House of Commons Hansard #105 of the 38th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was care.

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The House resumed consideration of the motion.

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May 31st, 2005 / 3:35 p.m.

The Speaker

Before the time provided for members' statements and oral question period, the hon. member for Drummond had the floor. She still has five minutes to answer questions or take comments on her remarks.

Since no members wish to speak, we will continue with the hon. member for Repentigny.

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3:35 p.m.

Bloc

Benoît Sauvageau Bloc Repentigny, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the motion of my colleagues and friends in the Conservative party. It is their first official opposition day. Until very recently, the government was usurping these days in May so that it would not have to debate any motion it did not like. Even though the Prime Minister conducted his leadership campaign on the democratic deficit, the government decided to eliminate certain opposition days, including those of the Conservatives, the NDP and the Bloc Québécois.

Since I am speaking after oral question period, I think that it is important to recall the purpose of the Conservative party motion for people who are listening to us or watching. I will then be pleased to explain the Bloc Québécois position on this motion.

The Conservative party's motion reads as follows—for once it is relatively short and simple:

That this House call on the Government to amend section (k) of the Gomery Commission's terms of reference to allow the Commissioner to name names and assign responsibility.

That could mean: find the guilty party and lay charges. This reminds me of the time when George W. Bush was looking for Saddam Hussein in Iraq, dead or alive. That is kind of how we understand this motion, which asks the government to expand the Gomery commission's terms of reference to identify the guilty parties, subpoena them, name them, punish them, and so forth.

In populist terms and in barroom discussions, this motion would certainly be looked upon favourably by the public. Everybody, of course, wants to identify the guilty, subpoena them, and impose the punishments and sentences they deserve for the offences they have committed.

But here in this House—and this is the role of members of Parliament—we should go beyond our initial instinctive reactions. Those would lead us to condemn these people and turn the Gomery commission into a TV-style people's court, or something like Star Académie or Canadian Idol , which are on these days. All Canadians would get a look at the guilty parties.

The Bloc Québécois does not support this Conservative Party motion. It is extremely important, nonetheless, to remember that we do want those responsible for the sponsorship scandal to be identified and punished for their crimes. However, the problem, for us, is changing the terms of reference of a commission or a judge, after witnesses have already been heard.

The Gomery commission was established under the Inquiries Act, which states:

The Governor in Council may, whenever the Governor in Council deems it expedient, cause inquiry to be made into and concerning any matter connected with the good government of Canada or the conduct of any part of the public business thereof.

So, if Parliament wants to amend the terms of reference of the Gomery Commission in order for the commissioner to name names or assign responsibility, the Inquiries Act of 1985 must be amended.

One notion the Bloc Québécois continues to hold very dear is rigour. So, when a motion by the official opposition asks the judge to go one step further and identify the guilty parties, we find that this demonstrates a lack of rigour. The Inquiries Act of 1985 would have to be amended first.

The Gomery commission is a commission of inquiry, which means that it can make recommendations only; it does not have any real judicial powers. Section (k) of the Gomery commission's terms of reference, issued by the committee of the Privy Council under Part I of the Inquiries Act, stipulates that:

the Commissioner be directed to perform his duties without expressing any conclusion or recommendation regarding the civil or criminal liability of any person or organization and to ensure that the conduct of the inquiry does not jeopardize any ongoing criminal investigation or criminal proceedings;

That is what is important. Opposition to the Conservative motion does not mean that we are on side with the Liberals and want to protect the criminals involved in the Gomery commission. What it does mean is that, in the terms of reference of the inquiry—which the Conservatives ought to have read first—it is specified and emphasized that Justice Gomery was given his terms of reference under the Inquiries Act and cannot do anything that would jeopardize any other criminal investigation or proceedings that might be under way.

Since this incredible Gomery commission business began, we have had several warnings about respecting the inquiry and the legal system under which we operate.

I would remind you of some facts that demonstrate the importance of being extremely cautious if we want, once and for all, to respect the wishes of Canadians—and in particular of Quebeckers—in order to identify those responsible for the sponsorship scandal and to let the Gomery commission do its work.

The first example concerns parliamentary privilege. When Chuck Guité and Alfonso Gagliano appeared before the Public Accounts Committee, they were given a guarantee that their testimony could not be used elsewhere. They benefited from parliamentary immunity in committee, which allowed them to talk about what had happened without their testimony being able to be used subsequently in a case against them.

In the Gomery commission some of the lawyers wanted to change the rule of parliamentary privilege. Most fortunately, it was retained so that witnesses and MPs who speak out in committee will not have their testimony used against them.

Since they wanted to charge Chuck Guité and Alfonso Gagliano, they could have said they were going to waive parliamentary immunity. This would have created a dangerous precedent for the House of Commons, for parliamentarians and possibly for witnesses. Regardless of their party, all parliamentarians were steadfast in taking whatever steps were necessary to preserve this parliamentary privilege.

A little later on in the Gomery inquiry, a publication ban was imposed on the testimony of Chuck Guité, Jean Brault and one other person. I have forgotten the name but I am sure someone is about to prompt me with it.

Why was this publication ban imposed when Chuck Guité and Jean Brault appeared? Because, at the time, or a few weeks later, their criminal trials were to begin.

