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

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

Mr. Speaker, the member for Bow River alluded to the fact that cash for access is wrong. The Prime Minister seemed to say as much during the last election when he said that his government would be the most open, transparent, accountable government in Canadian history. He disavowed cash for access fundraising events, with open and accountable government, and then turned around and had cash for access fundraising events, more than 100 in 2016 for the Prime Minister and Liberal cabinet ministers.

In the face of that record, how can Canadians believe anything the Prime Minister has to say?

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it goes to the ranking of politicians and where they are in the average Canadian's eyes. On the moral principles of right and wrong, we operate in a grey area far too much.

We do not need laws to make us ethical. Laws do not make us ethical. We either are or we are not. This is an example of where we are not ethical in the average Canadian's eyes, and that is why they rank us at the bottom and put other professions much higher than us. We need to improve on that.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-50 is another effort by the Liberal government to simply pull the wool over the eyes of Canadians. Bill C-50 brings nothing to the table at all on political financing that was not already laid out.

The Liberals like to use the word “transparency”. In fact, it is included in almost everything they produce, including the famous mandate letters. Let us look at the meaning of the word “transparency” in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, which states it is “the quality of being transparent”, such as “(a) the quality that makes it possible to see through something”, for example, “the transparency of a piece of glass”; and “(b) the quality that makes something obvious or easy to understand”, for example, “the transparency of their motives. He says that there needs to be more transparency in the way the government operates.”

Whoever “he” is, I agree. However, let us go to the next definition, which states, “a piece of thin, clear plastic with pictures or words printed on it that can be viewed on a large screen by shining light through it”.

Therefore, while the rest of Canada has been interpreting the word “transparent” as clear and easy to understand, the Liberals have been putting their own words on a “transparency”, which one will need to shine a light on just to see them. Therefore, let us get the light out and shine it on them.

Let me first, in my own effort to be transparent, say at the outset that I have relied heavily on the remarks of my colleague, the member for Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, that were made in this place on June 8 of last year on Bill C-50. It is hard to improve on his remarks. However, I think they are worth repeating here tonight.

For instance, he noted that on November 7, 2016, B.C. multimillionaire Miaofei Pan hosted a fundraiser right at his West Vancouver mansion, and he made the case to the Prime Minister, at this event that he had to pay to get into and that he had to host, to allow Chinese investment in seniors care and real estate developments and ease the rules for rich immigrants from China. What better way to get preferential access than to have it right in one's own house? This took place as the federal government had been reviewing a $1 billion bid by China's Anbang Insurance Group to buy one of B.C.'s largest retirement home nursing care chains.

An article published in The Globe and Mail on December 2, 2016, states:

The Liberal Party has repeatedly told The Globe and Mail “individuals wishing to discuss government business at party events are immediately redirected to instead make an appointment with the appropriate office.”

The host of this fundraiser, Mr. Pan, told The Globe and Mail in an interview that the Prime Minister was “approachable and friendly” when he raised the issues, including Chinese companies' keen interest to invest in Canadian health care for seniors.

This is a long, convoluted story, which is readily available on the Internet. However, the end result, as reported again in The Globe and Mail of February 21, 2017, is that the Liberal government has green-lighted the sale of one of B.C.'s biggest retirement home chains to a Beijing-based insurance titan with a murky ownership structure in a deal that gives China certainly a big foothold in Canada's health care sector. It states:

On paper, a majority stake in Vancouver-based Retirement Concepts—believed to exceed $1-billion in value—is being sold to a Chinese-owned company called Cedar Tree Investment Canada. That is the deal that federal officials in Ottawa announced they had approved.... However, Cedar Tree is the company that China's Anbang Insurance is using to make the acquisition.

Therefore, shining a light on it becomes that much clearer.

Business people are not going to pay $1,500-plus in return for a glass of wine and a piece of cheese, only to be redirected to make an appointment with the appropriate office. They could do that without forking over $1,500-plus and achieve the same result.

However, the goal of Bill C-50 is to legitimize pay-to-play or cash for access events. The Liberals have a majority of government in the House and the bill will pass, but will it pass the smell test with Canadian taxpayers? The Liberals can say that it was the express will of Parliament that this practice be continued, but let me assure members that it is not the express will of this Conservative member of Parliament here. It is only the will of the Liberal Party, because Liberals are the only ones who have the Prime Minister and cabinet in power. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, stay tuned for the Liberal outcry when this changes and they can no longer benefit from this smoke-and-mirrors bill.

There have been over 100 of these cash for access events in the country in the last year. There soirees are not limited to traditional fundraising either. For example, Chinese billionaires have been attending Liberal fundraisers, even though they are not allowed to donate because they are not Canadian citizens. One of these individuals, by the name of Zhang Bin, is a member of the Communist Party. He attended a fundraiser on May 19, 2016 at the Toronto home of the Chinese Business Chamber of Commerce chairperson, Benson Wong. Again, this is according to The Globe and Mail.

