Bill C-27 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985

This enactment amends the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985 to provide a framework for the establishment, administration and supervision of target benefit plans. It also amends the Act to permit pension plan administrators to purchase immediate or deferred life annuities for former members or survivors so as to satisfy an obligation to provide pension benefits if the obligation arises from a defined benefit provision.

Opposition Motion—Finance Minister's assets

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I know this is going to be a difficult day for my Liberal colleagues because this is the role of Parliament and sometimes we have to discuss things that they do not want us to talk about.

There are two parts to the Conservatives' motion today. The first part calls upon the House to agree with the Prime Minister's statement in the House on November 1, that “sunshine is the best disinfectant”. I believe he was responding to a question from my hon. colleague from Hochelaga. This is a very widely known proverb, but the origins are less well known. The proverb is actually derived from the quote, “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants” which is attributed to Louis Brandeis, an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

In 1914, he published a series of essays under the title Other People's Money and How the Bankers Use It, in which he harshly criticized investment bankers who control large amounts of money deposited in their banks by middle-class people, the very people who will be harmed if Bill C-27 is passed.

The quote in question is found in chapter 5, “What publicity can do”. It was used in support of regulation to disclosure obligations, which is precisely what we are trying to accomplish in the House today. There is a delicious sort of irony here. The Liberal Prime Minister, who leads a party and a government that have traditionally been very friendly to Canada's big banks, who refused to do anything to tackle their business practices, including how they sell their financial products and the exorbitant fees they levy as service charges on middle-class Canadians, this same Prime Minister has unwittingly quoted a man who is very harshly critical of those same banks.

We know Morneau Shepell is getting quite concerned by all of the bad press it is receiving. It has basically become a household name in Canadian political discourse now. It has actually reached out to friends in the Financial Post. Yesterday it published an article in which it reported that Morneau Shepell rejects the suggestion that Bill C-27 would generate of flood of business for it, because guess what? There are many suppliers of pension services and the added business would not at all be significant. The article then relies on the fact that Morneau Shepell shares actually dipped in value a few weeks after Bill C-27 was introduced, as if this made it all okay for the finance minister to have owned shares in it in the first place because he would have lost some money.

That is really all the article can do as a defence because it then proceeds to do a hit job on the union leaders who are, surprise, surprise, going out and standing up for their members in advocating against the very thing that Bill C-27 is trying to do. That is really the only defence possible because this is an indefensible situation that we are in.

I find it very helpful for members in this place and for my constituents in Cowichan—Malahat—Langford to really go to the crux of the matter. It has to do with a very important piece of federal legislation, the Conflict of Interest Act. I will read, starting with section 4:

For the purposes of this Act, a public office holder is in a conflict of interest when he or she exercises an official power, duty or function that provides an opportunity to further his or her private interests or those of his or her relatives...

It also says under section 5 that:

Every public office holder shall arrange his or her private affairs in a manner that will prevent the public office holder from being in a conflict of interest.

It is all spelled out quite clearly under the legislation and it is unfortunate that members on the government side seem to have some trouble understanding why we are debating this very issue today. The government's publication “An Open and Accountable Government” states quite clearly that:

Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries must act with honesty and uphold the highest ethical standards so that public confidence and trust in the integrity and impartiality of government are maintained and enhanced.

Moreover, they have an obligation to perform their official duties and arrange their private affairs in a manner that will bear the closest public scrutiny. This obligation is not fully discharged merely by acting within the law.

Those are not my words; those are the government's words. The Liberals can rely on the defence that they are complying with the commissioner and the act, but they are ignoring the fact the spirit of the law has been completely trampled upon.

We are all very well aware of the Prime Minister's mandate letters to each of his ministers, in which these tenets were upheld and even pushed.

Because of the opposition's line of questioning during question period and by bringing forward this motion today, some Liberals accuse members of the opposition of launching personal attacks. That is a complete deflection from the issue at hand. The role of Parliament, one of its most important roles, is to hold government to account.