They could have said no to the publication ban by claiming that the public wanted to know and to listen. Since it was a “people's court”, they could have gone in and ignored all the rules of prudence within the legal system. However, such was not the case. The terms of reference for the Gomery inquiry specify that the inquiry must not jeopardize any ongoing criminal investigation or criminal proceedings. Justice Gomery was being prudent in maintaining a partial publication ban, which he lifted shortly afterward. Next, a request was made to postpone the criminal proceedings. So far, Chuck Guité, Paul Coffin and Jean Brault are already charged with fraud.

I will go even further. In the scandal, there were proceedings to the tune of $40 million involving 10 groups or individuals implicated in the sponsorship scandal.

Yes, we want to find the guilty parties. Yes, we must identify them. Yes, the guilty parties must be punished. Yes, we must finally show the public who took part in this scandal.

However, we must not do this the way the Conservatives want to, in other words, by changing the terms of reference of Justice Gomery after the fact and by using the testimony of those who have already appeared before the Gomery inquiry for purposes other than intended.

That is why the Bloc Québécois wants the guilty parties to be identified and punished, but not this way.

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3:45 p.m.

Conservative

Peter MacKay Conservative Central Nova, NS

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his speech.

I have a very simple question for him. Does my colleague believe that the RCMP has the authority to arrest or investigate the government and the Liberal Party, even though the Auditor General's report clearly stated that the RCMP received money through the sponsorship program? It is a serious problem for a criminal or civil investigation when the RCMP, the national police force, appears to have a conflict of interest.

I would like the hon. member to comment on this.

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3:45 p.m.

Bloc

Benoît Sauvageau Bloc Repentigny, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague very much for his question and his kind words about my speech.

I share his concerns about the RCMP. In another vein—and I will elaborate on this—just because we have some doubts about the RCMP’s integrity in investigating this, we should not, in order to calm those doubts, distort the Gomery commission's mandate.

If the RCMP is not the most suitable institution to investigate the sponsorship scandal, perhaps the attorney general should initiate proceedings through the Canadian legal system, as he did in the case of Chuck Guité, Paul Coffin and Jean Brault. They are accused of fraud in the Canadian legal system. They are therefore before the courts now. If I am not mistaken, Paul Coffin pleaded guilty this morning to 15 charges. The RCMP was not involved in this matter. When the attorney general launched a $40 million suit against Groupaction, Everest, Gosselin Communications, Lafleur and their presidents, he did not involve the RCMP either.

If the Gomery commission enables us to identify other people responsible for the sponsorship scandal, it will be up to the legal system to prove that they are really guilty of fraud and to sanction them, if necessary.

However, as regards the RCMP's involvement in the sponsorship scandal, the RCMP has already initiated a dozen investigations of the government, for example, there was Shawinigate and Placeteco; we could provide a list.

My colleague from Central Nova will remember, through his experience in the House, that we are still awaiting, in an odd sort of way, a number of RCMP reports. Here in this House, regardless of political party, we can all ask why in some cases it takes 2, 3, 5 or 8 years to get an answer following anuld not RCMP investigation. In this regard, I share his question and his concern about the speed with which the RCMP makes public its investigations of the government.

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3:50 p.m.

Conservative

Peter MacKay Conservative Central Nova, NS

Mr. Speaker, I want to indicate at the outset that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Brandon—Souris, home of the Wheat Kings.

The motion itself is a very straightforward motion calling for the expanding of the mandate of Mr. Justice Gomery to allow the reference to give the commissioner the capacity to name names and to assign responsibility. It is a very straightforward attempt to give Canadians the answers they are looking for.

The commission has been sitting for some time. I would suggest that giving the commissioner the ability to, upon the conclusion of the evidence, now weigh the facts and make determinations as to responsibility is what most Canadians are expecting.

It is a major deception that has taken place through the political machinations that the Prime Minister perpetrated on the country. Members of his cabinet have tried to deliberately distract away from the real issue, which is one of accountability, one of a deliberate Liberal Party conspiracy and an effort made to deliberately divert public money through Liberal friendly ad firms into the Liberal Party coffers for the purposes of perpetrating and preserving power. We saw in recent days those desperate attempts.

All of this bears further witness to the fact that the Prime Minister will stop at nothing to hold onto power. I also would suggest, as my colleague has alluded to, that there are so many other scandals. This is the most scandal ridden government in Canadian history. History will bear that out and show it to be true.

We know that the real fear of the Prime Minister is that upon a change in power the incoming government will shine the light in all the corners. It will look at the various other programs that have gone awry. Need I mention the gun registry, the HRDC scandal and the helicopter cancellation? The list goes on and on. Massive amounts of public money were diverted, wasted and in some cases stolen. In many cases, that money wound up back in the coffers of the Liberal Party through a very deliberate and well thought out plan on its part.

Now, who was responsible remains the crux of the matter. Why would we not want to shed more light on that critical issue? Why would we not want a complete and transparent finding of fact? Why would we not want to give Justice Gomery the ability to do just that? The reference in clause k for Justice Gomery states that:

--the Commissioner be directed to perform his duties without expressing any conclusion or recommendation regarding the civil or criminal liability of any person or organization and to ensure that the conduct of the inquiry does not jeopardize any ongoing criminal investigations or criminal proceedings;...

No one wants that. We are not asking for that threshold of criminal or civil responsibility to be met, but simply that the assigning of responsibility be made by the commissioner after his having heard a great deal of evidence.

Justice Gomery himself, on the terms of reference from which he is working, stated that:

Accordingly, the Commission may not establish either criminal culpability or civil responsibility for sums of money lost or misspent, or damages; it does not have the capacity nor does it intend to do so.

