Bill C-50 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (political financing)

This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to
(a) enact an advertising and reporting regime for fundraising events attended by Ministers, party leaders or leadership contestants; and
(b) harmonize the rules applicable to contest expenses of nomination contestants and leadership contestants with the rules applicable to election expenses of candidates.

Canada Elections Act

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, that question was a bit of a mixed bag and I would question the relevance of two-thirds of it. It started on whether this was an opportunity to legitimize cash for access events and it had a very partisan slant against the Liberal Party. I note that this bill is actually non-partisan in its very nature. By definition, it applies to the government and the opposition parties, no matter who is in government.

On the issue of the Prime Minister's accountability, I cannot help but note that he is currently on a town hall tour, visiting residents, and giving them access to him for free, with no opportunity to stack the room with partisan supporters of one kind or another.

The hon. member would seemingly suggest there should be a higher standard for the Liberal Party than for opposition parties. This should apply to every party in the House with an opportunity for somebody to influence the decisions today or in the near future. It is a perfectly fine approach. I note that the person the member referenced, the former Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, actually suggested this legislation is a good thing because it strengthens our democratic institutions.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his intervention. My question relates to the substance of the issue, the motivation for the bill, specifically the fundraising events that suggest the possibility of access to ministers and the Prime Minister in exchange for a substantial amount of money.

I am wondering whether my colleague is okay with that practice, since all Bill C-50 does is formalize the practice and make it more transparent. The bill gives the public more information, but it does not change anything about the fundamental issue, since it allows for the practice to continue.

Basically, I want to know my colleague's thoughts on a political party engaging in cash for access. Does he agree with this practice? My question refers more to the substance, rather than the form, of the bill before us today.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, before I address the question squarely, we have to ask ourselves if we want to recognize the political reality that campaigns cost money. I suggest that we do. The answer in my mind, then, is not to prevent certain people from raising money and meeting the people who donate to their campaigns, but to ensure there is transparency so that the public understands what is going on.

As I mentioned over the course of my remarks, we should not underestimate the intelligence of the public. If the public sees that there are 100 people making maximum campaign donations that are part of a particular lobby organization and the next day the recipient of the funds from those donors comes out with a new policy that caters to the interests of those people, Canadians will know that was a ploy to get elected and not to serve their interests.

I suggest the right approach is to put all of the information out there and mandate that those serving in government or those campaigning to be the leader of the Government of Canada are subject to rules that ensure Canadians know who their donors are and who was in the room when the donations of $200 or more were made, so that they can decide for themselves at the ballot box.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity to speak today to Bill C-50.

I am in a unique position given the fact that I am a member of Parliament from Ontario. Having seen what went on with the provincial Liberals, I can speak to the issue of cash for access and how it relates federally given the examples that happened in Ontario.

As I was going about the last election, meeting with residents of my riding, engaging in town halls and all-candidates debates, I remember warning those who would consider voting Liberal of the fact that the same players from Ontario would be involved not only with the Liberal election campaign but also within the Prime Minister's Office, and that certainly has shown itself to be true. The cash for access scheme originated in Ontario. Ontario was ground zero for cash for access.

What does cash for access mean? It means that ministers, the premier, and parliamentary secretaries would sell access to themselves to those stakeholders who were willing to pay up to the maximum amount. Ontario had no maximum amount at that time. I recall some people at small intimate settings were paying in excess of $5,000. Imagine what a fundraiser that would be. Ministers in Ontario had the opportunity to sit in private settings and sell access to their time for $5,000, and in some cases, it was more than that. It was a heck of a fundraiser for the Ontario Liberal Party, which on some nights could get upwards of $50,000 to $100,000.

Let us fast-forward to after the election. Those same players who came from Queen's Park, Gerald Butts and Katie Telford, who formalized and legitimized the plan in Ontario, came to the Prime Minister's Office and the first thing they did was to concoct the same plan federally, a plan that saw the Prime Minister and ministers of the crown engage in private cash for access fundraisers. The difference was that there was a limit here federally and the limit was $1,500, a bit more above that.

In Ontario, they called this “the system”. Ministers would sell access to themselves in most cases to stakeholders and those stakeholders would be able to bend a minister's ear for whatever project, whatever dealings, whatever issue he or she had with the government. The minister would be paid and that money would go directly into a Liberal bank account. The same plan happened here.

This amounts to political extortion. It is about extorting money from those who have business dealings with the government so that those individuals can gain access to ministers and in some cases the Prime Minister.

The issue was really one of hypocrisy on the part of the government and that is why we are in this position right now with Bill C-50. The Liberals are trying to correct a problem that they created. I will remind the House what the Prime Minister told his ministers in their mandate letters about perception, real or otherwise, and about undue influence. Cash for access provides undue influence.

