Finance Committee on May 2nd, 2023

[A voice]

I can't wait.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I was involved in the first example as an exempt staff member. I was interested to see that the library wrote something on that, although I am a little disappointed they don't mention me.

[A voice]

That's shameful.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Yes, it's shameful. They don't even mention my minister, but I will hear when the time comes.

Section 4 at the bottom of page 3 says:

On several occasions, the actions of ministerial staff have been the source of political controversy, which has raised concerns about accountability.

[A voice]

Like the Prime Minister's chief of staff.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Yes, the Prime Minister's chief of staff is a great example. Perhaps the library will update this paper with the most recent material, of which they have a lot over the last eight years to add.

The last line of this paragraph says, “The following are three high-profile cases.” I know MP Beech and MP Blaikie will be particularly interested, because MP Blaikie's father was in Parliament when this first one happened. Now, I have to say it's on the Conservative side of things, but I'm sure his father would have been asking, if I go back and check Hansard, many questions in question period about this.

I will read the one example that's written here at the top of page 4, and perhaps add a little colour, if I could be granted that, to provide a little on-the-record detail.

[A voice]

Go for it.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I could practice my French here, but I don't want to offend the interpreters.

In 1991, Mohammed Al-Mashat, a former Iraqi ambassador to Washington during the Gulf War....

That's the first Gulf War. I know there are people here who weren't even alive in the second Gulf War, but the first Gulf War was in 1991 when Iraq invaded Kuwait.

In 1991, Mohammed Al-Mashat, a former Iraqi ambassador to Washington during the Gulf War—

This says “discreetly”, but I will explain that it wasn't that discreet.

—discreetly requested and received highly expedited permission to enter Canada as a landed immigrant.

The Iraqi ambassador to the United States was granted, during the war with Iraq, permission to be a landed immigrant in Canada.

When this occurrence became known, controversy erupted and the then Secretary of State for External Affairs, Joe Clark—

They get it wrong here, but I will explain that in a minute.

—said he could not be held responsible for this extremely sensitive decision, because he had not been made aware of Al-Mashat's application.

That is true, but I will add a bit of colour to that.

After an internal inquiry, the government placed blame on the associate undersecretary of state for External Affairs—

I'm sure some of you will be shocked to learn who that was at the time. His name is Raymond Chrétien. He is the nephew of future prime minister Jean Chrétien.

—and on Mr. Clark's chief of staff for not doing enough to bring the matter to the attention....

There was actually a parliamentary inquiry where ministers, shockingly, appeared before committee to answer questions.

Here's how the Al-Mashat affair, as it was referred to, happened. This is an important case in ministerial accountability.

In the Al-Mashat affair, you have to understand the diplomatic world. The longest-serving Canadian ambassador to Washington at that time was Pierre Trudeau's finance minister, Donald Macdonald. Now, Donald Macdonald and his wife...no. I'm sorry. It was Allan Gotlieb.

Allan Gotlieb and his wife were known to throw quite lavish parties at the Canadian embassy. They were a tour de force in Washington, but by 1991, Allan Gotlieb was no longer the ambassador in Washington. He was in private practice in Toronto.

Allan Gotlieb's protege was a fellow coming up through the diplomatic ranks named Raymond Chrétien. His role in 1991 was in the department that was then called external affairs. That was when I was executive assistant to the foreign minister, Barbara McDougall.

This gets a little complicated, so try to follow me.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Okay. It's really tough, but I'm really enjoying it.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

The Al-Mashat affair was about the fact that.... Raymond Chrétien's title was associate undersecretary of state for the Department of External Affairs—in other words, the second-in-command in external affairs. At that time, the deputy minister was called the undersecretary of state, and he was the associate undersecretary of state. My boss, and Joe Clark before her, were called the secretary of state.

As the second-in-command, Raymond Chrétien's job was to decide who went on what postings in the annual shuffling of the deck of foreign affairs diplomats. He was in charge of that, a very powerful guy. Mohammed Al-Mashat had been the Iraqi ambassador in Washington when Allan Gotlieb was the Canadian ambassador to Washington.

What did Al-Mashat do as the serving Iraqi ambassador when we were fighting Iraq in the Gulf War?

I can tell you what he did. He didn't apply through the normal channel that people use in our immigration system, which I believe now has a backlog of 2.4 million. He didn't apply through the normal channel. Mohammed Al-Mashat phoned his buddy Allan Gotlieb, and Allan Gotlieb gave him a little advice and said, “Hang on; let me talk to Raymond Chrétien.” This all came out in the parliamentary inquiry when ministers came and testified.