He went on to say:

Its future findings of fact and statements of opinion will be unconnected to normal legal criteria, and will be intended to serve as the basis for the recommendations which I will be making as required by paragraph (b) of the terms of reference. It follows that there will be no legal consequences arising from the Commission's findings and Reports, and they will not be enforceable in, and will not bind either civil or criminal courts which might consider the same subject matters.

What we are talking about here is simply allowing the commissioner to make findings of responsibility, not to interfere, not to cast a pall, not to in any way diminish or distract away from the criminal investigations that may or may not be going on. We know there have been criminal charges laid so there are some criminal investigations that have proceeded. Are there others? The Prime Minister refused to answer that question today.

We are not looking to somehow empower Mr. Justice Gomery himself to lay charges, as was alluded to by some. To assign civil or criminal responsibility is a different standard. We are looking to simply allow for the naming of those individuals, which would be clearly based on his findings.

No one has ever denied that this was going on. The Prime Minister, in his well publicized mercy plea to the nation, never denied that this happened or that it was the Liberal Party doing it. It is not a Quebec scandal. It is not any other party's scandal or any other government's scandal. It was a Liberal Party scandal that went on for upwards of 10 years in a very deliberate way.

With his usual bombast and professorial, condescending way, the Minister of Justice cites selectively from statutes and case law. The reality is that section 13 does not contemplate an inquiry such as the Gomery commission making findings against persons, but that section requires notice. There is a requirement that notice take place. No notice has been given to any witnesses who have testified or who are yet to testify.

In fact, we have heard testimony under oath that was at first subject to publication bans and which did involve persons who were criminally charged, including one who has now pled guilty. There was in fact no attempt whatsoever to jeopardize those ongoing investigations, no prejudice, and no similar conclusions would be reached on civil or criminal matters.

From the commissioner's findings, we are simply asking that the commissioner, after having had a very fulsome examination of sworn testimony, witnesses and documents, essentially be allowed to name names. What could be more straightforward than that? What could be more in keeping with the Prime Minister's now laughable claims that he wanted to get to the bottom of the sponsorship scandal, that he wanted to leave no stone unturned, and that he wanted the Gomery commission to have a complete range of access to all of this? That is washed away by the government's opposition to this attempt to expand the inquiry mandate.

The burden of proof of examining the facts is different. This is not making a substantive finding; it is making recommendations.

There is another point to be made on the recommendations. The Prime Minister has empowered someone to implement the recommendations of Gomery, but the recommendations of Gomery will be washed away by an election that is going to come 30 days after those recommendations are made, so that of course again is another massive smoke and mirrors deception on the part of the Prime Minister.

The sponsorship scandal clearly is proving to be the worst scandal in our country's history. We have heard sworn testimony that the Liberal Party received kickback cash for sponsorship contracts. These are not allegations or innuendoes. This is sworn testimony under oath and is subject to perjury charges if it is clearly stated that somehow it was untrue and deliberate. It is testimony that in some cases is tantamount to confessions of fraud, false pretenses and a litany of other breaches of the Elections Canada Act. There was malice aforethought, as they say. It was deliberate. It was intentional. This program was but one program in one department.

The deeds and the direction of the Liberal Party were pure deception from start to finish. The Prime Minister knew, or ought to have known, as the chief financial officer of the country, that this was taking place under his very nose. It is not believable and there is no veracity in saying he did not know; that is impossible. Incompetent or involved are the only conclusions that Canadians should come to about him unless he was in some sort of trance.

This money being used for partisan purposes was used in at least three elections. Again, it was used to buy support, essentially, to buy party workers and to buy a partisan attempt to win elections, which they did and which furthers the fraud, a massive fraud on the public purse and a massive fraud on the public trust, unprecedented in our country's history.

The Auditor General identified $250 million in program expenditures with $100 million going directly to Liberal-friendly ad agencies in commissions, but the Kroll Lindquist Avey audit, an independent audit, shows that there was actually a total of $355 million, with almost half, 44%, going to those agencies as commissions. The amount that has made its way into the Liberal Party of Canada remains unknown. We do know for certain that the $750,000, and again there is this ruse that somehow a trust fund has been set up, would not cover the half of it.

Multiple witnesses claim that they were engaged in this deliberate attempt to funnel part of their royalties from the sponsorship program back to the Liberal Party as a means of ensuring future contracts, about as sordid a political scandal as it gets and a classic fraud: public money for partisan support.

Testimony from the commission shows that many Liberal firms got rich. Many Liberal firms and individuals profited exorbitantly. Claude Boulay and his partner, Diane Deslauriers, from Groupe Everest, earned a combined total of $29.8 million in salaries and dividends. We heard Diane Deslauriers testify that she worked almost every day in the Prime Minister's campaign office in the 1993 election and we know Mr. Boulay worked on the Prime Minister's first leadership bid.

The Prime Minister in his testimony before Gomery barely admitted knowing these people. In fact he was not sure that they were merely more than passing acquaintances. We saw correspondence that put that very much to the lie. It is not believable. His credibility has been shredded daily by examination of facts.

Jean Lafleur and his family earned $14.1 billion. Luc Lemay, owner of Groupe Polygone, earned $13.5 billion. This is a beauty; Jacques Corriveau, a close confidant of former prime minister Jean Chrétien, earned $8 million mostly in fees from sponsorship subcontracts. He also admitted at the commission that he put Liberal Party staffers on his company's payroll while they worked for the party. Jean Brault and his wife earned another $4.9 million from the sponsorship program. Jean Brault paid a number of Liberal Party workers through Groupaction. The Kroll audit found that $1.7 million of the transactions on the books of Groupaction went back to Jean Brault's claim that he effectively laundered money to the Liberal Party.