The member for Central Nova said he could not see how $1,500 could influence a minister of the crown. It is not just the $1,500 but rather the multiples of $1,500. We saw examples of that during the height of this cash for access scheme. The height of public awareness of this scheme was when the Prime Minister was at a private event with some stakeholders from the Chinese community. A gentleman by the name of Shenglin Xian, along with the other people there, donated the maximum amount. Mr. Xian had business in front of the government. His business was that he wanted to open a bank. Mr. Xian received approval for the bank and it was opened shortly after this meeting.

It is important to understand that ministers of the crown are very powerful. They control multi-billion dollar budgets. With one fell swoop of a pen, a minister, the Prime Minister, and the government can approve whatever business those people have. Also, the money is going into Liberal bank accounts. It is not going into the coffers of the government. These are people who are paying for access to put money into the Liberal bank accounts.

We have seen examples of this happen with other ministers. The Minister of Justice held a meeting at a Bay Street law firm. There were lots of lawyers there. I do not think they were talking about the Blue Jays, or the Maple Leafs and how they were doing. They were talking government business. In some cases, some of those lawyers who would pay the $1,500 perhaps had applications for the bench. This is why this is wrong.

What the Liberals are proposing now is to take it out of the shadows, where it was and put it in public, but that legitimizes and formalizes it. Why are they doing that? It is so they can hide behind it, so if there are any further complaints, if anyone else has a problem with cash for access, they can say they changed the rules and that the rules are clear.

In Ontario, there was so much public backlash that they actually banned cash for access. They made it so that no more could ministers or members of the provincial legislature even go to these cash for access fundraisers. Therefore, if the government is truly showing some virtue on this, it should just ban them altogether and go back to the donation process that exists today.

Of course, the Liberals want to use every advantage they can to try to extort as much money as they can from these stakeholders, because they know from a fundraising standpoint that they lag far behind the Conservatives and our grassroots donors who support our party year in and year out because they agree with the policies, principles, and values of conservatism. The Liberals want to extort people. They want to say, perhaps to the marijuana industry, perhaps to more lawyers, “Give us money, and you can have access to us and bend our ears”. How is that going to apply to middle-class Canadians and those working hard to join them? It will not, because most of the people in my riding cannot afford to go to one of these Liberal fundraisers.

The other interesting part about this, and this is the thing that really concerns me, is that it does not include parliamentary secretaries. The bill says the reporting mechanism will happen for the Prime Minister and for cabinet ministers, but it will not happen for parliamentary secretaries. Why not? That is a fair question. In fact, when I talked to the member for Banff—Airdrie, this was one of the amendments that was put forward. In fact, it was a recommendation of the Ethics Commissioner.

I have heard the argument that the Ethics Commissioner agrees with most parts of this, but this is the one area she does not agree with. Why not include parliamentary secretaries in Bill C-50? One could speculate that perhaps the reason is that, if the Prime Minister cannot do it and cabinet ministers cannot have a cash for access event in private with stakeholders and people who have business in front of the government, they want to send their parliamentary secretaries, because they, through the line, will have the ear of a cabinet minister who will eventually have the ear of the Prime Minister with respect to those people who are involved.

There are significant challenges with Bill C-50. The fact is that the government wants to legitimize and formalize the cash for access scheme so it can use it as a shield later on. If something comes up, the Liberals could then say they changed the rules, everyone knows the rules, and they are applying the rules. If they were going to apply the rules in this case, they certainly should have done it when the Prime Minister wrote his mandate letters to say that the perception, real or otherwise, of undue influence should not happen within his government. They changed that.

There is no reason to believe they are going to follow the rules in Bill C-50. This is hypocrisy as its best. They are formalizing and legalizing what will continue to be political extortion on the part of the government of stakeholders and those having business with the government.

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let me begin by saying how disappointed I am that the opposition members are not supporting this legislation, which I think is a tremendous move towards having greater openness and transparency and which is something they are asking for. I am wondering what is at the root of them not supporting it. Is it that they do not want the opposition to have to disclose the information that is being asked for in Bill C-50?

This is about openness and transparency. It is about ensuring that the website shows what events are going to be held. It is about ensuring that the attendees who have paid over $200 for events are noted and there is a list so that people know.

I do not understand. Therefore, my direct question to the member is this. Is he not supporting this legislation because the opposition members do not want to provide lists of who attend their fundraisers for over $200 or more?

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

Mr. Speaker, the fact is that we do follow the rules. The Liberals did not follow their own rules. If the hon. member wants to talk about openness and transparency, there is an open and transparent process, which is the donations from grassroots Canadians who support political parties. Openness and transparency does not mean I extort people for $1,500 to come to a fundraising event that I am at so they can bend my ear, if I am the government, to make a decision that perhaps favours or benefits them.