A few weeks later, as we have noted in this discussion throughout the day in the House, Mr. Zhang and a business partner donated $200,000 to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, with $50,000 to build a statue of the current Prime Minister's father. It was a pretty good meeting that he had. I am sure that these donations were made out of the goodness of their hearts, with thanks for the glass of wine and the piece of cheese.

There is another example of pay to play, which was pointed out by my colleague from Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston. The finance minister was scheduled to attend a fundraiser in Calgary on November 2, at a cost of $1,500 to get in the door. It was at the home of Shaw Communications president, Jay Mehr. The telecom firm has directly lobbied the finance department eight times. Is there a conflict here? It appears that making an appointment with the appropriate office was not working. Would hosting a Liberal fundraiser prove to be more profitable for the telecom firm? As they say in the movies, Mr. Speaker, stay tuned.

Let me echo this sentiment. The system that is designed to give the incumbent party an ongoing, perpetual systemic advantage is inherently morally wrong, leaving aside the fact that it is giving preferential access to cabinet ministers when the average Canadian does not get the chance. It is absolutely contemptible.

In closing, I would like to say that Canadians deserve better than a Prime Minister who believes that there is one set of rules for him and another set of rules for everyone else. We all deserve to live with the confidence that we do not have to shine a light on every word uttered by the government of the day to get the true meaning of its remarks. We all deserve better than the current government.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, at the end of my colleague's speech, he said that this new system the Liberals would bring forward with this bill, until we win the next election and delete it, would make it so that the governing party would have a systematic preference for raising money, which would make it stronger for the next election.

Does the member think that it is more than just a privilege that would give the Liberals more strength? Does he think that this is close to real corruption?

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I talked about that in my speech, the access because of the $1,500. People are not only giving $1,500, but hosting a Liberal event right in their home. Writing a cheque for $1,500 and mailing it in is very different from hosting an event right in their house. We have seen these allegations about the Liberal Party in the last 18 months, whether in Calgary, Toronto, or British Columbia. This does not pass the smell test. Canadians know better than this, and they are upset with this legislation, no question.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, many people from Beauport—Limoilou are listening to us this evening, and I would like to say hello to them. It is a pleasure to represent them, especially this evening as we debate Bill C-50, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (political financing) an act to amend the Canada Elections Act. This bill basically seeks to legitimize and formalize a palpable and tangible form of corruption in Canada. We first saw this system in the 1990s and 2000s, under the successive governments of Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne. However, the federal Liberals have also used this system over 100 times since 2015. They are now trying to formalize and legitimize it by introducing a bill in the House.

What was the system established by Ontario's Liberal government in the 1990s? Two people were responsible for its implementation, namely Mr. Butts and Ms. Telford. Mr. Butts is currently the Prime Minister principal secretary. He works in the Langevin Block. I will always call it by this name because I am very proud of it. Mr. Langevin is a French Canadian who spent his entire career fighting for Quebec's right to have a seat at the cabinet table so that Quebeckers and French Canadians would be heard at the start of the 20th century. Mr. Langevin was also a great source of pride for Macdonald's government. Thus, it is an affront to me that his name was removed from the Langevin Block. I now will return to the matter at hand.

Mr. Butts is principal secretary to the Prime Minister, and Ms. Telford is, or at least I think she still is, the Prime Minister's chief of staff. Incidentally, the Prime Minister's Office is another institution that should be shut down immediately. What did those two individuals do when they introduced this system in Ontario? They made sure that ministers—as well as any backbenchers like myself and other members here who want to advance their career and perhaps become a minister to do great things for this country—would have to conform to a system that would relegate the issues that matter to them to the back burner, issues like the Constitution, the development of francophone communities, their ridings, their constituents, and community groups. The members are told that what matters is filling the party's coffers so that they can win elections, not with well-reasoned arguments, but rather by spending billions of dollars.

This system involved quotas for each minister and anyone who wanted to become a minister. For example, the finance minister and the Ontario health minister each had to raise half a million dollars a year. In this tightly organized system, the cocktail parties and fundraisers hosted by ministers had to be linked somehow to their portfolios. Another thing that surprised me about the Liberal members' speeches is that they do not want to talk about the very clear distinction between partisan fundraising events and cash for access events like the ones the Liberals held over 100 times between 2015 and 2017.

Just like every MP in Canada, I have fundraised with members of my own party, the Conservative Party, or with people who were interested in meeting Conservatives in order to better understand our political philosophy, what we can do for Canada, where we are coming from, and where we are going. In short, they wanted to know our ideas for this great country. However, I have never attended a fundraiser where there were 30 people from the same organization or the same profession who had an existing contract, business project, or other interest to bring to the attention of some federal department.

Every time that I participate in a fundraiser, many Canadians who are interested in politics come to meet the Conservatives to find out more about our political party. However, cash for access fundraisers stem from considerable pressure from the Prime Minister's Office. The justice and finance ministers, for example, are required to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Under this system, every minister purposely and carefully comes up with detailed guest lists that include organizations or individuals that lobby the government on files related to his or her portfolio.

