Evidence of meeting #32 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was subamendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
All right. I invite you to make appropriate comments to introduce your motion.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think it's extremely important that we parliamentarians are now looking at the ethical problem currently raised in the public sphere.
The ethical question is being addressed everywhere, whether it be here, in Parliament, or elsewhere. We're talking about how politicians behave. We're currently witnessing absolutely unacceptable behaviour which parliamentarians must examine. I'm talking about the partisan use of public funds by Conservative members of Parliament. They sign, in their own name or in that of the Prime Minister, a number of cheques, sometimes bearing the Conservative Party logo, when public funds being used involved. Taxpayers, people and citizens are therefore being misled. There's a kind of confusion.
Twelve ministers are involved. We're talking about 223 cheques representing $594 million, which were publicly represented as cheques from a party, often signed by a minister or the Prime Minister, whereas these were government subsidies. They came from taxpayers, from the public Treasury, not from a political party. I think rules of ethics must be examined by this committee so that we can see how people should behave in these kinds of situations and further evaluate the kinds of practices of parliamentarians.
That's the question I want to raise this morning.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Thank you, madam.
Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, and then Mr. Siksay.
Just for my clarification, Madame, you refer to “partisan use of public funds” in the motion. Can you clarify for me, and maybe for the other members, what funds?
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
Yes.
There is an act and it's called the Bills of Exchange Act. It's a federal act that concerns the use of cheques. So when you write a cheque and you state the name of the addressee—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
If I may, you're talking about, for instance, a big sign that looks like a cheque--
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
No, these cheques are governed by the Bills of Exchange Act.
Liberal
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
If you write a cheque, and you enter an amount of $3 million and you sign your name, Paul Szabo, under the Bills of Exchange Act, you have written the cheque. It's as though you, Paul Szabo, were giving out $3 million for infrastructure; it's as though you were being really very generous. That's what that means. That means that public funds are being used in a partisan manner.
If you enter the amount and your name, it's as though you had paid it out of your pocket.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Now listen carefully. I need to know this. Listen. I'm familiar with the cheques, the signs that look like cheques. And they have numbers on them: some are for $100,000; some are for $1 million. Those are the funds you are referring to here. Is that correct?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
No, Madame, answer the question. If there's one example that shows a cheque payable to this municipality, and it says $4 million.... When you say the “partisan use of public funds”, you're referring to the $4 million. C'est correct?
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
With a $4-billion infrastructure fund, where time was of the essence in getting that money out the door, the expectation could be that mistakes would be made and subsequently the public accounts committee would look at it. But what we see here is something that appears to show a clear pattern of abuse. This money does not belong to the Conservative Party of Canada. This money does not belong to Conservative members of Parliament, public office holders, or MPs. This money belongs to the taxpayers of Canada. Canada is not a third-world dictatorship, where the country's national flag and emblem is replaced with a party emblem.
When the commissioner appeared on Tuesday before our committee, she made it clear that although ethics is part of her title, it's not part of her mandate. She stated to us that while “ethics” appears in her title, it does not appear in either the act or the code, so it's quite unclear as to the extent to which her mandate extends into ethical issues that are not expressly referred to in either the code or the act. She concluded by saying that in fact one would wonder whether it extends there at all.
So we have three options in respect of how to investigate what appears to be a pattern of abuse of taxpayer dollars. First option: the Ethics Commissioner will be looking at this, but she has sent a clear signal that it's outside her mandate. Our second option is PCO. If we go back to this spring's testimony of the Information Commissioner, we can see some of the problems we have with the PCO—the access to information requests of MPs and journalists being red-flagged, requests sent by departments to the PCO, requests being blocked by the PCO. It is evident that we have a serious problem with access to information, and the PCO is actively engaged in this. So if PCO were to investigate ethical concerns of this sort, there would be real and serious questions surrounding how they would go about it.
So we're left with one option to look into this issue—the elected representatives of the people. Timeliness is important. I believe that Canadians expect us to come clean on this, that this should not be an investigation behind closed doors. This isn't complicated. It's quite evident what's gone on. We should investigate the public office holders, have them appear before this committee to explain themselves. We need to know how this occurred.
The commissioner will have her report. When it lands, she'll most likely state that it's outside her mandate. We can use that for recommendations, so that in the future it does fall within her mandate as an ethics commissioner.
We'll be supporting Madame Freeman's motion.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Thank you, Chair.
This issue is one that I and my NDP colleagues take very seriously. I think it was a New Democrat who first raised the issue last week about the way some public office holders, some members of the governing party, were using these public announcements of government spending and attributing them to the Conservative Party or to themselves personally. It is a very serious issue.
I don't think anybody would deny the government the ability to promote the work that it's doing and the spending that it is putting into communities, but I think a line is crossed when that's directly attributed to a political party or to an individual public office holder or MP. That's not to deny that those folks don't have a role in advocating for government spending in their constituencies and have often played a role in ensuring that some of that money flows that way. That's all entirely appropriate, but to attribute it directly to the efforts of that individual or that political party specifically right down to the dollars and cents has crossed a very serious line.
I'm pleased that my colleague Peter Stoffer raised this last week with regard to some of these incidents that happened in his home province of Nova Scotia and that he raised it with the Ethics Commissioner. It is one of the complaints she has received and one of the reasons she is beginning her investigation.
I think there are some issues that need to be clarified in the motion, however. You pointed out the one issue, and the parliamentary secretary did as well. We need to be clear that we're dealing with public office holders. I think that phrase you mentioned should be included in the resolution after the phrase “Conservative members of Parliament”. I think we should add “who are public office holders” to that, to be absolutely clear.
You also highlighted the phrase “partisan use of public funds”. I think that's an interesting one, because it is confusing. For me, it's the issue of partisan attribution of public funds. I would be much happier if the word “use” were replaced by “attribution”, although there may be issues with the use of public funds to prepare these partisan mock cheques. I have heard allegations that some of those props were actually produced through parliamentary resources. It may be that we need to say “use and attribution” in that phrase.
Chair, I also want to speak to another issue, and that's the issue of confidence in the ability of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner to undertake this investigation. I'm concerned that for us to undertake this investigation or study immediately would reflect on our confidence in her ability to undertake the investigation that she's already told us she is engaging in. I am concerned that we not show any lack of confidence in her. There may be concerns about her mandate. There may be concerns about the extent of the legislation under which she has to operate and her ability to operate under that. But I do believe we should allow her to do her job before we undertake that and see what she comes up with. We'll see if she is able to come to a helpful conclusion to that investigation and see that there is a remedy she has available to her, given the complaints she's received. I know she has raised the point that she doesn't have a broad ethical mandate, but she does have some specific powers, and she has accepted the complaints she's received and announced that she's doing an investigation. It seems to me she does believe there is some area for her to be interested in in this situation already.
With all of those things in mind, I'm going to propose an amendment. I'd like to propose that in the phrase where it says “partisan use” that it be amended to add “and attribution of public funds”, so it would read “the study on partisan use and attribution of public funds”.
After “Conservative members of Parliament”, I'd like to suggest that we add “who are public office holders” at that point, so it would read “Conservative members of Parliament who are public office holders”.
I'd like to add at the end of the resolution the following:
In recognition of the investigation currently under way by the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, that this study not commence until such time as the commissioner has reported her findings.