What was the common denominator in all of those cases? They were Liberals. They were giving money back to the Liberal Party that had come to them through ill-gotten gains. It was public money.

It is a sad day when we have to continually take the time of the House to state the obvious. That party is not fit to govern. That party has breached the public trust in a massive way. Justice Gomery should be given all the tools, all the ability, to expose all the corruption. That is what today's motion is about.

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4 p.m.

Charlottetown P.E.I.

Liberal

Shawn Murphy LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans

Mr. Speaker, this inquiry was launched under the Inquiries Act. Section 13 gives the commissioner very broad powers. He gave an opening statement when he started last September indicating that he had the power to find misconduct and ascribe responsibility. That is very clear. However he cannot find a party guilty of a criminal proceeding or ascribe civil responsibility. To quote the words of the member for Calgary--Nose Hill, “clause (k) prohibits Gomery naming anyone as a guilty party”.

The member for Central Nova should know that we deal with a well-developed system of justice. When a person is charged with a criminal offence it is usually done by an indictment or summary conviction. There is disclosure. The accused person has the right to retain and instruct counsel. There is a very extensive well-known procedure on evidential rules. A trial is held, and if the prosecutorial arm of government is able to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the person is found guilty and sanctions are imposed.

If I follow the logic of the motion, all of that is thrown out the door. According to the words of the member for Calgary--Nose Hill, Mr. Gomery can find the guilty party and I guess the sentencing would be left to another judge.

I have two questions for the member. All of this is codified in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Do you agree with me as I think most other lawyers--

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4:05 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

May I ask the member for Charlottetown to please address the member by his riding name.

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4:05 p.m.

Liberal

Shawn Murphy Liberal Charlottetown, PE

Would you agree with me, through you Mr. Speaker, that--

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4:05 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

Excuse me. I hate to interrupt the member again, but it is important that he address his comments through the Chair as per the tradition in our Standing Orders.

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4:05 p.m.

Liberal

Shawn Murphy Liberal Charlottetown, PE

Through you, Mr. Speaker, does the member agree with me that this would certainly offend the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

In talking about the terms of reference when the inquiry was announced, the member said, “Well, they are certainly broad. There is no denying that the early indications are that the terms of reference will allow people to go where they have to go”. What is the change that occurred since he made that statement?

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4:05 p.m.

Conservative

Peter MacKay Conservative Central Nova, NS

Mr. Speaker, there was no change at all. They are broad, but they are not broad enough. Clearly it came to light as time went on that the mandate was limited by the Prime Minister deliberately. In fact, the Auditor General suggested that there be an examination as well of the polling data and the polling contracts that were being doled out by the Department of Finance, at that time the Prime Minister. This mandate for Gomery does not include that.

I totally disagree that somehow again the Liberal Party, through an act of convenience, wraps itself in the charter. The criminal investigations are not marred in any way by the recommendations of Mr. Justice Gomery, whatever those recommendations might be. There are numerous examples. I point to some of them, the Patricia Starr inquiry, the Westray inquiry, the Walkerton inquiry, the tainted blood inquiry, where we saw criminal charges laid and a guilty plea rendered just yesterday. To suggest otherwise is pure folly.

Those inquiries were not stalled in any way from doing their job by virtue of the fact that there were criminal investigations going on. I know about Westray because it happened in my constituency, a very tragic occurrence in a mine in Plymouth, Nova Scotia. The criminal convictions that were received yesterday in the tainted blood inquiry similarly demonstrate that these exercises can happen simultaneously.

The commissioner, I would suggest, can add to the work that has to be done in a criminal investigation and the subsequent trial.

The reality here is that the Liberal Party itself should be under investigation, the entire Liberal Party as an organization, just as the Red Cross organization was the subject of a criminal investigation. The difficulty, of course, is the RCMP themselves. I am quoting from Greg Weston's article where he said:

Of course, the Mounties themselves were up to their musical ride in almost $2 million of sponsorship cash, much of it hidden in a non-government bank account in Quebec.

I am not casting any aspersions whatsoever on the good, hardworking, honest members of the RCMP who are the pride of this country, but it is within the upper echelons where we find that, much like senior bureaucrats, they can be co-opted and corrupted into the government's activities.

The government was involved in a conspiracy against the public trust, defrauding the public of hundreds of millions of dollars, much of which went into its political coffers for partisan purposes. That is the subject of the investigation. That is the subject of the inquiry. We should get all the facts. Canadians will ultimately be the judges of who is responsible. I think it may lead right to the Prime Minister's door.

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4:05 p.m.

Conservative

Merv Tweed Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague who spoke before me put it the way we all feel about this topic. Canadians have looked at this and Canadians have heard the discussion around the Gomery inquiry. I believe that Canadians think that the Gomery inquiry is the answer, that Gomery will come back to the public and tell them what went wrong, who is responsible and assign that accountability to those people.

Unfortunately as time goes on and as we get further into the inquiry we find that is not the case. We are here today to bring this motion forward and ask the Canadian people and the House as it sits here today to make a decision to support that. Canadians want the Gomery commission to provide them with the answers they believe they are going to get at the end of the inquiry.