I want to refer to a quote from the great Stanley Knowles, who gave a great speech to the Empire Club in 1957. He said:

The Parliament of this country, elected by free men and women on the basis of free discussions which cannot be abrogated, is not just a club of good fellows who ought to do the nation's business in the shortest...time and with the least possible contention; rather it is a body which should examine every proposal...to make sure that it is in the country's best interest; it is a body in which attention should be drawn to proposals that ought to be made but which are often overlooked, unless an election is just around the corner; it is a body which should scrutinize expenditures and inquire into the administration of public affairs to make sure that fairness, justice and equity are maintained.

I will let that hang in the air for a moment. That is precisely what we are doing today.

We operate by a system of responsible government, where the executive branch of the Liberal government sits within the legislature, and it can only continue to do its function with the support of the legislature. It is responsible to us, and we hold lines of inquires to ensure that ministers of the crown are living up to their fullest obligations possible. This is a very legitimate line of questioning and the government is deflecting by going over all the great things it has been doing. If the government is so happy with those great things, I invite a minister of the crown to move the appropriate motion so we can have that debate on a different day. The motion before us today is what we are debating, and it goes directly to the finance minister's conduct.

I believe my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley mentioned that this was a time when both the finance minister and Prime Minister were under investigation. The very fact that they engaged in activities that led to the investigations in the first place should be very troubling.

I want to refer all hon. members from the government's side to the second part of the motion before us today, which reads, “and call on the Finance Minister to reveal all assets he has bought, sold or held within all his private companies or trust funds since he became Finance Minister, to determine if his financial interests have conflicted with his public duties.”

When we ask questions of the government, we see a lot of glum faces on Liberal backbenchers as they have to listen to this finance minister day after day try to defend the indefensible. They may not see it from their point of view, but in the opposition we see the reactions of the Liberals. They know this is a tough position to defend.

I would like to end with a reference to “sunny ways”. The Liberal leader Wilfrid Laurier proposed that a diplomatic sunny way would work better, and he used an illustration of Aesop's fable in which the sun and the wind held a contest to see who could remove a traveller's coat. The sun's warm rays proved more effective to the wind's bluster. If the Liberals truly believe in sunlight being the best disinfectant, I call upon them to use their sunny ways to remove the finance minister's coat of silence so we, as the people's representatives, can truly have confidence in his role.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to be splitting my time with my colleague from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford.

Let us start where we need to start, which is at the beginning.

Let us begin with the motion moved by the member for Carleton:

That the House agree with the Prime Minister’s statement in the House on November 1, 2017, that “sunshine is the best disinfectant”; and call on the Finance Minister to reveal all assets he has bought, sold or held within all his private companies....

This kind of thing happens because a loophole in the Conflict of Interest Act makes it possible for the minister not to be considered in conflict of interest if he holds his shares in a private numbered corporation, which is what the ultra-rich do. However, let us consider this statement by the Prime Minister about his ministers:

...the Ethical Guidelines...apply to you and your staff. As noted in the Guidelines, you must uphold the highest standards of honesty and impartiality, and both the performance of your official duties and the arrangement of your private affairs should bear the closest public scrutiny.

It is bizarre that we should have to spend the day on a debate to help the Liberals keep a Liberal promise. That is our intention, and this is an opportunity for the Liberals and the Minister of Finance in particular to save their reputation.

We are simply asking the minister to keep the promise that he and the Prime Minister made to all Canadians to ensure that his private affairs can bear the closest public scrutiny.

We are spending the entire day trying to help Liberals out. It is not an easy thing to do sometimes, because it is correcting bad behaviour. We do not have to do it once, but over and over again, because there is a certain amount of recidivism when we are talking about Liberals and the Liberal culture when it comes to ethics.

Canadians have seen this movie before. The Liberals are entitled to their entitlements. The concern I have is that this finance minister does not even understand that he has done something wrong. It is not just that he has done something wrong with the introduction of a bill that personally helped him and his company, but it is that he does not see any problem with that.

Not only is the behaviour itself bad—the decisions that were made initially not just by the finance minister but by the Prime Minister's Office and the Prime Minister's staff—in breaking faith with Canadians, but after that faith was broken, and it was revealed publicly, the finance minister stands up day after day and asks what the problem is. He is just under investigation by the Ethics Commissioner, he has already had to pay a fine for his French villa, and he says he is moving on; he has no problem here, and why should anybody else?

