Government Operations Committee on May 27th, 2010

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

You're the expert on that, Mr. Martin. I take my lead from you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Ms. Jennings, let's keep it cool.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

It's a time-honoured tradition. I've seen it before, Marlene. I've seen it done better, in fact.

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

That was by you. As I said, you're the expert. I cede to you on feigned indignation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Mr. Martin, continue.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Just in summary, for the sake of my colleague, Mr. Lee, I do regret that we haven't conducted ourselves in the manner we thought we would when we came here. Mr. Lee, as a witness, would have had the opportunity to accept whatever questions we had and possibly to have knocked them out of the park, if they were easy to answer, but he hasn't answered all the concerns we have to my satisfaction, and I'm going to recommend that we do convene again on this subject, calling witnesses such as the principals of this law firm, because we don't know exactly what Mr. Lee is doing for this law firm.

He says he hasn't accepted any money to lobby government. That doesn't explain the list of things this law firm is claiming Mr. Lee is doing. And let me be clear: it's wrong to accept any kind of reward, inducement, or payment for any service an MP normally offers. Yes, it's absolutely fine if Marlene Jennings advocates on behalf of a business in her...anywhere she wants really, but as soon as you list yourself as doing that for pay for commercial reasons, or any kind of inducement or reward whatsoever, it crosses a line we all should be aware of, and I think it is perfectly appropriate for this committee to be dealing with it.

I am not accusing Mr. Lee of anything. We haven't had an opportunity to question him on this matter, but you can accept how it's an appropriate matter for discussion, and when we get our regular members of the committee back, the Liberal Party seems to agree as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Mr. Warkentin.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think what we know today is that there are more questions at this point in the meeting than there were at the beginning of the meeting. Unfortunately, Mr. Lee, you've been sabotaged by your own team, quite frankly, and that's unfortunate. Today, we've heard all kinds of things. We've had this discussion as to whether payments were made or not made.

Mr. Lee, if you were sitting before us today, I'd ask you if you knew that the website of Sun & Partners still listed you as a member of their legal team. You are still listed as a member of the legal team. If you were sitting before us, we would ask you about that. You have stated that you have had no financial benefit from the firm or from lobbying government. You haven't stated exactly what financial interest you have had as a result of your partnership or serving as a member of the legal team of this law firm. We don't know if this law firm has ever made a donation to your political campaigns, or the amounts of those donations. I guess we could probably find that information out ourselves.

The unfortunate part, Mr. Lee, is that by being sabotaged by your own Liberal team today, you have allowed there to be more questions and more suspicions than there were when we showed up. So your two colleagues here have done you a great disservice, Mr. Lee. There is more confusion, there is more suspicion, and more frustration at this point of the meeting on both sides of this table, as well as on the part of anybody who would be witnessing the undertakings of this committee.

The rationale for bringing you forward to this committee was the exact same rationale used to bring forward the previous study. There was no objection at that point. As a matter of fact, it was a Liberal motion that brought forward the study of lobbying by Mr. Jaffer. Exactly the same rationale was used for this current study.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

It's not relevant.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

It's unfortunate that the Liberals have in fact replaced their team members. Unfortunately, they did a disservice to one of their team members today.

Mr. Lee, I apologize that you unfortunately have now been placed in a position of having more suspicion surrounding you as a result of this team. We will be working to have you back and to hear some of the testimony of your partners, as well as other people involved in this case, moving forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you, Mr. Warkentin.

The time is one o'clock. I had given my ruling, but you guys were not listening to my ruling. The bottom line was that when the motion was passed by the committee, there were no procedural issues raised and therefore we continued our study. When Mr. Lee came in, he came in as a member of Parliament and was exercising a courtesy to us. No, he doesn't have to come if he doesn't want to come; he doesn't have to speak if he doesn't want to speak.

The bottom line is that when we were studying the green infrastructure fund, there was $1 billion involved in that fund. It dealt with access and waste management, etc. So the relevance is not there. However, the clerk advises me that despite the fact that this motion is out of order, because we didn't raise it on May 12, we can go on down this path and let the Speaker tell us that we're out of order.

So with that, I bang the gavel. The meeting is adjourned.