Information & Ethics Committee on July 16th, 2008

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Hubbard, your interventions are certainly relevant with regard to the subject matter the committee is dealing with, but I think I'm hearing now that the members are a little concerned that we really should be addressing this motion now before us.

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

With that, Mr. Chair, I certainly intend to get to the motion.

In terms of the motion that was made by Mr. Martin and the amendment that was made by Mr. Poilievre, I cannot help but be reminded of those who participate in a number of events. When you play hockey, you follow the referee's rules. When you play baseball, there are umpires who decide the rules of the game. In terms of listening to what the Conservative Party is doing here, we are, in effect, kicking sand in the face of the umpires who umpire our elections.

It's a great underestimation of the value of having a strong Elections Canada that is fair to all Canadians, and especially to us who are candidates in a given election. To criticize them, and to listen to Mr. Hiebert in terms of his five points.... Sometimes it only takes one point to show that somebody is creating a criminal act; it doesn't take five points to convict a criminal. But we are dealing with issues of the party in power, which is trying to undermine the effects and the reality of what Elections Canada has stood for since 1867.

May I conclude in terms of what I see? Mr. Hiebert is much younger than I, but if you look at the history of the United States of America, you'll find that a very minor offence like Watergate caused the downfall of an administration of the United States. I'm not sure if the Conservative Party, in their presentations yesterday and today, are trying to do the same thing through devious acts to continue to perpetuate a devious method of paying for our campaign elections that is contrary to the Elections Act, but I'd like to remind them that because of that break-in at Watergate, President Nixon put his whole career and the administration of the United States on the line.

Are we doing the same thing in terms of the Conservative Party of Canada? Are they putting everything on the line for the sake of a few thousand dollars?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Goodyear, go ahead, please.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to support the subamendment suggesting that we go eight more rounds. Also, I certainly want to contradict some of the comments.

Monsieur Mayrand, in no way am I attempting to kick sand in your face. What I'm attempting to do is to understand the process to date.

I would like to let the committee know, with all due respect to Mr. Martin's original motion, about some of the comments that Mr. Martin made when he presented the motion. He stated that he had put this motion forward and that we've been stalling it. That's absolutely false. Records will show that many times our party tried to expand this. We were completely willing to open our books, and not just for 2006; we offered to open them up for 2004 as well, because we have absolutely nothing to hide. The caveat was that we felt it should be all parties, because parliamentary committees—this was the logic—don't study one party. That's what the courts do. Parliamentary committees study the Elections Act and the advertising expenses of all parties.

So Mr. Martin, quite respectfully, is absolutely incorrect with that smokescreen. We've tried to expand opening our books completely. They have blocked that. In fact, when we suggested that we open this up, the NDP was one of the first ones to say “No, we don't want anyone to look at our books.” And do you know what else happened? The Liberals just about freaked out, especially when we suggested 2004. That's a funny one. And of course the Bloc voted no.

Now, here's my point: This is not a smokescreen; this could be a smoking gun. Right here, I have in front of me a series of e-mails that I absolutely think the committee would want to see, showing how Monsieur Mayrand's five factors have been applied to this case. That is a significant question for me. I want to know if any red flags were raised in this case. Mr. Martin may want to shut this down quickly because he knows this is an NDP case. But I want to find out if and how these factors that we've just heard about in the last two days, which are not in the act, which are not in handbooks, were applied, and if they were applied, on what grounds they were eliminated.

I don't want to go into it now, but my point is that I need time for the questioning. Eight rounds would probably suffice. The official agent says here, “This is not our invoice.” And do you know what it says? “This is really, really bad. Please check, because it's really, really bad for our ceiling.” And the bookkeeper for the NDP says “Shove it through anyway. Put it through anyway.”

Monsieur Mayrand said a number of times that we can transfer funds back and forth. That's not a problem. But you can't transfer expenses.

Well, Pat, here's your own party dictating that exactly.

So all I'm asking for is a round of questions to ask our expert witness how he applied these invented factors that we've all just heard about this week, whether he did in fact apply these factors, or if he didn't, then why not. These are legitimate questions. They're not partisan. They're not attacking the Chief Electoral Officer. We have great respect for Elections Canada.

[An hon. member]

Hear! Hear!

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Absolutely. In fact, I remember meeting Monsieur Mayrand a number of times. I have nothing but the greatest respect for this man. But clearly something has gone wrong, and if this is anything besides a Liberal political public stunt, then our members will vote to continue for at least eight more rounds. That is absolutely fair, especially given the parameters of which questions we can ask the witness and which questions the witness can answer or can't answer, all of which was debated at committee.

This is not a surprise to anybody. We said full well...and everybody argued that this should be before the courts, where questions have no restrictions and answers have no restrictions.