Having faith in the finance minister is important for Parliament and important for all Canadians, because it is such a powerful position. I think it is important to read out the promise that we are trying to help the Liberals keep today, because it is a promise that the Prime Minister himself made. He came in on a white stallion of integrity and was going to bring forth a new era in Canadian politics and integrity. Here is what the Prime Minister told Canadians, and demanded of all of his ministers, including the finance minister:

...you must uphold the highest standards of honesty and impartiality, and both the performance of your official duties and the arrangement of your private affairs should bear the closest public scrutiny.

We found out that the finance minister's shares in Morneau Shepell totalled, depending on the date, some $32 million, and when he eventually sold them, they were worth between $6 million and $12 million more. Liberals talk about the personal sacrifices the finance minister has made, but I would love to make a personal sacrifice for which I gained $6 million to $12 million. Most Canadians would love the idea of that being the definition of personal sacrifice: being forced under public pressure to make $12 million profit. I am sorry if we do not hand out Kleenex for the tears that Canadians are shedding for the finance minister, who may have just cleared between $6 million and $12 million profit. It is tough to be him, I guess.

The notion is this, though. It only came to light because journalists dug through records to find out that he was still controlling these shares. They were in a numbered company in Alberta. There is a loophole in the ethics code that has never been exploited before, to my knowledge, because no one thought of it, I guess, where, if he took the shares he owned in Morneau Shepell and simply moved them into a numbered company in Alberta, even though all of the profits would still eventually go to him, and him alone, that was no longer considered a conflict of interest. That is a shell game.

Canadians sitting back and watching this ask who made the money, and we say he did. That seems like a conflict of interest, because he introduced Bill C-27 that directly helped out Morneau Shepell, in which he still had tens of millions of dollars of shares. That seems wrong. If the health minister introduced a bill while still owning pharmaceutical shares worth tens of millions of dollars that helped out that pharmaceutical company, we would scream foul. The finance minister gets up day after day and says the opposition is obsessed with him. He is under a conflict of interest investigation.

It was revealed only after the media dug into his personal accounts, in ways that they could, to find out about the French villa that was in a numbered company that he forgot about. It was only because the media dug into public and semi-private records that they found out he was still controlling shares in Morneau Shepell worth millions of dollars while regulating the pension industry. Hold that thought for a moment. He worked in the pension industry, his company made profits in the pension industry, and he moved into public life to serve the public. He maintains millions of dollars of shares in a pension company while being the regulator of the pension industry, and the finance minister does not see a potential conflict of interest.

Today, we have a motion on which the entire day in the House will be spent asking the Liberals to simply do this: to keep their promise about public scrutiny. It does not end with the Morneau Shepell Bill C-27 affair. We know the finance minister has at least five other numbered companies, the contents of which we know nothing about. The very first test he faced on whether we should trust him or not was around introducing Bill C-27. He failed the test. The Ethics Commissioner is now investigating him because he failed that test. She believes there is enough evidence to launch that investigation.

When it was revealed that the finance minister was going under this investigation, his office tried to spin it and say it was not an investigation, that it was just an examination. That is what his office said. Lo and behold, we found out there is no difference, because in the ethics act the only word for it is “examination”. Liberals are in a hole and they just keep on digging. In fact, I think they went out and bought a bigger shovel.

Never mind that Morneau Shepell, as revealed through an access to information request, still maintains 171 contracts with the federal government. It has contracts valued at $53 million with the federal government while the finance minister maintains shares in Morneau Shepell. It is a minefield of conflicts of interest all over the place, in every decision he is making. One would have thought that if he wanted to keep his promise, knowing all of his personal affairs would bear the fullest public scrutiny, he would have divested.

That a cabinet minister sitting in Donald Trump's cabinet cannot do what this finance minister has done should cause Canadians some alarm. People in cabinet working for the President of the United States, even the current president, have to divest themselves of their interests. Otherwise, they will run into conflicts of interest almost every day. The finance minister still has not come clean. He has not revealed to Canadians what he owns or what his interests are. He says we should trust him, he is a good guy. He may be a good guy, but he is doing bad things.

