Evidence of meeting #43 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
We just got instruction yesterday on lobbying. Trust me, we're public office-holders.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
No. The definition in the Conflict of Interest Act does not include people who are just MPs.
Conservative
Gary Goodyear Conservative Cambridge, ON
Can you cite the page, or can we adjourn until you can demonstrate that?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
No. The definition is clear. Otherwise we would not have the Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons appended to the Standing Orders. We would all be in the same group and all be subject to the Prime Minister's code of conduct for public office-holders.
That's my ruling. MPs are not public office-holders.
Conservative
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Just a moment, please.
This is about the fifth time we have gone over what a public office-holder is. We certainly had this matter come up several times during the Mulroney-Schreiber hearings. We shouldn't have to deal with this anymore. Let's not debate things that you have ways to find out about if you do your homework. Don't bring your questions about things that, even in this meeting alone, have been reaffirmed to everybody.
You did call for a point of order again, Mr. Poilievre. Did you still want that?
Conservative
Liberal
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
I will do this in less than 30 seconds.
Yesterday we were briefed by the registrar of lobbyists that all members of Parliament are public office-holders--
Liberal
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
You were referring to designated public office-holders.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Order.
Under the mandate of this committee, the term “public office-holder” is as defined in the Conflict of Interest Act. It does not include MPs.
The point again, for the seventh or eight time, is that MPs are not public office-holders for the purpose of our committee.
Mr. Goodyear, you still have the floor.
Conservative
Gary Goodyear Conservative Cambridge, ON
I would like a point of clarification. It's actually called a point of information.
I respect your decision, Mr. Chair, but if you've decided that it's outside the mandate of this committee to study anybody except public office-holders, is that to suggest that members of the Bloc, who will never have the opportunity to form government, can do whatever they want and will never come under the scrutiny of this committee? I have a list of Bloc members here I'd like to compare.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Mr. Goodyear, this actually came up at another meeting. Somebody also made the point that Lucien Bouchard was, at the time, a public office-holder, a member, and Leader of the Bloc.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
He was a Conservative cabinet minister.
We're going over the same ground again. We have to stop this.
Again, the motion is seeking to look at public office-holders who were named by Elections Canada to be involved in a matter that includes a political party, as well, but not within our purview. That's where this matter arises from, and our work is to determine whether or not those individuals who were named by Elections Canada, who are public office-holders, in the 2006 election met the ethical standards expected of public office-holders.
There has been an amendment and a subamendment. I gave a lot of latitude to put both of those, because the members made representations that effectively they wanted to broaden this, and I wanted to allow them to have that debate.
That's where we are. But we can't keep going back three steps and starting again. We have to keep moving this forward.
Conservative
Gary Goodyear Conservative Cambridge, ON
I respect that completely, Mr. Chairman. The fact is that now you are explaining that we have some latitude to discuss comparatives. We're expanding this motion for that exact reason. I guess I should thank you for pointing that out.
This motion has to be expanded for one simple fact, and that is to have comparables. We need to compare whether they're public office-holders or whether they're not. That's fine. We're looking at the behaviour of one individual as compared to the behaviour of another individual. The Canada Elections Act will deal with whether any of this is the right way or the wrong way to go.
We still suggest that nobody has done anything wrong, but how can we tell whether it's outside the scope unless we expand? That's what the amendment's trying to do.
Who are those other comparatives? How can we compare? If we're going to vote on this amendment, we're going to vote on whether or not to compare the activities of certain members to the activities of other members. That's what the amendment is about. That's exactly what I want to speak to.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Be very careful. They must be public office-holders. If you're going back to another past election, they had to have been public office-holders.
Conservative
Gary Goodyear Conservative Cambridge, ON
It's probably a good thing anyway, as I can't mention.... Well, I won't mention the names, Mr. Chair, but I'll cite examples, then, of other individuals, and we can all guess who they are; they could be public office-holders.
