Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'm proud to bring forward this motion:
That the Standing Committee on Access to Information Privacy and Ethics undertake a study of the use of the G8 Legacy Fund for political purposes to determine if the Conflict of Interest Act was violated in its disbursement, if the actions of the Minister were ethical, and to review the fund in relation to the Federal Accountability Act and Accountable Government – A guide for Ministers and Ministers of State, 2011.
I'm bringing this motion to the ethics committee because of a few key elements, which have not been properly addressed by parliamentary review, of the massive spending that went into the G-8. Clearly there have been many, many unanswered questions, and it's been frustrating, I think, for the public and parliamentarians that we have the minister at the heart of it who has not answered any questions on his role.
This has come to the ethics committee because when the Office of the Auditor General did their report and said they were unable to find any paper trail or any bureaucrats who knew exactly how the money was disbursed, the Auditor General wasn't aware about the meetings that Minister Clement had set up, especially the key meeting in the middle of the election of September 2008. In the middle of the election, he set up a subcommittee--a private committee, a parallel process--that the Auditor General was unaware of. At that time Mr. Clement made it known that he would be bringing forward the funding and they would start to figure out how to spend that funding.
There was no fund to spend. Parliament had not made any recommendations about spending. It was certainly very inappropriate for the member to have a meeting in the middle of an election--a secret meeting with senior bureaucrats, with mayors, and to offer their involvement in this fund that had yet to be created by Parliament.
We do know that Parliament was asked to disburse funds. But they were not asked to disburse funds for the benefit of the Muskoka member; they were asked to disburse funds to deal with border infrastructure.
Madam Chair, anyone who's ever had to drive through Windsor, or any of the other points, would certainly know the need for putting money into border infrastructure. The issue of border infrastructure is about trade, the ability of our economy to continue with our biggest partner. It's also about fundamental safety and making sure we have the resources to stop guns or drugs and gangs from misusing border security.
When we were asked as parliamentarians to submit $80 million in border infrastructure, we thought the money was going to be used for that. Instead, $50 million was hived off and put into Muskoka. It was put into a fund that was disbursed, as far as we can tell from these documents, by a select group that included the mayor of Muskoka, the manager of the Deerhurst inn, and the minister himself, which was highly unusual. The Auditor General was not given any of this information.
We also began to understand that senior bureaucrats from DFAIT, FedNor, the summit management team, and Infrastructure Canada participated in these meetings. Yet when the Auditor General went to ask these departments how the money was distributed, each department signed off, saying they didn't know because they weren't involved in any way. Well, the Auditor General was not given the minutes of the meetings that showed the senior bureaucrats who were actively participating.
I find it a very, very disturbing possibility that the Auditor General was misled. I find it very disturbing that senior bureaucrats would not have told the Auditor General about their involvement.
The Auditor General's report also refers to the fact that there was no paper trail and that this was a shocking finding. They'd never seen anything like this, where this amount of money was disbursed without a paper trail. Again, we found out through documents supplied to us by the communities in the Muskoka region that the paper trail was run through Minister Clement's office, which was highly unusual, and I think highly unacceptable. It would create the impression that it was his money and his personal political power distributing the money and not the Government of Canada.
We know from the forms he created--these homemade forms for the projects--that they don't even refer to departments, to the Government of Canada. It says, “Send your request to the constituency office of Tony Clement”, which again violates all the normal rules of conduct for a minister.
As for the question of whether or not this was for political purposes or was a breach of the ethics code, we have to put it in context. In the 2006 election Mr. Clement barely won. It was by between 13 and 20 votes. Of all the ministers in the Conservative government, he was certainly the most politically challenged.
The obvious incentive for holding a meeting in the middle of the election in 2008 and promising to bring massive amounts of money to the riding would certainly have been direct political benefit for Mr. Clement. We saw that during the election numerous mayors and communities that had not supported Mr. Clement in the previous election in 2006 came up as very big supporters.
I think this is an issue that has to be brought to the ethics committee. We have to get to the bottom of why the Auditor General released a report in which the information the Auditor General was given was clearly at odds with the facts. Canadians have great respect for the role of the Auditor General. We put great trust in the Auditor General to be able to hold all governments to account. If the Auditor General is not being given the documents, if the Auditor General is being told by bureaucrats that they have no idea how the money was being spent when they were clearly involved, that raises questions about ethical breaches of this government.
I would like to bring this motion forward for debate. Thank you.