Information & Ethics Committee on July 16th, 2008

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

The point of order is not a matter of relevance, and it is a question that has already been posed to me concerning the motions that were submitted to the committee by Mr. Tilson. These are what Mr. Poilievre has been discussing.

There is an issue with regard to whether or not matters that have to do with the 1997 and 2000 elections, as well as dealing with individuals who are associated with a political party, and none of those individuals being public office holders, would still be worked into being relevant to the matter before us. It would appear that the elections rules have changed over the last 10 years. Members probably are not familiar and would not be in a position to deal with that here without having a chance to go away and educate themselves or inform themselves on what the rules were during each of those elections.

It is, in my view, clearly beyond the scope of the matters before us, and I'm going to have some difficulty accepting that those are matters that should be discussed here.

So with regard to that issue, I have a problem dealing with that in terms of relevance with regard to the main motion before the committee. But secondarily, as I had asked members to consider, and Mr. Poilievre, as I had indicated to you, to mention an example and briefly highlight the relevance is okay, but again, sir, with respect, I think you have really got into a full argument of a particular point.

So I'm going to return the floor to you. If you want to give your examples, that's fine, but there comes a point at which several examples may be enough to make your point.

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

All right. The overall point I'm making here, the thesis I am driving at, is that when the possibility of discussing the issue of electoral financing first came before this committee, the first thing the opposition tried to do was prevent their own books from being discussed. “We don't want any discussion of our own activities, because we don't want any of that to be brought into public light. We don't want to show that we did exactly the same thing we are accusing the government of.”

Then, Mr. Chair, we said, okay, we would move ahead with these discussions and we'd have the Chief Electoral Officer here. As soon as we started to ask him questions that demonstrated fatal weaknesses in his legal argument, they said, oh no, we can't have any more questions about that because that's before the courts. We can't have any discussion of the weakness of his case, because that will appear before the courts. So we won't allow that either.

Then I mentioned the example of the Bloc Québécois deliberately transferring expenses to its local campaigns. And now you're saying, no, that can't be discussed, because it was in the year 2000, and everything that happens in a leap year is not allowed to be discussed before the committee.

Now that we're driving home a lot of these weaknesses, more weaknesses, with the questioning of the witness, they say, no, we can't have any more questions, because it's almost noon, and no questions are allowed after noon. There's a rule, an ancient parliamentary tradition, that questions aren't allowed after noon.

So as soon as the opposition starts to find itself in a danger zone, they invent a new rule about why questions about them or Elections Canada cannot be asked.

Mr. Chair, this very motion that Mr. Martin has put forward is proof itself of the very weakness of the opposition's and Elections Canada's position here.

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

He lives in another twilight zone.

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

Finally, the last method they use, when some other member has the floor and is making points they find very difficult to contend with, is to try to speak over that member.

So they have a whole assortment of strategies to silence effective criticism of their case to try to avoid any public discussion of its essential weakness. Mr. Chair, that is exactly why I have put forward a compromise motion to allow eight more rounds. It probably should have been more than eight rounds, because there is a lot more to discuss. There are a lot more weaknesses in Elections Canada's case that could be exploited through questioning. But I thought eight would show mercy, and in the spirit of compromise, that's why we chose that number.

Mr. Chair, with that, I will turn over the floor to the next speaker on the list.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

Madame Lavallée, s'il vous plaît.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank Mr. Mayrand for being here. He has said enough to make us want to hear more witnesses. He has given us a top-notch explanation of the Canada Elections Act. It was very clear. His entire presentation was extremely clear, but each of us still had a few grey areas. We have asked questions and requested clarification in good faith. Nonetheless, his entire presentation was simply top notch.

The five criteria, contrary to what was said by Mr. Goodyear, who has just learned there are five criteria, were explained to us at the beginning of the presentation, even before we asked questions. Mr. Goodyear, I refer you to the documents containing the presentation that we received. The five criteria are set out there. It is clear for anyone who wants to understand. Those five criteria are based on the Act, that is, that expenses have to be incurred by the official agent. They have to be authorized and paid by the official agent. That is clear. In any event, I understood that when an official agent does not know about an expense, that means that he or she certainly did not authorize it. When there are no documents to prove it, when there is no contract, when there is no invoice from the supplier, and when fair market value was not paid, clearly that does not comply with the Act.