Here's an invoice totalling $16,642.77 that went to a candidate—it could be a public office-holder—who on May 26, 2004, received a cheque from the national party to the candidate for $17,071. That guy or girl—public office-holder or MP—made off like a bandit. They got tonnes there. On July 15, that cheque was deposited to pay for an invoice that was dated July 13. That's no one—I'll just help everyone out who's listening—in the Conservative Party.
Here's another one. This is an invoice to a candidate for $29,285.75, and guess what? It was dated May 24, 2004. It was a cheque from the national party....
Do you know this gentleman?
I hate to say this, but of course, if we're going to discuss whether these public office-holders had anything to do with this in-and-out scheme, it involves a national party.
No, it's not yours, Pat. This is not you guys. That's another, different page.
This cheque came from the national party—it's a four-letter word here—to a candidate for $29,200. So on May 24 there's $29,285 given to this member of Parliament, and then in October there was a cheque for $29,200.
That's an interesting thing, because that poor guy got ripped off. There's 85 bucks there that the national party did not send back to the poor guy. That's like “in and out plus”, right?
Here's another one again from the same party; it starts with a B. Invoices totalling $17,720 were sent to the candidate on January 1, 2006. A cheque from the national party went back to the candidate for $17,800, deposited on May 17. There's another situation where somebody made off with...wow, in that case it was 20 bucks' difference on a $17,000 in-and-out.
These are the individuals who will be needed at this inquiry. This is who we're going to need to invite so that we can compare whether what the opposition party wants to attest to is that the Conservative members did something wrong. Well, how would we know they did, unless we're allowed to expand the motion and say, wait a second, how is this different?
Conservative
Gary Goodyear Conservative Cambridge, ON
It's not different, of course, Mr. Chair. The only difference is that with regard to Elections Canada--I don't want to bring it up, but I will in the context of how important it is to expand the motion--there is some suggestion and concern from people, some of whom are absolutely convinced, that Elections Canada may have acted inappropriately.
So what we need to do is not rely on Elections Canada's rulings. They've not always been correct, and we suggest they're not correct again. So we can't rely on Elections Canada. As the chair has pointed out, it's not within our mandate, and I completely concur with that. But what we need to do, of course, is have something to compare this with, some standard, some measuring stick. The only thing we can do is bring in other members. They may in fact be other members of the Conservative Party, but I suspect that what we're going to want to try to do is compare exactly what happened, day by day, whether it's inside a Federal Court affidavit, as I have before me right now, or it's examples that we've come to find out about in the interim.
The problem we have is that if we don't vote for this amendment...and I'm saying this with all sincerity. I have no problem with members getting up for coffee, but I am being very sincere right now. We can't do our jobs here unless we do them properly. This is becoming a joke. It's becoming a joke. And why would we do that?
Conservative
Gary Goodyear Conservative Cambridge, ON
The member opposite is asking that we call the question--another example of a member who, like me, is new to this committee, but who is not interested in debate, is not interested in the facts, and who made up his mind a long time ago. That again suggests that unless this motion is amended, this is actually going to be one of the darker days in the history of this place.
This motion has to be amended. The amendment has to be voted on so that all members can have something to compare it with besides their partisan stubbornness--as we are showing over here, I completely agree with you. This is the issue: we are fighting to maintain the credibility of this place, to remove partisan politics out of the House of Commons, where we're supposed to be doing the good work of Canadians, not trying to get some free press time for some damn political party. This should be about Canadians, not about whether you can take a political shot and get an extra vote, or whether members opposite don't want to hear that they did exactly the same thing. This is a political opportunity for the media. That's not what you should have been elected for. That's not what I'm here for. I'm here to do the good work of the people who sent me here. If I'm blessed enough, I can help this country out. But l sure as heck am disgraced that we would keep this motion so restricted that the verdict is almost in before the ink is dry.
There is a debate that needs to go on here. It needs to be expanded. I'm going to solidly support the expanded debate.
Mr. Chair, with that, I'll leave it up to one of my other colleagues to do their very best to convince the opposition of their evil ways.