Guess what? There's no group of opposition parties who, just by their numbers, can control and dictate the outcome for personal political gain. That would amount to nothing more than political parties using taxpayer dollars, because being here costs a fortune.

And you want to limit debate? You want to cut this down so that we don't meet on Thursday and we don't meet on Friday. The flight for me to come here is the same if I'm here for one day or seven days, but that's not the point. That's not what the opposition is attempting to do. The opposition is clearly doing exactly what they did in the $40 million ad scam, which is to find a creative way to use taxpayer dollars for their own personal political gain.

So I'm totally supportive of going eight more rounds—not fifteen, which I think might be unreasonable. But having only more round is not reasonable and not democratic. I'm going to support the subamendment to go eight more rounds as a reasonable compromise to look for the truth, if in fact that's what you're looking for.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

Mr. Dhaliwal, please.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I also have concerns about the way the Conservative Party members are treating the public officer we have before us. When we look at this, instead of asking questions, they're trying humiliate him. If there were a reasonable line of questioning, we would support the subamendment. But if we look at Mr. Hiebert, he was asking Mr. Mayrand: give us those numbers, you should have them right in your head, and how can you expect the agents to have that information? But Mr. Hiebert should know that agents of the candidates have all the time to collect all the information, all the receipts and all the context, before the return is finalized and signed. He or she has the time to go through that.

All they're trying to do is to humiliate the Elections Canada chief when comparing him with the official agents.

On the leak issue as well, he has already answered that he has no evidence that Elections Canada, the RCMP, or the public prosecutor leaked this information to the Liberals. It makes sense as well, because if you look at this, the raid at the Conservative Party headquarters started at 7:45 a.m., and it—

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Pardon me, Mr. Dhaliwal, but the matters that you are dealing have been touched on through the various presentations and the questioning of the witness. With due respect, at this time we are debating a motion on whether or not to restrict our questioning of Mr. Mayrand to one or eight rounds, and the reasons we think we should do one or the other, or neither. To discuss the leak and all other aspects of the case is taking more latitude than you should.

I would encourage all members to try to focus their input on the motion before us deciding how much more time we are going to spend. So I would encourage members to be relevant to the motion now being debated.

Please continue, Mr. Dhaliwal.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I personally would support Mr. Martin's motion to have only one round and to excuse Mr. Mayrand after that. That's all I would say.

I think we should go to the vote now or call the question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Reid, please.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just as a starting point, I want to correct a factual error in Mr. Martin's initial presentation of his motion. He said the only way we could get permission from the House of Commons was to adopt a certain wording. Actually, no permission was actively given by the House of Commons. What happens is the Speaker will decide, after the fact, whether or not the committee's report is receivable based on a number of considerations, including whether or not the terms of reference were in or out of order. That's just a matter to correct an error that I'm sure was made unintentionally.

Mr. Martin also said, referring to the New Democrats, that we have no other business before this committee, by which I think he meant that we have no further questions for this witness. And I accept that he has no further questions for the witness because he says so; however, it is not the case that none of us have further questions.

As I understand it, the way the round would conclude—I don't have the list in front of me—there's basically one more question, possibly two, from the Conservative Party before the round concludes, if it's done that way. Neither of those spots, if it's two, are taken up by me, so effectively I would have no opportunity to ask any further questions of Mr. Mayrand. I have a number of things that I think are very germane to the subject matter here and, moreover, that do not constitute questioning that goes into the specifics of the court action that has been undertaken by the official agents for the Conservative Party against Mr. Mayrand and Elections Canada. This was a restriction, Mr. Chair, that you had placed upon us.

I mention this because I am here justifying to members, as they choose how they will vote, why I think we should have eight rounds--I would actually prefer more than eight rounds--remembering that in those eight rounds we have, I think, an average of three questions for the government side in those rounds. There are five government members. I could expect to get a round and perhaps part of another one, so I might get four questions in here.

Some of the things I would want to go through that I think members would agree are highly relevant include a further discussion of the five factors. The Chief Electoral Officer has stated to us that he requested that his staff look at the other parties and whether the other parties had in any case triggered the five factors. Under questioning from Mr. Hiebert, my colleague, he indicated he couldn't remember whether this was a request made in writing or one that was done simply verbally. My line of questioning was going to determine whether or not this was a serious investigation or whether it was in fact just a cavalier, pro forma thing in order to essentially allow him to say, “Well, we've looked at everybody”, or whether there was a serious investigation. I was going to try to draw on that a bit. I think that's a highly relevant consideration.

He also stated, and this is actually a quote I wrote down—he uses the word “facts” now—“the facts came up after prosecution had already commenced”. I was going to ask whether he meant that the factors, the five criteria you had to meet, came up after prosecution had already commenced. I'm assuming he's referring, but I have to confirm this with him, to the other parties.