It is beyond me how a government can sit there and make millionaires of its friends and cohorts while hard-working taxpaying Canadians submit their dollars to Ottawa to spend in their best interests, providing for health and education, supplies and equipment for our armed forces. All those people have been deprived in some way because of this scandal.

Canadians will be deprived of their opportunity to get an answer. We have heard in committee after committee. We have listened to the public come forward about things that they were unable to do in the past several years on the premise that the money was not available. We know where the money went and we know to whom it went. Mr. Justice Gomery is proving that to us day in and day out.

I want to choose my words very carefully. I think the government of the day has made Canadians believe that Gomery is the final answer. We hear it every day when the minister stands to answer questions. He says, “Let Gomery do his work. Let Gomery report. Let Canadians make their decision after Gomery has reported”.

The actual clause that we are talking about here in this debate says the following:

the Commissioner be directed to perform his duties without expressing any conclusion or recommendation regarding the civil or criminal liability of any person or organization--

When I hear that and I listen to what the minister across the floor says when he is answering questions, I am getting mixed messages. I am getting a message from the government that the Liberals want to get to the bottom of this scandal. They want people to hear the answers. They want those accountable to be held accountable. Yet the government has included a clause in the judge's terms of reference that does not allow him to do that.

I think we have all had the wool pulled over our eyes if we believe that Judge Gomery is going to be able to do that, unless we pass the motion that has been put forward today.

The people of Canada deserve to know who was responsible for directing millions of dollars. They have a right to know. It is Canadian taxpayers' money. It is not Liberal government money to spend as the Liberals choose, to dole our to their friends, to fake invoices so that they can create some revenue for a group of people who then funnel it back to the Liberal Party of Canada to run elections.

We now know that this did not involve just one election. It has been the past three. Should we have fallen into an election in the last few days, who is to say, could it have been four? Who is to say, did it happen before that?

That is what this entire debate has been about. It is about accountability of government. Does the government not want the Canadian public to trust it? Do the Liberals not want Canadians to respect us all as parliamentarians, as hon. members to give them the truth as a judge would see it, to hold people accountable?

We talk about our justice system in this world and every time someone gets into a position of having to be accountable, they lower the bar, so that person does not have to be accountable for it. Canadians want that to change and they want it to change with Gomery.

As I travelled throughout my constituency last week that is the one statement that I heard over and over, “Let Gomery finish”. My constituents told me that they were convinced that he is going to give us the goods. He is going to tell us who is accountable, who should be charged, and who should be punished.

When they find out that is not his job and not his role, they are completely offended that a government would say publicly that it was its intent to get to the bottom of this. We all heard the Prime Minister give a speech on national TV that was not about anything that was of historic interest to Canadians or of value to Canadians but only to the Liberal Party. It was only said in defence of the Liberal Party.

It has been said several times and I think it is worth reiterating that this is a Liberal problem. It is not a provincial issue. It is not a Canadian issue in the sense that it has been created by other Canadians. It has been created within the Liberal Party.

As I watch the Gomery inquiry I see high ranking Liberal officials coming forward ever day and spilling their information. These are not allegations that these people are making. This is testimony. These are confessions. These are people trying to do everything they possibly can, I suspect, to point the finger across the entire lot, which I think is what is happening. I think people are starting to see that. The unfortunate part with the Gomery inquiry, the way it is set up right now, is that we will never know who would be accountable at the end of the day.

This morning I listened to a few of the comments made by the members opposite. They argued as to why it should not happen. They said that it would obstruct the RCMP investigation. It would hinder the police investigation. I do not believe there would be any danger in letting Mr. Gomery indicate responsibility. It will not hurt the RCMP. In fact, it might actually help it.

However, we have to question why clause (k) was included and was it part of the bigger picture that the government knew at the time.

The government today is claiming that changing the terms midway through the investigation would imperil the results. I do not know how it would. I have not heard anyone explain it today. I believe that allowing more tools to access the truth and report on it can only help us all get to the bottom of it and help all Canadians understand.

We have seen and we are part of history in Canada where a government has taken advantage and abused its ability through a taxation system to funnel money back into its own coffers for its own personal benefit. Personally I take offence to that. That is not why I was elected. That is not why I ran to be a part of Parliament. I ran to have people respect me and to do the right things for the right reasons. I think we see day after day that it is breaking down.

Unfortunately, I think we all suffer because of that. We have seen in history that governments that take advantage and take for granted the taxpayers of the country or the province that they represent are eventually punished, but in the same way many of the good people who put their names forward are painted and tarnished with that same brush. I personally resent that.

The motive behind bringing this motion forward is to inform Canadians who all believe that they are going to get an answer at the end of the day.

I ask the Liberal government and the members opposite to really look hard. If they really believe that the Canadian public should get the answers and the truth, they will have no problem supporting this motion. They will have no problem supporting the fact that at the end of the day Judge Gomery will report. He will name names. He will make people accountable which is what we all want as Canadians.

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4:15 p.m.

Conservative

Steven Fletcher Conservative Charleswood—St. James, MB

Mr. Speaker, the people of Brandon--Souris are very well represented by the member. The member talked about respect for parliamentarians. I know his constituents certainly respect their representative. Could the member explain how, by supporting the Conservative motion, it would help bring integrity back to Parliament, after it has been harmed by the government?

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4:20 p.m.

Conservative

Merv Tweed Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB

Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day we all want to stand in the House and go back to our communities to face the people who elected us. If members can look constituents in the eye and tell them that they have done the best to bring the truth forward, not the best that satisfies members' needs or makes it easy for them to be accountable to people but actually told people the truth, that is how I believe men and women are measured and how all parliamentarians should be measured.