We are talking about paying fair market value, so I would like to remind you that Josée Verner, the minister, paid only $9,300 for an ad she appeared in, while her colleague in the next riding, Sylvie Boucher, who was never seen in the ad, paid $39,000. Clearly there is a difference between what was paid and what it was worth. If I were to pay $39,000 for an ad I did not appear in, I would not be very happy. I am not certain that I would agree to it. I would change official agents.

That being said, the five criteria were explained to us for six hours, maybe one more, and it was very clear. We will see Mr. Mayrand again if necessary.

I would like to make a brief aside regarding Mr. Poilievre's allegations about the differences with the Bloc Québécois. I have explained this several times, but Mr. Poilievre plainly does not understand what he does not wish to understand. First, in 2000, it was legal. The Act has changed since then. Second, in subsequent elections, did our candidates and official agents know about the expenses? Yes, they knew about them. It was decided at the general council, completely democratically. All the candidates and all the official agents knew about the expenses. Were there documents? I refer you to the minutes and transcripts of the general council meetings. Were contracts signed? Yes, they were signed. Did they receive an invoice from the supplier? Yes, they did. Did they pay fair market value? Yes. Everyone paid an equitable share. There's the difference with the Bloc Québécois. In any event, two CEOs have said that we acted properly, because we requested an interpretation from the CEO. A superior court has said we were right, and there have been no searches of our party's offices.

That being said, it would be very nice to see Mr. Mayrand again, if necessary, but we do not want to limit the debate. We do not want to put a stop to the debate; on the contrary, we want to see it continue, progress and expand. We do not want to derail it as the Conservative Party is doing. And that is exactly what you are doing. You are, if I may use the expression, spinning the debate because you don't like what you're hearing. Given that you have already voted against having confidence in the CEO, we can only think that the sole purpose of all of your questions is to derail the debate. There is nothing else we can think. You yourselves, every one of you, rose in the House to vote against having confidence in the CEO. You yourselves said that you had no confidence in the Chief Electoral Officer, who is sitting here. How can we think, in good faith, that you are asking him questions in order to advance the debate and help us understand the situation better? If we keep him any longer, I think this is going to look like an interrogation, for the purpose of torturing him. I would say, in jest, that we are not in Guantanamo.

For all these reasons, I think that one last round will be enough, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Merci, madame.

Mr. Hiebert, you're up right now.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Based on what Ms. Lavallée has just said, I can only assume that she's going to support our motion to continue this debate.

I just want to clarify something. I think all members need to know that I have the deepest respect for Mr. Mayrand and the institution he represents, and I would defend that institution to the utmost, because I think it's critical to the success of democracy. I was simply asking questions that sought to clarify the decision-making process by which he came to his conclusions. I think we're all here to seek the truth, and the only conclusion I can draw from the opposition's motion to draw this debate to a close is that this political PR stunt that they've organized is not working out as well as they'd hoped and now they want to shut it down before they're further embarrassed.

So I support the additional rounds of questions so that we can complete our inquiry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Goodyear.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, contrary to what Madam Lavallée has said, I actually like what I'm hearing here at this thing, but let's just move off that. I think in fact we're starting to break through some of the facades in trying to understand further how these decisions have come to pass. But as for the issue of having more rounds, I'm going to just stay off that.

The issue, Mr. Chair, is this. We have been handed out a number of documents by the clerks, and I have a document here that we haven't even touched on. It's extremely well researched by the Library of Parliament—Bibliothèque du Parlement—and these folks in the Library of Parliament, I think all members will agree, are outstanding individuals who are experts in researching and getting to the ground of exactly what's before us.

Now, there's a number of things the Library of Parliament has discovered, and I'm not going to go into the questions out of respect for getting to the vote on this amendment. But the Library of Parliament is suggesting here that Elections Canada maintains that the advertising for which reimbursement was sought was not incurred by the local candidate but by the party, because—this is what the research says—the ads promoted the party and its policies and not the candidates or their policies. But you see, yesterday Monsieur Mayrand indicated that, or we at least discovered that, I could buy advertising to promote the party. I like my leader. And it gets me votes, because at the bottom of the day the party gets no votes. It actually comes down to me.