Here are two real-life examples. As recently as 2016, the Minister of Justice organized an event in Toronto. I do not remember the exact date, but this event has been discussed at length today. Most of the people who attended were lobbying the government to make changes to the Criminal Code and the Canadian judiciary, or even to become judges. I would like to know if there was even one Liberal MP at that event or whether even one ordinary Toronto resident was there to learn more about the Liberals' political philosophy—if they have one, other than a desire to be in power. In short, the Minister of Justice had to apologize for organizing this event, since it was so blatant.

It was the same thing when the Minister of Finance met with port authority representatives in Halifax. That event was also attended by businessmen who had very important things they wanted to talk to the Minister of Finance about. Here again, they were not card-carrying members of the Liberal Party who wanted to know more about his vision for the country, and nor were they Haligonians interested in finding out what their 35 or 36 Liberal MPs are doing for Atlantic Canada. They were lobbyists with specific interests who knew full well that paying $1,500—that is now $1,575—would give them direct access to the minister and a chance to voice their concerns or make specific requests.

Those are two of the more egregious examples. Luckily, editors-in-chief at Canada's major daily papers got wind of them. Journalists tend to be pretty lenient with this government, but these two typical cash for access functions stank so badly of corruption that the media ran the stories.

The Prime Minister himself said that this practice lacked transparency and that it likely should not be condoned in Canadian politics because it would only make Canadians more cynical and less likely to want to take part in democracy when they see that it takes $1,500 to gain access to the Minister of Finance. When the media reported that and the Prime Minister and the government acknowledged that it was unfortunate for Canadian democracy, the Liberals decided to fix the problem by introducing Bill C-50, which, as I said from the outset, seeks to formalize and legitimize fundraising activities that provide special access.

What questions were raised in the House by my colleague from York—Simcoe, “Let us go back and see what happens. Is there anything in the bill that would stop the exact same thing from happening again?” The answer is no.

He went on, “Is there anything that would discourage it, because that maximum donation to the party is publicly disclosed anyhow?”

No, this will not prevent cash for access fundraisers from happening again. This is a smokescreen. There is absolutely nothing in this bill that will prevent this type of corruption in Canada. On the contrary, the Liberal government is merely legitimizing and formalizing rampant corruption and giving itself a leg up when it comes to fundraising in Canada.

We must condemn this. It is absolutely shameful.

As the member for Beauport—Limoilou, I strongly oppose this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech on this bill. My colleague talked about the fact that journalists picked up the story and covered it for quite a while, since there were so many cash for access fundraising events.

Does my colleague think the Liberals decided to take this approach only because they were caught red-handed? There was a bit of a public outcry. Canadians were not happy that their government could more or less be bought off and that it had no scruples about holding this kind of fundraising activity. Does my colleague think that if the government's practices had not come to light there would be no Bill C-50? Does my colleague think the government would have continued doing what it was doing in secret?

This is an easy response to a problem exposed by the media and the public, who were very upset by this.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the current government was caught red-handed. It seems obvious that if it had not been caught red-handed, it would have continued organizing these fundraisers. In any case, it is still engaging in this type of activity in a way. The Liberals are just taking a break from their cash for access fundraising events. They will pick up where they left off just as soon as the bill passes third reading, meaning that they will have legitimized and formalized a type of fundraising corruption in Canada. That is what the Liberals are doing.

Let's look at what they are doing with cannabis. It was illegal, but they saw this new product as an unprecedented money-making opportunity for their friends who are in business or play the stock market. This started 10 or 15 years ago in Canada with medical marijuana. Members of the larger Liberal family figured out that legalized cannabis could earn them billions of dollars.

The government has run gigantic deficits and needs to replenish its coffers by taxing a drug. The sole purpose of legalizing cannabis and this bill is to please the Liberal elite and help get the current government re-elected in 2019. We are going to do whatever it takes to stop that from happening.

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

Mr. Speaker, my friend from Beauport—Limoilou is quite right that the underlying objective of Bill C-50 is to sanitize the Liberals' sorted cash for access racket. Even though this bill does virtually nothing substantively to improve political financing laws, the Ethics Commissioner did recommend some very modest amendments to the bill. For example, she recommended including parliamentary secretaries, as well as including staff, which would include the likes of Gerald Butts, who headlined a fundraiser for the hon. member for Charlottetown.

If the Liberal government was truly interested in strengthening political financing laws, why would it have rejected amendments recommended by the Ethics Commissioner?

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, bluntly, the answer is simple. The only reason the Liberals did not accept any amendments in committee hearings from experts, all the arguments brought forward by the official opposition of Her Majesty, is that the bill was written in a way that would ensure they could continue cash for access starting next month. That is the single goal of the government: to start cash for access again, put money in their coffers, and get back to power in two years.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

Resuming debate. Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

The question is on Motion No. 1. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 2, 3, and 5 to 11.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.