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4:20 p.m.

Conservative

Peter MacKay Conservative Central Nova, NS

Mr. Speaker, speaking of truth, I want to put something on the record that occurred earlier in the debate. The member for Kings—Hants, who was parachuted into cabinet and is now the public works minister and human shield for the Prime Minister on the Gomery inquiry, stated in his quote from Justice Gomery:

I am entitled to draw conclusions as to whether there has been misconduct and who may be responsible for it.

The member stopped there. Mr. Justice Gomery went on to say in the next breath:

Such findings will be the focus of the inquiry only to the extent that they are necessary to carry out the mandate in the terms of reference.

The terms of reference are clearly important here. Mr. Justice Gomery himself stated:

Its future findings of fact and statements of opinion will be unconnected to normal legal criteria, and will be intended to serve as the basis for the recommendations which I will be making as required by paragraph (b) of the terms of reference.

This is the point. Paragraph (b) in the terms of reference states that the commission may make recommendations to prevent mismanagement of sponsorship programs or advertising programs in the future and that the commission may take recommendations to change the Fiscal Administration Act and, finally, the commission may report on the respective responsibilities and accountabilities of ministers and public servants as recommended by the Auditor General of Canada.

There is no responsibility, no naming of names, and no accountability. Mr. Justice Gomery says that himself. The minister of selective quotes once again engages in misleading the Canadian public as to what Mr. Justice Gomery has a mandate to do. They are deliberate attempts to mislead the public as to the mandate of Mr. Justice Gomery. This is all part of the cover-up. It is all part of the government's attempt to avoid accountability. It is all about burying the truth.

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4:20 p.m.

Conservative

Merv Tweed Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my earlier comments, that is the problem. I believe the Canadian public believes that Gomery will report and give a full accounting. Unfortunately, we know that he cannot. We know that he is restricted by the clauses that were put into his contract. All we are asking is to let that truth come forward and that people be held accountable at the end of the day. When our children do something wrong, we try to make them accountable to make them better adults. I think it is time for the government to do the same.

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4:20 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Okanagan—Coquihalla, Iran; the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie, Social Development.

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4:20 p.m.

Charlottetown P.E.I.

Liberal

Shawn Murphy LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to the motion put forward by the member for Saanich--Gulf Islands. This motion seeks to amend section (k) of the Gomery commission's terms of reference.

Let me begin by saying that I cannot and I will not support this motion. It seeks to make a fundamental change to the Gomery commission that would, in my submission, upset the entire process. Justice Gomery has been hearing testimony since last September and is scheduled, I understand, to conclude within the next week or two. It is very late in the game to start changing the rules, especially rules governing the mandate of this very important inquiry.

These rules are very clear. They are not arbitrary rules. There is no ambiguity in the rules. They are laid out in the Inquiries Act. They are much different than those of courts or tribunals because a public inquiry serves a much different purpose and in the context of the sponsorship program, the Gomery commission serves a very specific purpose in the government's course of action.

As my colleagues will remember, the Prime Minister, on his very first day of office, immediately cancelled the sponsorship program. Since then he has taken many definitive steps to deal with this particular issue. A criminal investigation has been launched. Comptrollers were put in every department to monitor government spending. New rules and ethical guidelines were put in place for public office holders. A special counsel was appointed to recover lost funds. Civil claims were filed totalling almost $41 million against 19 companies and individuals, and the commission of inquiry into the sponsorship program and advertising activities was created. This is what is commonly referred to in Canada as the Gomery commission.

Each of these actions served a specific purpose. The Prime Minister and the government have been fighting corruption. We need to find the people responsible, but we also need to identify the different factors that allowed such wrongdoings to occur and that need to be changed to prevent further wrongs. This is the role of the Gomery commission.

I come before the House with a certain experience in this whole issue. I have served for the last three or four years on the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts. Last February when the Gomery commission was announced and even before other committees were up and running, the Prime Minister, as one of his steps, mandated the Standing Committee on Public Accounts to immediately start looking at this whole issue.

We went for about four or five months. We heard from about 80 or 90 witnesses. We did sit, between February and May of last year, four days a week and we heard from most people in government who had to do with the program, a lot of the private advertising firms, the bureaucrats, and the civil servants who actually operated the program. Although it was a lot of hard work, it was a very interesting and challenging experience.

I did find the allegations troubling and disturbing, and the people in Charlottetown did not send me to Ottawa to justify the unjustifiable or to defend the indefensible. They were very troubling sets of circumstances.

At the end of the day we wrote a report. It is a very good report. I am not sure that everyone in the House has read the report, but speaking from my own vantage point, we identified a lot of the systemic or general issues that caused this problem to arise.

It was a very small program, with about eight civil servants administering it on behalf of Public Works and Government Services Canada, but the program unfortunately was allowed to be established outside of what I consider to be normal government rules and regulations.

It did not appear to be subject to normal Treasury Board rules and regulations or the Financial Administration Act. In doing this, it is my opinion that the minister failed to operate this small department in the best interest of Canadians and especially Canadian taxpayers. His excuse was that he did not have time to operate or run his department. That was not a valid excuse.

In my opinion, the deputy minister also failed Canadians. It was his job to see that the program operated within the Financial Administration Act and within Treasury Board guidelines. The internal audit branch of the Department of Public Works also missed this particular situation on two occasions.