And the promotion of a tag line Elections Canada deemed not to be enough. However, the Elections Act says it's totally enough. So I want to understand this better.

Then of course the Library of Parliament gives its own opinion of this thing. Here's what it says: “The Canada Elections Act permits the largely unfettered transfer of funds, goods, and services.” So we've already established all this.

I understand. I'm not getting to the point here. I'm going to try to get to the point.

I guess the point at the bottom line is this. I'm not going to read all of this again out of respect for time, but I'm just suggesting that I have more questions that were based on information that's been provided by the committee itself. We haven't even been able to get to the documentation we asked for, all members asked for, through the clerks and through the researchers at the parliamentary library.

Now, I'm concerned that members opposite have read this and have already decided how damaging this document is going to be, and they're trying to shut it down. And I just don't think that's what we should be doing here.

It wasn't us, Mr. Chair, who called this meeting. My suspicion is that this was called by the opposition. So now we're here. Taxpayers have already paid for me to be here. They've paid, Mr. Chair, for you to be here. They've paid for all this in two official languages. Why on earth would we want to run through this thing in one, two, three, or four hours? That's ridiculous. Perhaps we shouldn't even have started this but allowed it to be up to the courts. But now that we're down this road, we have to complete the job. Why are you cutting and running when we're almost halfway there? There's only one reason: they know full well that if we continue our line of questioning they're going to be shown for the political partisan opportunists they are. And it will again show taxpayers that this party has not changed, that this party is so creative in finding ways to use taxpayers' dollars to get votes. That's what's going to end up being shown here.

I'm not intending to show that. That's not my intention. I think it's going to be obvious to Canadians that the Liberals, for example, have done the same thing for years, right from the ad scam in Quebec when they stole taxpayers' dollars to win Quebec. And now here we are with another creative way to use taxpayers' dollars.

Pat, I wouldn't talk too loudly, because the example I got is your party. Smoking gun, buddy.

So my thinking is the absolute least thing we can do....

Marlene, you know this to be true. One round of questions is not going to do this. Eight rounds? I don't think even eight rounds is going to do it.

But I'm trying to be a compromising individual here. Let's go for eight rounds, and perhaps the committee could agree that if other issues come up Mr. Mayrand can be recalled as a witness. Either way, the focus is to get to the truth, not the half-truth.

I know you're used to the half-truth, Mr. Dhaliwal; I know you are, but calm down. We're here to get to the full truth. It's a new thing.

I'll end on that note. Thank you, Mr. Chair, but I appeal to the committee to vote in favour of the amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Colleagues, we've now heard from every member of the committee who's asked to be heard without restriction on their time. I therefore rule that we now proceed to take the votes on all matters necessary to dispose of the amendment and the motion.

Shall we have a recorded vote? Okay.

The motion put by Mr. Martin was that at the conclusion of this round of questioning--

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

I have a point of order--

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

--that is, after the next Conservative member speaks, so there'll be two more people--the committee excuse Mr. Mayrand, thank him for his presence, and move on to the selection of witnesses and other orders of business properly before the committee.

Mr. Poilievre has an amendment. Instead of just completing the current round with just two more speakers--those being Madam Jennings and Mr. Poilievre, who would be the final one--Mr. Poilievre has proposed an amendment to the effect that there be eight more rounds. We would complete the first one and eight more, but it would effectively be eight more rounds.

Do the members understand what the amendment proposes? It's eight more rounds. I'm going to put the question....

Is that a request for clarification? Okay. Go ahead, Mr. Hubbard.

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

Before we vote on this, does it mean eight more rounds today or eight more rounds at future meetings?

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

We have a meeting going on right now. We haven't even discussed future meeting dates. No, we will have eight rounds today.

On the amendment by Mr. Poilievre....

I'm sorry, was there a further question?

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

You've just made a ruling that you've heard enough and you're calling the question--

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Yes. I'm putting the question.

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

I challenge your ruling.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

There's nobody else on that list.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

No, no. That's okay. We're putting the question.

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

My name is on the list.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

The chairman just said there were no more speakers on the list. She should pay attention.

Pay attention, Marlene.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I've already read the motion and the amendment and I'm at the point of calling the vote on the amendment. I just wanted to be sure the members knew.

(Amendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I will now move--

[An hon. member]

No, Chair.