It is not just the $1,500; it is the multiples of those $1,500 and what that represents with respect to influencing government policy that is troublesome on this. What they are doing is formalizing and legitimizing cash for access. If they have a problem with it, why do they not cancel it altogether, like the Ontario Liberals did?

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the current Prime Minister has a record of saying one thing and doing another. I am wondering if my hon. friend could comment on how the hundreds of cash for access events hosted by the Prime Minister and cabinet ministers square with the “Open and Accountable Government” document, the standards of conduct by which the Prime Minister and ministers are supposedly bound. It provides, among other things, that “There should be no preferential access to government, or appearance of preferential access..”.

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

Mr. Speaker, it became very clear from the onset that the words the Prime Minister wrote on his mandate letters were not worth the paper they were written on. I say that as an example, because the first thing the members on that side of the House started doing was the same thing that happened in Ontario. They started engaging in cash for access events, and many of them were in the shadows.

If it were not for the media, or in some cases for the people who attended those events, none of this would have become transparent. In spite of all the platitudes and all the words about openness and transparency, the current government and Prime Minister are anything but that. Therefore, I say again that the words the Prime Minister wrote to his cabinet ministers in those mandate letters are in fact not worth the paper they were written on. It is concerning that the Liberals are still legitimizing and formalizing cash for access.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in the times leading up to the election in 2015, we witnessed hermetically sealed government events that people went to. Lord knows who they were, what they talked about, and what they left behind in terms of donations to the Conservative Party of Canada. I want to ask my colleague across the way if he believes that the people who attended an event that Mr. Harper held were there to talk about what was happening in Calgary heritage, or if perhaps it was that member's position in government that attracted their attention.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly the Liberals' modus operandi to blame or accuse somebody else without accepting responsibility for their own actions. We see here another example of this accusatory tone from the member opposite.

However, when we have the example of a Chinese millionaire, I assume, attending a private event with the Prime Minister because he has business in front of the government of opening a bank and there are a multitude of donors there, and then all of a sudden that bank gets opened, I think it is a problem. It will continue to be a problem under this proposed legislation. It would not stop the problem; it would just formalize and legitimize the issue.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to on Bill C-50an act to amend the Canada Elections Act (political financing).

Bill C-50, more particularly, would require certain public notification and reporting in respect of certain political fundraising events. In that regard, Bill C-50 would require that where a cabinet minister or party leader or leadership candidate attends a political fundraising event, and where the ticket price for the event is more than $200, that public notification would be required and a report would be sent to Elections Canada on the event.

The government has sold this bill as a bill to increase transparency, accountability, and to strengthen Canada's political financing laws. I say that one should not buy into the bill of goods that the government is trying to sell to Canadians. This bill is not about increased transparency. It is not about increased accountability. It is not about strengthening Canada's political financing laws. Rather, what Bill C-50 is about is legitimizing and sanitizing the government and the Liberal Party's sordid cash for access racket. That is what Bill C-50 is about.

Why would the government, by way of legislation, seek to legitimize cash for access? As my colleague, the hon. member for Banff—Airdrie has pointed out, the government has found its hand caught in the cookie jar one too many times. The government has been caught with its hand in the cookie jar, and as much as the Prime Minister has said one thing, he has then done another. We have a Prime Minister who, after all, more or less disavowed cash for access fundraising and then proceeded to engage in cash for access fundraising. He not only engaged in cash for access fundraising but perfected cash for access fundraising.

To understand the degree to which the Prime Minister broke his word to the Canadian public, one need only look back to the 2015 election, when he told Canadians to elect him and that he would deliver the most open, most transparent, and most accountable government in Canadian history. To try to demonstrate that he meant what he said and said what he meant, the Prime Minister, upon appointing his cabinet, unveiled a document called “Open and Accountable Government”.

“Open and Accountable Government” was the code of conduct, the standards of conduct, by which the Prime Minister said that he, his ministers, and parliamentary secretaries would be held to. “Open and Accountable Government” did deal with sets of standards, standards of conduct, for cabinet ministers, for the Prime Minister, and for parliamentary secretaries, specifically relating to political fundraising.

It is important to speak to and review some of what “Open and Accountable Government” said to understand how blatantly and how flagrantly this Prime Minister has broken his word to the Canadian people. “Open and Accountable Government” says, among other things, “Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries must avoid conflict of interest, the appearance of conflict of interest and situations that have the potential to involve conflicts of interest.” However, it gets better. It says, “There should be no preferential access to government, or appearance of preferential access..”.