The Prime Minister, to his credit, took a number of steps. I will not go over each and every step but one of the steps he did take was to establish the Gomery commission and to give it a very broad mandate which is set out in section 13 of the Inquiries Act. In his opening remarks, Mr. Justice Gomery was unequivocal in his duty to Canadians. He had the duty to find responsibility, to find misconduct and to ascribe responsibility.

As I indicated earlier, at the time the Gomery commission was established the previous member from Central Nova agreed with the mandate and said:

Well, they're certainly broad. There's no denying that the early indications are that the terms of reference will allow people to go where they have to go.

He certainly agreed with my comments back then but there have been some intervening factors and obviously, from his statement in the House in the last half hour, he has come 180° on this particular matter.

Now we have a motion before the House which I cannot for one minute support. As I can understand it, the Conservatives first want Mr. Justice Gomery to be given the power to find people guilty of criminal behaviour. Second, they want to give Mr. Justice Gomery the power to assign civil responsibility which would state that so and so owes so and so money.

That offends the charter of rights, the Criminal Code and all the rules of court of all 10 Canadian provinces and the 3 territories. We have in Canada a well-established system of criminal and civil law. If people want anything further they can go to the charter of rights where it is set out. It says that if a person is to be charged criminally he or she has to be charged. It has to be done by an indictment or under summary conviction. The offence is disclosed and the prosecutor is obliged to present the evidence as to what the charge is. Pursuant to the charter of rights, the person is entitled to retain and instruct counsel. There is a well-established body of evidentiary and procedural rules governing a criminal trial.

The roles of the investigative function of government and the prosecutorial roles are separated. The accused, after going through the charge, the evidence and the disclosure, is entitled to a trial, and the prosecutor, and this is very important, to get a guilty verdict, whether it be before a trial judge or a trial by jury, has to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

If I understand the motion put forward today, all that I have said over the last five minutes is taken and thrown right out the door. The opposition motion asks that Mr. Justice Gomery be given the power to assign criminal responsibility. Let me give an example and take it to the end conclusion.

People are invited or subpoenaed to appear before the Gomery commission. They go and give their evidence to the best of their ability. They then go home but do not follow the inquiry that closely. Maybe three, four, six or nine months later they pick up one of the national newspapers and read that they have been found guilty of a criminal offence that carries a minimum sentence of six, eight or ten years. For anyone who may be listening, I should say that I am not making this up. The next step, if I follow the argument and the rationale that is being stated in this House, the next thing that will happen is that the police will put them in jail with a minimum sentence of six, eight or ten years.

I want to talk about the second part of the motion. Not only do the Conservatives want Mr. Justice Gomery to ascribe criminal responsibility, they want him to be given the power to ascribe civil responsibility. If this were to go on in Canadian courts under our system of jurisprudence one would assume it normally would start with a statement of claim, properly prepared, properly filed and properly served.

People need to know whether they are being charged criminally. They need to know whether they are being sued. Information, knowledge and disclosure are fundamental to the system. The statement of claim has to be properly filed and served so the people being charged have the ability, if they wish, to file a statement of defence. If there is any dispute that cannot be resolved after discovery, after disclosure and after pre-trial examination of witnesses we then have a trial.

The trial may be held before a judge or, if the claim is above a certain amount, before a judge and a jury and the judge makes a finding of fact. I should point out, which I do not think has been pointed out in this chamber, that the onus in a civil trial is totally different. The onus there is not beyond a reasonable doubt, but it is in the balance of probabilities. After hearing all the evidence, the judge, or a jury properly instructed, would then make a finding of fact which would be the basis of the civil claim.

All that would be thrown out the door if we were to accept the logic and rationale of the motion. In this case the person would not have to go near the city of Montreal. I am not making this up. This is the gist of this motion. A person could buy the Globe and Mail and read on page 3 that Mr. Justice Gomery had found him or her or his or her company responsible to pay another entity, whether it be $100,000, $200,000 or $500,000, and that would be the first knowledge that the person would have of that claim. That is not the way our Canadian system has been developed and I certainly do not want to be part of any motion that would throw out our well-established judicial system.

Clause (k) reads as follows:

the Commissioner be directed to perform his duties without expressing any conclusion or recommendation regarding the civil or criminal liability of any person or organization and to ensure that the conduct of the inquiry does not jeopardize any ongoing criminal investigation or criminal proceedings

That is exactly what we have seen. In at least two instances Mr. Justice Gomery, after submissions I assume by counsel, heard the evidence in camera. After hearing the evidence, and not wanting to prejudice or compromise what I believe were criminal proceedings, he looked at the evidence and then released most of it.

However, if we buy into the motion before us, the criminal proceedings, as far as I can see, would be a waste of time. Mr. Justice Gomery would make that determination. The only duty left to the criminal judge in another venue would be to sentence the individual criminals.

The motion does not make any sense. It is contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Criminal Code. It is contrary to a lot of other Canadian statutes, rules and regulations.

Everyone wants to get to the bottom of this but this is just another step against Mr. Justice Gomery. It started when he was appointed. He was called a hack by the chair of the public accounts committee. That was the first thing the chair said. This has been going on day after day.

Canadians want the Gomery commission to finish its work and they want justice to be served, which is why I do not support the motion. I think it is ridiculous and I cannot and will not support it.

I again will quote the learned member for Central Nova when he looked at it in February. He said, “The terms of reference will allow people to go where they have to go”. People will draw their own conclusions.

