does come out.
I attended the University of Toronto's Victoria College, my undergraduate university. Carved in the sandstone over the main building of Victoria University are the words “THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE”. That is what we are talking about here, truth, freedom and the ability to bring these matters forward in a legitimate debate, which is what the motion from the member for Bourassa seeks to stifle.
My constituents do care about the questions in this. Let us think about the consequences. We have clear evidence of political involvement in the administration of the sponsorship program. That corrodes our democracy.
I have had the experience, as I am sure many members have had, of going door to door and speaking to constituents and voters and there is a great deal of cynicism about the business we are involved in. It is cynicism that is bred of spin, of people making promises and breaking them in politics, and it is a cynicism bred, sadly, of the findings of Justice Gomery and similar programs and similar sponsorships.
What we can take heart in is that when the truth comes out hopefully our country is a little more strengthened; debate can ensue and cleanse. When the light shines in they say that is the great antiseptic. It cleans things when people can hear the truth and discuss the truth. Suppressing debate and discussion is not the way to get there. Suppressing the way in which we approach our democracy and suppressing the free debate is not the way to get there.
The conclusions in the report are important findings. The work of Justice Gomery into the sponsorship affair was very important. The sponsorship scandal was, undoubtedly, the most defining political event of the past several decades. It is perhaps the saddest event in the history of Canadian democracy in terms of its impact. We have seen corruption through the bureaucracy, through contracting, through the work of ministers and through suggestions by the prime minister's office.
The report says, “a refusal to accept responsibility in the Prime Minister's Office...among ministers, a refusal to acknowledge their responsibility”. It is time we took that responsibility and it is time we took seriously the role of debate. I absolutely urge the House to turn down this effort to suppress the freedom of speech in debate that will make this report meaningful in the end.