Doing the right thing after getting caught is not exactly the same as doing the right thing, is it? One does not exactly build up trust by saying that now that he has been caught, he will do this, this, and this. The finance minister needs confidence, not just of the Prime Minister but of all Canadians. If he wants to regain confidence, this would all go away, if he just does this. The only person who can make this story end is the finance minister himself, who simply has to keep his promise that he and the Prime Minister made to all Canadians, to tell us what he owns and how he owns it so that Canadians can judge, because that is who we work for.

We all in this place work for the Canadians who sent us here. The finance minister promised that he would reveal what he owns and how he owns it. He, to this day, has not done that. The only record that we have is his dealing with a pension bill that would directly help out his company. Only after he got caught did he beget generosity toward charities and donate the profits, and we still do not even know how he did that and if he is getting a tax receipt for that. I ask the Liberals to come now, join with us, come into the light, let the sun shine in, and tell us what he owns and how he owns it.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I spoke about the property in France in response to an earlier question from the member for Beauport—Limoilou.

I said that the property had been disclosed to the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. The administrative error had to do with the corporate entity that owns it. The Minister of Finance worked with the Ethics Commissioner, as he has always done. The commissioner is conducting an examination of Bill C-27, not an investigation.

The Minister of Finance continues to work with the Ethics Commissioner, as he has always done. That is the right thing to do because the Ethics Commissioner is responsible for safeguarding the integrity of Parliament. We have confidence in the Ethics Commissioner's work, which involves telling parliamentarians, when they arrive in Ottawa to take on their responsibilities as a minister, parliamentary secretary, or MP, what to do to ensure that they are in compliance with the rules governing us and the House. That is what the Minister of Finance did.

In my speech, I was very proud to talk about everything the Minister of Finance has done for the Canadian economy and for Canadians from all walks of life. I think that our government has done a lot of good. That is why I got into politics.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question is quite simple. If everything is all sunshine and full of integrity with the finance minister, then why did the Ethics Commissioner fine the finance minister $200 for not fully disclosing his assets, and why did she find enough evidence to open up an investigation about a conflict of interest with Bill C-27?

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, my friend from the NDP is quite right. It is almost impossible these days to get a Liberal to keep a promise, but that is perhaps a debate for another day.

I would agree with my hon. colleague on this fact. Because the finance minister's position in Parliament is arguably the second most important person in government, he must be held to not only meet the minimum standards but to exceed standards and expectations of the general public.

We know about the Conflict of Interest Act. We know the definition of a conflict of interest. What is also contained in that definition is that a decision maker, which obviously the finance minister is, cannot be viewed as acting impartially or with integrity if he or she may receive personal benefits from their decisions.

What happened was that the Minister of Finance decided not to put his assets into a blind trust. The Minister of Finance decided to introduce Bill C-27, which definitely benefited his family's fortune to the tune of about $5 million. Those were deliberate decisions made by the Minister of Finance, which contravened every single tenet of the Conflict of Interest Act.

I know the minister is under investigation. I encourage the Ethics Commissioner to find a resolution to this with great haste. Canadians need to have the confidence that their elected officials, particularly their Minister of Finance, is acting with the integrity they have been charged to uphold.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I have always been of the belief that every person, from the moment they first achieve cognitive thought, knows the difference between right and wrong, everyone except, it appears, this Minister of Finance. The finance minister has been involved in so many ethical transgressions in the last two years that I honestly believe it would be fair to say that I do not know if he understands the difference between right and wrong. If he does, it appears that he simply does not care.

For the benefit of the House and the benefit of those who may be watching today, I am going to enumerate some of these transgressions and what they mean in today's Parliament, what they mean to Canadians, and what they mean to those who may find themselves in a real or apparent conflict of interest.

We first found out a few months ago that the Minister of Finance had failed to sufficiently disclose all of his assets to the Ethics Commissioner. In fact, he failed to disclose a very significant asset. What was that asset? That asset was a villa in the region of Provence, in the south of France. I am not really that knowledgeable about real estate, but I would assume that a villa in that region, a very wealthy part of France, is probably worth in the millions of dollars.