I will not support the motion because I find it troubling. I do not think it will have the support of the House.

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4:40 p.m.

Conservative

Peter MacKay Conservative Central Nova, NS

Mr. Speaker, in the same vein as his floor crossing cousin from Kings--Hants, the hon. member opposite likes to selectively quote.

He asked me, rhetorically, what changed? Does he know what changed? We heard a litany of Liberals go before the Gomery commission and confess their involvement in criminal acts in attempts to defraud the public of public money for partisan purposes. Lo and behold, we find that the commission does not have the ability to make any recommendations as to responsibility.

We do not need to hear this nonsense about overlapping jurisdictions of civil and criminal responsibility. It is simply to make recommendations, as we saw in Krever, in Walkerton and in a number of public inquiries where there were simultaneous criminal and civil actions going on at the same time.

This is pure, unadulterated mendacious nonsense coming from the member opposite. He is trying to deliberately mislead Canadians about the terms of reference of the motion. He is deliberately trying to attract attention away--

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4:40 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

I would ask the member for Central Nova to withdraw the words “deliberately mislead”. You can presume or you can try to know what someone's motives might be, but certainly in here we assume that everyone is an hon. member. I encourage the member for Central Nova to withdraw the words “deliberately mislead”.

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4:40 p.m.

Conservative

Peter MacKay Conservative Central Nova, NS

Mr. Speaker, on your instruction, I withdraw the word “deliberately”. I would suggest that the hon. member is misleading Canadians in what he has said.

He is also very amusing. He suggests that somehow the opposition does not want Mr. Justice Gomery to get to the bottom of the matter. By last count, none other than the former Liberal prime minister, Jean Chrétien, and the former Liberal Public Works minister and a long litany of Liberal Public Works ministers, who are tainted by this whole sordid affair, were launching a civil suit to shut down Mr. Justice Gomery.

I would like the hon. member, if he is honourable, to stand in his place and admit that the only individuals who have launched a court action to stop Mr. Justice Gomery are his former members of Parliament and his former leader, Jean Chrétien and Alfonso Gagliano. Those are the only individuals who have done so.

Nobody in this House, not a single solitary person, does not want Mr. Justice Gomery to get to the bottom of it. Some want him to get to the bottom of certain things quicker than others. We think that when we get to the bottom of it we will find that it actually leads to the very top of the food chain in the Liberal Party.

Will the hon. member at least be honest enough to admit that the only individuals attempting to shut down Justice Gomery through court action are Alfonso Gagliano and Jean Chrétien, two of the highest on the food chain in the Liberal Party?

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4:40 p.m.

Liberal

Shawn Murphy Liberal Charlottetown, PE

Mr. Speaker, I have been on the public record many times saying that I do not support any person or any individual who in any way compromises, interferes or attempts to delay the work and proceedings of Mr. Justice Gomery.

However, one point made by the member for Central Nova is misleading. He talks about this section (k) and he talks about other inquiries. This is a very common clause that is used in all inquiries. I will go over a few of them: the Arar inquiry; the Ipperwash inquiry; the Walkerton inquiry; the Stonechild inquiry; and the Grange inquiry. All of these were inquiries set up by the Conservative government, except for the Stonechild inquiry, which was set up by an NDP government.

I believe that our present Prime Minister deserves a lot of credit for taking the steps that he has and for establishing the public inquiry. I want to point out to the member for Central Nova that this was not always the case and I will specifically talk about his previous leader, the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney. After Mr. Mulroney left office, he took $300,000 in cash in envelopes in hotel rooms with the lights turned down, as reported by William Kaplan. Mr. Mulroney laughed at Canadians and said, “It's none of your business. I paid taxes on it”.

That shows the behaviour of and the credit that this House owes to our Prime Minister in taking all the steps that he did, including this inquiry. I think the inquiry should be allowed to proceed immediately, without delay, without compromise and without any further motions like this from the opposition.

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4:45 p.m.

Conservative

Deepak Obhrai Conservative Calgary East, AB

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from the other side just mentioned the fact that all inquiries have similar language. He touted all the other commissions that have been brought in and said why they have similar language and should be the same.

The difference here is that this is all about the governing party. It is about the governing party's corruption. The Liberals are held responsible. Every day when we listen to the Gomery commission, who is out there? The Liberals are out there talking about corruption. It is their governing party that was responsible for this corruption, so here is what I want to ask the member. How can we have a commission with a reference that is similar to that of other commissions we have had when the mandate of this commission is different?

In this case, the mandate of the commission is simply to find out. Canadians want to know the truth and the truth has to deal with the Liberal Party Why are the Liberals afraid to let the Gomery commission talk, take responsibility and say who was responsible for this fiasco?

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4:45 p.m.

Liberal

Shawn Murphy Liberal Charlottetown, PE

Mr. Speaker, I will again repeat what I said earlier. The terms of reference are extremely broad. They are well established by statute. The inquiry is taking place pursuant to section 13 of the Inquiries Act. Mr. Justice Gomery was very clear in his opening remarks as to what his duties, responsibilities and objectives were.

To repeat, we have to make a distinction between the roles and duties of a public inquiry and our existing criminal and civil justice system. We cannot confuse the two of them. We cannot have a judge sitting on a public inquiry ascribing guilt, finding people guilty of criminal offences which may or may not put them in jail, and we cannot have a judge in a public inquiry finding civil responsibility for large sums of money when people who are subject to these charges or claims do not even know they exist. That is the fundamental point I want to make here today.