I think you can see the point of this line of questioning. Indeed, if I'm correct in my understanding, it confirms that other parties were subjected to a lesser level of scrutiny than the Conservative Party of Canada in determining whether or not they would get rebates. In fact, there were two standards being applied--I won't suggest by Mr. Mayrand himself--effectively, I'm suggesting, by those who were creating these tests.

I note as well that Mr. Mayrand had made it clear that he did not necessarily come up with these five tests. They were out there. It might have been the investigators. The obvious question is, was it the case that only the investigator looking at or the person coordinating the Conservative Party was applying these standards and that a different, less stringent standard was being applied to other parties? This is another question I would have pursued with the Chief Electoral Officer.

A further question I would pursue, and indeed I will pursue if we agree to have the eight rounds, is that I will bring up the suggestions I made to Mr. Mayrand, and also to Mr. Corbett, our commissioner for Elections Canada, when they appeared before the procedure and House affairs committee as witnesses, as we were looking at them to ask them questions prior to the House making a decision approving them for office.

At that time, I raised the matter with both Mr. Corbett and Mr. Mayrand that the interpretative bulletin system used by Elections Canada is faulty. I raised the point that other agencies such as the Canada Revenue Agency, when they say they are interpreting the law a certain way, are effectively saying—and in fact they do say it, it's written down—that If you follow in good faith the practices as laid out here, you won't be prosecuted. I was going to raise the fact that I had raised this matter with him and with Mr. Corbett and then after the fact Mr. Mayrand appears to have decided to go back to the very course of action I warned him against. I was going to inquire as to whether I was understanding correctly that he deliberately decided not to follow that course of action I recommended when he appeared before the procedure and House affairs committee of effectively saying he wouldn't retroactively apply different rules or interpretations than those he said would be in place—in all fairness, he wasn't the Chief Electoral Officer in the 2006 election—that his agency had applied at that time. If so, I was going to ask for the rationale for that.

Also, I was going to ask him whether I had misunderstood what was going on. Certainly that is a legitimate line of questioning and one that is only possible if Mr. Mayrand is here to answer additional questions beyond.... As I said, I get no questions if we shut down after one round; therefore, he doesn't have to answer these questions.

I think these are very important. I would urge the members of the other parties to remember that just because the answers Mr. Mayrand is giving aren't fulfilling a narrative that they had imagined would come out in these meetings, wherein the Conservative Party would be guilty of extravagant abuses of the system.... We've heard the term “conspiracy” used. We just heard Mr. Hubbard compare this to the Watergate scandal. I've heard the word “criminal” used a number of times, and all of this. Criminal actions aren't actually in Mr. Mayrand's or Mr. Corbett's jurisdictions. But all these things.... Just because that narrative isn't coming out is no reason to dismiss the witness and try to find other witnesses who will give the appropriate narrative, as opposed to simply stating the facts as they exist.

Mr. Chairman, on that basis, I would urge members to vote in favour of the amendment Mr. Poilievre has proposed to Mr. Martin's motion. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you very much.

We'll now hear from Mr. Poilievre.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

I'd like the committee to be aware of some of the questions that I would like to pose to Mr. Mayrand, with a view to helping members to decide on my amendment.

First, there are these five factors that he says helped him make his decision. He is unable to point to any documentary evidence to show that he applied these five factors when considering the books of the other parties. He says that he might have sent an e-mail, that he might have made a phone call, that he's not quite sure whom he asked. I would like to know how many people conducted this investigation of the other parties. He hasn't answered any of this.

With respect to the first of the five factors that he lists here, he says that the problem he has with the way the Conservative Party conducted itself is that official agents did not seem to have detailed knowledge of the regional media buy expense. But he refused to show anywhere in the law where it's required that the official agents have detailed knowledge of all of the expenses that are incurred on a campaign.

The only thing that the official agent is required to do is the accounting of the campaign. They don't have to memorize all of the contents of the brochures, nor do they have to know all of the contents of an advertisement. In the cases before us with regard to the Conservative Party, we know that the local campaigns signed off on these advertisements. This is the level of detail that the law requires. I'd like to ask questions about that.

He then says that there was no documentary evidence to establish the existence of a contractual agreement by any of the participating candidates with the supplier Retail Media. There doesn't have to be. It is perfectly allowable for a campaign to purchase services directly from a party. A party can buy $1 million worth of lawn signs and then have local candidates purchase those lawn signs from the party. Those local candidates do not have to have a contractual arrangement with the supplier of those signs; they don't even have to know who that supplier is. All they have to do is make the purchase from the party and then book the expense in their own accounting. That is not only allowed; it is done every day.