Going back just a little, I should point out that all parliamentarians, since 2004, have been required, and are still required, on a yearly basis, to disclose to the Ethics Commissioner all of our assets and liabilities, and in fact the assets and liabilities of our spouses and family members. For example, if a member owns a house, what is its relative value? Does it have a mortgage? Does the member own mutual funds, stocks, bonds, or trust funds? Does the member own real property? Members report that to the Ethics Commissioner each and every year so that she will be able to determine if there is any perceived or real conflict of interest or if there could be a potential conflict of interest. Did the Minister of Finance do that? No. He failed to disclose a a million-dollar-plus asset owned by a private corporation, which he controlled. Could that potentially be a conflict of interest? Most certainly it could.

However, when queried by the media as to why he did not disclose this to the Ethics Commissioner appropriately and on time, he merely stated that it was an administrative error. I do not know about other members, but to me, making a million-dollar omission on a disclosure to the Ethics Commissioner is much more than an administrative error.

That was the first, but certainly not the last, of these ethical lapses we have seen from the Minister of Finance. We next learned, through a report first published in The Globe and Mail, that the minister was the owner of a private corporation, a numbered company in fact, in Alberta. We also found out that this numbered company had assets. Specifically, it owned approximately $20 million in shares in a company called Morneau Shepell.

As my colleague from Carleton pointed out just a few moments ago, that is the same company the current Minister of Finance used to run, a family-founded, family-run, very successful company that specializes in pensions and pension products. That alone should have raised a lot of alarm bells, but it gets even worse.

We later found out, again from The Globe and Mail, that the minister had not placed these assets, the approximately $20 million in shares, in a blind trust. He had, however, implied, to many people, including his colleagues on the government side of the House, that he had placed all his assets in a blind trust. He had told his former colleagues and former co-workers at Morneau Shepell that he had placed his assets in a blind trust. He had not. That was a clear conflict of interest and a clear violation of the ethics code.

In addition to that, at the same time as he was benefiting from shares in a numbered company which he had not disclosed, he introduced Bill C-27 in this place, a bill sponsored by the minister and brought forward by the minister, that would, in effect, if passed into legislation, allow employers to change their pension plans from defined benefit plans to targeted benefit plans.

I will not get into the details or nuances of the differences between those two pension plans. Suffice it to say, the minister, through his numbered company in Alberta, saw the share price rise, approximately $5 million worth. In other words, because it was not in a blind trust and still directly controlled by the minister through his numbered company, he and his family benefited to the tune of $5 million. Once he introduced Bill C-27, the speculation in the stock market was that Morneau Shepell would be gathering and garnering much more business across Canada due to it being the largest firm in Canada specializing in these products.

It was only after all of these revelations came to light did the minister determine he should sell his assets and place any other assets into a blind trust. That is akin to somebody saying “I'm sorry” after getting caught. In fact, I received an email from one of my constituents after the story came to light, in which he said that it reminded him of a bank robber who got caught a couple of years later, promised to pay the money back to the bank, then went on to say no harm, no foul, that everyone could move on because there was nothing to see. It does not work that way. One has to be accountable for one's actions.

The very definition of “conflict of interest” determines quite clearly that the Minister of Finance was, for two solid years, in a serious conflict of interest.

I go back to my opening comments. I am not sure if the minister truly understands the difference between right and wrong, but today we are giving the minister an opportunity to do what is right. To do what is right means simply this: disclosing all of the minister's assets he currently holds in numbered companies. Why is that important? Because having assets in a number company means Canadians do not know what those assets are.

What could they be? Let us assume for a moment that some of those assets are shares in, let us say, Bombardier. Would that be a conflict of interest? Clearly, it would. What would happen if some of the shares in those numbered companies owned by the Minister of Finance are shares in a company like Irving Shipbuilding or Davie shipbuilding? What happens if those shares, which we do not know about in these numbered companies, were shares in a medicinal marijuana company that is coming onto the market? There are so many things that could be conflicts of interest that we do not know about that the minister must reveal the sources of those assets, if only to gain, or regain, the confidence of the Canadian public and to prove to it that he is not in a conflict of interest.