Moreover, “Open and Accountable Government” states that department stakeholders, including lobbyists, should not be targeted for the solicitation of political funds. That is what “Open and Accountable Government” says. That is the standard the Prime Minister set for himself and his cabinet, so it begs the question: what did the Prime Minister do following the issuance of that standard? The answer is that the Prime Minister ignored “Open and Accountable Government”.

It was as if “Open and Accountable Government” had never been written. As my friend, the member for Barrie—Innisfil, said, it was not worth the paper it was written on, because almost immediately, the Prime Minister doubled down with cash for access event after cash for access event. Indeed, in 2016, the Liberal Party held more than 100 cash for access events, like one held in May 2016, in Toronto, with none other than Mr. Sanctimony himself, the Prime Minister, who was at the residence of a Chinese billionaire. There were other Chinese billionaires there, each of whom paid $1,500 to the Liberal Party of Canada. There they had an evening with the Prime Minister, making dumplings and having the ear of the Prime Minister, and, I am sure, spending a wonderful evening with him.

Among those in attendance was none other than the chief investor in the Wealth One Bank of Canada, a bank that was seeking a banking licence in Canada at the time of the cash for access fundraiser. What a sweet deal: $1,500 to the Liberal Party and an opportunity to spend the evening with the Prime Minister to talk about Wealth One Bank. Sure enough, the licence was approved.

At the very same event, there was a Chinese Communist official. He was not a Canadian citizen, so he could not send the money directly to the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party said not to worry about it. Two weeks later, that same individual wrote a $200,000 cheque to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. I guess we are supposed to assume that it was a coincidence that he would spend the evening with the Prime Minister and two weeks later decide to write a $200,000 cheque to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation.

My friend from Barrie—Innisfil says that we could not make this up. Well, we really could not, because it is just incredible. It speaks to the hypocrisy, to the lack of ethical conduct, on the part of the government.

Here we are today with Bill C-50. What does it do? It requires public notification five days before an event. I say, big deal. It requires reporting to Elections Canada of an event. I do not know if it occurred to the government, but every single political contribution is already reported to Elections Canada, so in terms of substantive improvements to political financing laws in Canada, the bill falls short.

It is nothing more than smoke and mirrors so that the Prime Minister can pretend that he is doing something about political financing, all the while giving himself a blank cheque to engage in the most sordid types of political fundraising activities. This is a cynical bill, and Canadians deserve more than a cynical bill from a cynical and ethically challenged government.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Minister of Democratic Institutions]

Mr. Speaker, I can absolutely say that this is not a cynical bill. This is a bill that is making a substantial difference. It is unfortunate to hear from my colleague across the way on this topic in such a cynical manner, because to be perfectly honest, fundraising is an activity that all political parties undertake.

I want to make one correction. We know that no foreigner can make a contribution. It is against the law. That is something all political parties uphold.

Second is that parties would actually report who attended an event, when it took place, and where it took place. This is important, because this is information Canadians have not had before.

Bill C-50 aims to make fundraising events more open and transparent. All I hear from the opposition members is that they do not believe in more openness or transparency. We know for a fact that the Leader of the Opposition was holding fundraising events in secret this summer and refused to provide details.

Does my hon. colleague not believe that more openness and transparency about fundraising is a good thing? That is exactly what the bill aims to do.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I think we have absolutely no lessons to learn from the government, because the consistent record of the government is to say one thing and do another. It is the Liberals who issued “Open and Accountable Government”, and it is they who almost immediately flagrantly violated their own ethical standards.

I remember standing in the House, day in and day out, in April of 2016, asking the Minister of Justice about the pay-to-play fundraiser at Torys LLP in Toronto, an event that was attended by lawyers and lobbyists, an event that was advertised as an opportunity for attendees to engage with the minister on matters that pertained directly to her role as Minister of Justice. That is called pay to play. That is called giving preferential access. That is called giving the perception of a conflict of interest. It is right in “Open and Accountable Government”, and instead of taking responsibility for it, the minister would not stand in her place to defend herself, leaving it to the then government House leader.

The minister was given forewarning about the fact that she was breaching the standard the Prime Minister had set, and she went anyway. She thumbed her nose, and that is what the Prime Minister has done. He has thumbed his nose, because he believes that he is above the rules, that they do not apply to him. They apply to everyone else, but he and his ministers—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Victoria.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member was accused of cynicism. I think one can do better. I have called this the bait and switch act; it looks like the Liberals are going after cash for access, but no, they are going to go for transparency, and now we can all know that there is cash for access. I have also called it the lobbyists despair act. Why would we now have to hire a fancy lobbying firm in Ottawa, when one can go right to the minister and the Prime Minister and ask about that job for one's brother-in-law or that contract for one's firm?

I would like to ask my hon. colleague whether he would agree with me that the government's claim that somehow it is exactly the same for government members, who actually give contracts, and opposition members, who do not, is, in fact, a joke.