Allan Gotlieb phoned the second-in-command at the bureaucratic level, Raymond Chrétien, and said, “I've got this friend. He doesn't want to go back. He wants to stay here. He's a good guy. Can we get him into Canada as a landed immigrant?” Raymond Chrétien decides on a Friday afternoon at about five o'clock at night—because that's when these things happen in Ottawa, on Fridays at five o'clock—to send a memo up to the minister's office, to the departmental assistant to the minister of external affairs, Joe Clark, and also to the minister of immigration, Barbara McDougall, who at that time was my boss, because believe it or not, back then all of the people in the posts abroad who processed immigration applications were actually employees of external affairs, not employees of the department of immigration.

When this memo came up, my boss said, “Absolutely not”, and wrote in handwriting across the thing that as minister of immigration she would not approve this person to come into Canada.

I remember when the memo came up. When the memo came up in the office of the secretary of state of external affairs, Joe Clark, the minister was out of the country, as the minister often is in that role, and the minister's departmental assistant put it forward to the chief of staff, who sort of looked at it and just didn't think much of it and agreed with whatever the department said.

That's always a danger for political staff. As a warning to the folks behind us on both sides, don't always take everything that the department says as gospel and think that the motivations are always pure.

All of this was secret and wasn't known, and one month later there was a cabinet shuffle, in 1991, and Joe Clark was shuffled to intergovernmental affairs to deal with constitutional issues. You might remember Meech Lake and the Charlottetown accord from your history books.

My boss was shuffled to foreign affairs, and back then, the exempt staff went with the ministers. They didn't go home and wait for PMO to tell them if they had a job or not; they actually went with the ministers, so we were in external affairs. The department was doing its initial briefing and up comes this memo, approved on the Autopen, not by the minister. The staff probably know what the Autopen is; it's an automatic pen used to sign the minister's signature, but the minister doesn't actually sign. The memo approved Al-Mashat as a landed immigrant in Canada because he had gone, as Raymond Chrétien had arranged, to Belgium to apply to come to Canada from the United States.

He went to Belgium because Raymond Chrétien sent a memo to the head of immigration in Belgium and said, “I've got this friend I want to fast-track. I want to fast-track him into Canada. I would appreciate it if you would do it.” He did, because of course what else—

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I just want to state very clearly how much I appreciate the encyclopedic knowledge of my colleague from Nova Scotia. There are not many members of Parliament who can speak so eloquently and clearly about every little thing that happened in the Mulroney government. It's really quite amazing and it always blows my mind, so I just want to say thank you for having me here for this short period of time.

Thank you for really quite an entertaining half an hour. Keep it up, my friend, and take care.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Did I miss Mr. Perkins being promoted to whip of the Conservative Party?

[An hon. member]

He wouldn't want that job.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Perkins, the floor is yours again.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank MP Vis.

I'm still on 1991. It was nice cabinet shuffle, and I have to say it was a great thing. I tell you, I can remember the day when we got shuffled to foreign affairs. It is a great and incredibly prestigious post to have. It was a fascinating time to be there, with the Gulf War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the coup in Haiti, the situation in South Africa and the negotiation of NAFTA.

I could go on with the issues we were dealing with there, but I'll get back to the Al-Mashat affair and ministerial accountability.

Raymond Chrétien sends this note off to Belgium and directs the foreign affairs employee who is doing the immigration there to process this for his buddy. Of course he did, because you know what Raymond Chrétien can do if he doesn't do it? He can send him, not to Paris on his next posting, and not to London on his next posting, and certainly not to Washington on his next posting; he could send him to what are called “hardship posts” if he didn't go along.

In foreign affairs, hardship posts could be places like Sri Lanka. Foreign service officers want to go to Paris, London and Washington, where the game is played; they don't want to be lost and buried in the department in hardship posts. It's tough on them and it's tough on their families. Of course the poor immigration officer approved what his boss, Raymond Chrétien, said, which was to approve this application.

Of course none of this was known, so when my boss gets to foreign affairs, up comes this note saying that he had approved it. We still had the memo, because back then we kept paper. We still had the copy of the memo from my minister, as immigration minister, saying that in no way is this person supposed to be allowed into Canada as a landed immigrant, yet he somehow got here through this circuitous route. We didn't know how he got here, so the question on ministerial accountability became, what do we do with this?

Here you have a new secretary of state who has been on the job just a few weeks and is dealing with a coup in Moscow where the military threw Mikhail Gorbachev out of his job. Then we discover that the department actually had done something totally against the immigration minister's orders.

I can tell you the first thing we did. They didn't like this too much in foreign affairs. My boss signed an order to make all of the foreign affairs officers who worked on immigration employees of the Department of Immigration, so that the Minister of Immigration could now control and make sure that the Minister of Immigration's decisions were abided by and not overrun by another department. That made things clear and that is still today.

We had a big decision to make because there was a huge scandal on this issue. It was very public in the press. My minister certainly was not going to take responsibility for the Iraqi ambassador coming into Canada during a war as a landed immigrant when she, as immigration minister, had said no. What were we to do?