By refusing to reveal the assets in these numbered companies, all he is doing is reinforcing in the public's mind that he is like every other dirty politician out for personal benefit and not for the public interest.

I call upon the minister to simply do what is right, and that is to reveal the assets, open the books, and let the Canadian public see what he has been hiding for these last two years.

Ethics

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the finance minister keeps repeating that he disclosed all of his assets since day one. We are not fabricating the fact he hid his offshore corporation for two years.

The Prime Minister says the minister has always worked since day one with the Ethics Commissioner to ensure his personal finances were in line with the expectations of Canadians. We are not fabricating the fact he never received the commissioner's permission to introduce Bill C-27, a bill from which he and his family would profit.

The minister still has mystery assets. Why will he not tell Canadians what is inside all of his other companies?

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is indeed historic. Never in the history of Canada have the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister been under investigation by the Ethics Commissioner at the same time. That is the Liberals' idea of making history.

The problem with the Minister of Finance is that he is hiding things from Canadians. He introduced Bill C-27, which benefited his family's company tremendously, but said he worked with the Ethics Commissioner. I believe him because that is precisely what he did after introducing the bill. That is unacceptable.

Why is the Minister of Finance not being straight with Canadians?

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, every week brings new revelations about the Minister of Finance's conflicts of interest.

First, there were his undeclared shares, then his villa in France, and now, we have the bill he created, Bill C-27, from which his own family and his company, Morneau Shepell, directly benefit.

Will the Prime Minister step up and order his Minister of Finance to show some transparency and disclose all of his assets?

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is not true. The Minister of Finance did not sit down with the Ethics Commissioner. He did so only after he was in conflict of interest.

We know that Morneau Shepell deals in target benefit pension plans, and that is what the minister put forward in his Bill C-27.

The question here is simple. How can the minister think that he is not in conflict of interest when he makes the laws that govern a business in which he holds shares? How can the Minister of Finance say that he is not in conflict of interest?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Party's chief fundraiser sent money to a tax haven. This morning, the NDP asked that Stephen Bronfman appear before the Standing Committee on Finance. The Liberals refused.

The Minister of Finance failed to put his assets in a blind trust. He also introduced Bill C-27, which helped Morneau Shepell rake in millions of dollars without running this by the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. He is currently under investigation.

Is that the Liberals' approach to governing?

They do nothing about tax havens and introduce bills to get richer and to make their millionaire friends richer?

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance introduced Bill C-27 to ensure that Canadians have a secure and stable retirement, so that they may live out their retirement with dignity. The Minister of Finance has always worked with the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. He followed through on her recommendation to set up a conflict of interest screen. The commissioner felt that this was the best way to prevent any appearance of conflict of interest or any conflict of interest. The Minister of Finance will continue to work with the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner to ensure that all the rules are followed and he will continue to serve Canadians.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister and the finance minister are the two most powerful lawmakers in Canada. The finance minister's Bill C-27 will directly benefit his billion dollar family business, Morneau Shepell, and he still held shares in Morneau Shepell when he introduced that bill. The Prime Minister and the finance minister and his staff all claim he has been working with the Ethics Commissioner from the start, but now, the Prime Minister and two of his cabinet ministers are under investigation by the Ethics Commissioner. How can Canadians trust the Prime Minister?

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the finance minister's so-called ethical screen gets weaker every day. After introducing Bill C-27, which helps his own family business, the only argument the minister has left is to say that he now miraculously has some integrity because he sold his shares and made a donation. What does the government have to say about the level of integrity he has shown over the past two years?

Will the Prime Minister finally admit what all Canadians know, that his finance minister has been in a direct conflict of interest for the past two years?

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance swore that he put his shares in a blind trust and then we learned that he never did. The Minister of Finance assured us that he had declared all his assets and then we learned that he was fined by the commissioner for failing to disclose a company. From the beginning of the session, the minister has repeated that he has always worked with the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner and, oddly enough, today we read in the Globe and Mail that the minister never worked with the commissioner on his Bill C-27.

Can the Prime Minister tell us why Canadians would still trust the Minister of Finance?