Just yesterday, I contacted my campaign manager to find out if that's what we're planning to do. Frankly, I don't even know who we're buying our lawn signs from. It was my plan just to buy them from the central party. That's perfectly normal, perfectly allowable. It happens all the time, and it is expressly legal.

Third, with respect to the representations of the party officials, he says that all arrangements for the purchase were made by the party and the invoices were sent to the party. That's exactly the same as the second point. It is perfectly allowable. This is a question I want to ask him. Is it not perfectly allowable for parties to procure services and then sell those services to their candidates?

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Order. I apologize. A member has called for a point of order.

Mr. Martin.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I'll state my point of order at the outset.

I would like to apply the same rules as you have been applying to others even in the context of this debate. You may make your arguments about whether we should have one more round or eight more rounds, but you don't argue the merits of the questions that you plan on asking if you get another round. I think the member is getting into the substance of the arguments that he would make if he's given the chance to make them later on. That could take all day.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you, Mr. Martin. That is debate, not a point of order.

I've encouraged members to make their case with regard to how much more time we should spend with this witness. It is a decision of the committee. It's apparent that some members who have spoken are outlining examples of some of the questions that they would like to ask but may not have a chance to ask should we limit the rounds of questioning.

The members have rights. If I don't defend the members' rights to make their arguments, then I'm not respecting the rights of any member here.

I thank you for your input on the matter, but it is not a point of order, and I'm going to give the floor back to Mr. Poilievre.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Which brings me to the questions I would like to ask on point number four, in which he indicates the particulars of the arrangements whereby invoices were provided to the candidates by the party rather than by Retail Media, as the supplier, and the fact that moneys were transferred by the Conservative Party, with control of moneys being retained by means of prearranged bank wire transfer instructions. Well, those instructions were all signed off on by the local campaigns; otherwise, they would not have been honoured by the bank. Therefore, it's indicated that the local campaigns were giving their consent to the ads being run and financed locally.

But if that were really the case, then why is he not investigating the Bloc Québécois?

It was the Bloc Québécois that signed contracts with all its candidates in 2000 to force them to give a specific amount to contribute to national, and I quote, "national" ads. The local candidates were forced to contribute a certain amount for the, and I quote, "national" advertising.

So how can it justify applying a group of rules to our party that was not applied to the others?

I have evidence here in front of me--this is all public evidence--that the Bloc Québécois systematically and openly transferred expenses--not just moneys, but expenses--from the central campaign to the local campaigns.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Shame.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

They did it deliberately and openly because they wanted an enhanced reimbursement, and they admit that. They admitted openly that they took national expenses--in their words they were national expenses--put them on the local books and then got local reimbursements for them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Order.

Mr. Poilievre--

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

So the question I would like to ask on--

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Excuse me, sir.

Colleagues, this is important. Everyone knows the motion we're dealing with. And it is very much in order for members to give some examples of the kinds of questions and generally why they feel those are important questions. But I think if it comes to a point where they in fact start to get into the argument of that in its full context, that's going beyond the motion. So I accept that examples are fine, but to start doing debate on each of those, as if they had been put and you're presenting the case, I think, is beyond the scope of the motion before us.

So I would ask members if they want to suggest some examples of questions, it's fine to identify them and to indicate the nature of the relevance, but not to argue them, please. Okay? Is that acceptable?

Mr. Poilievre, please continue.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The reason why I am listing a number of examples is that I did not have an opportunity to do it during the discussions. I planned to mention all these examples, I planned to do it this afternoon, but now the opposition would like to interrupt this discussion so that the public will not know the information I have to present.

I am going to quote Michel Guimond, who said, and I quote, [TRANSLATION] "When there is an election campaign, the national expenses are borne by the candidates collectively." That is taken from an article in Le Soleil, published on December 22, 2001. What he is saying is that the Bloc Québécois admitted transferring expenses to local candidates to inflate the refund and avoid the national limit on their campaign. I have the documents to prove it.

This is not even a discussion that concerns us; we are not denying transferring expenses to local candidates. That is what we are accused of, but when it comes to the Bloc, it is admitted. The Bloc admits doing it.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

On a point of order, Chair, when you recalled to us the pertinent sections of Marleau and Montpetit on the issue of a point of order, there were three points: relevance, repetition, and procedural. My point of order goes to the issue of relevance.

Mr. Poilievre is making statements about electoral expense returns from the 2000 election and imputing the fact that there were court decisions that ruled the agreement between the Bloc and their candidates to be legal to be relevant to the issue at hand. However, the electoral financing act considerably amended the Canada Elections Act, and therefore, the sections that were ruled by the courts and deemed that the agreement between the Bloc Québécois and their candidates in 2000 was in fact legal and did not violate the Canada Elections Act and election financing are no longer pertinent because of the legislative amendments that have been brought to the entire regime.