We laid it clear at the parliamentary committee. We actually attended the parliamentary committee. There was no finding Freeland issue here. There was no “only five days in Parliament in five months, one day a month”. There was no half-a-trillion-dollar proposal budget for us over a fiscal framework, which means $100 billion a day that we pay this finance minister and all those other truancy days.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Times have changed.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Like I said, we should probably go to the Liberal convention this weekend with the committee and maybe we could get her to appear.

In the Al-Mashat case, we went to committee, and we laid it out straight—all of what I've just informed you of. You can look it up in the Hansard record. It's fascinating reading, I tell you. I wish we had ParlVu back then, because there would be a better video record of my new boss, the former secretary of state, the Honourable Barbara McDougall—

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

A fine woman....

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

—the Right Honourable Joe Clark; the under-secretary of state for external affairs of the day, a fellow named Reid Morden, who had come from CSIS, actually; and the associate under-secretary of state for external affairs, the nephew of the future prime minister and then opposition leader to the government, Raymond Chrétien.

[A voice]

Really.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Raymond Chrétien got called on the carpet and was brought out.

As this parliamentary library report, in its first of several ministerial accountability controversies, outlines—quite subtly, I think—after an internal inquiry that was done within the government.... It doesn't mention the parliamentary inquiry, so perhaps our Library of Parliament support here and in the foreign affairs committee would like to actually update this 2006-12 report with some of the more modern things on ministerial accountability, which this motion of MP Blaikie is bringing to fruition.

It goes on. I know that committee members and those watching will be...as we move through time to 2004. That was not long ago. It was still a Liberal government. The newly merged Conservative Party from the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Alliance.... The new leader was the Right Honourable.... Well, he was just Stephen Harper then, leader of the opposition. The Honourable Stephen Harper became the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, one of our best prime ministers, only two years later.

In 2004, again, we had another situation where we didn't have to fight this finding Freeland thing. We had an incident when the then minister of citizenship and immigration.... I know some of you will recognize this name here, because this person still sits in the House. In fact, last weekend in Toronto I went to an event with her—the Vietnam freedom day. It was an honour to go to the Vietnam freedom day. Judy Sgro was speaking on behalf of the Government of Canada, and I was speaking on behalf of our leader, Pierre Poilievre, the next prime minister of Canada.

That event is an important foreign affairs.... It marks the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. I was in junior high, just to be clear. I wasn't in the government then.

In 1979, of course, one of the most important things was the boat people from Vietnam, and how to deal with them. It was a big issue. Back then Canada was only accepting 10,000 to 12,000 refugees a year.

The newly elected government of the Right Honourable Joe Clark, in 1979, had to face this as one of their first issues. That issue was what to do with the hundreds of thousands of people unsafely risking their lives trying to leave Vietnam in a boat. Families and thousands of people were dying on the ocean to escape communism and seek freedom—something we all love and are privileged to enjoy here.

One of the things that happened then was the Joe Clark government considered what they should do. They had a fellow named Ron Atkey, the member of Parliament for St. Paul's. That riding is currently held by Dr. Carolyn Bennett. Ron Atkey was the new immigration minister—a lawyer.

The then foreign affairs secretary of state for external affairs was a woman named Flora Macdonald. In fact, Flora MacDonald represented Kingston and the Islands. It is currently held by, as we know,MP Gerretsen. Kingston and the Islands, the home of Sir John A. Macdonald, was represented by Flora MacDonald, a descendant of Sir John A. Flora was Canada's first female foreign affairs minister. It was a very important time in Canada's history.

They had to face this crisis of Vietnam. They decided to allow in an unprecedented—until recently—level of Vietnamese refugees, boat people. In less than a year, 42,000 were brought to Canada.

[A voice]

That's amazing.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

That number has now gone up. The number of refugees trying to escape communism moved up in the early nineties to over 140,000. Because of the impetus of a Conservative government of Canada, we have a strong and vibrant Vietnamese community here in Canada. Now, that's ministerial accountability. That's ministerial action. That's coming to parliamentary committees and seeking parliamentary approval for important actions that change generations, lives and Canada for the better, which, after all, is why we are here.

I had a chat with Judy Sgro at that particular event. Here's what the Library of Parliament writes about 2004:

...the then Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Judy Sgro, was accused of giving temporary residence and work permits to people who had volunteered on the Minister's re-election campaign. The Ethics Commissioner was asked to investigate the alleged conflict of interest. The Commissioner concluded that the main burden of responsibility for placing the Minister in a conflict of interest lay with the Minister's chief of staff, who continued to work on departmental matters during the election. The Commissioner said that this did not absolve the Minister of responsibility....

There's that term again: “ministerial responsibility”. To have ministerial responsibility, you have to show up. You have to show up to work. You have to show up.

Jack Layton once famously said, I believe it was of Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, in a debate, that Canadians pay you to show up to work and it would be nice if you decided to do so once in a while. It appears Michael Ignatieff's approach to Parliament and disdain for Parliament has now become that of the Minister of Finance.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

He lost his seat when it came around.