Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 1st, 2007

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, or maybe on a point of clarification, I understand that Mr. Reid is within a point of order. I have a sense that his--

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

He's on debate.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

He's on debate? I'm sorry.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Mr. Reid, please.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you.

I'm on debate, and what I'm debating is the substance of the motion before us. If the complaint and the request for discussion is for a discussion as to whether or not expenses have been made that are within what is permitted under the Canada Elections Act, that's fair. I suspect it would be beyond the scope of this committee, but that's a decision where I shared your opinion, Mr. Chairman, and the majority of the committee members did not.

My concern, of course, is that there is not one but two court proceedings under way on this very subject, where Elections Canada, on the one hand, is asserting that some expenses were made that were beyond the scope of what's permitted under the Canada Elections Act, and on the other hand, the Conservative Party of Canada asserts not only that these are permissible but that indeed they are permissible and reimbursable and Elections Canada is failing in its legal obligations under the Canada Elections Act to reimburse those expenses. I refer specifically to expenses made by riding associations for advertising, which are subject to a 60% reimbursement under the terms of the Canada Elections Act. In not doing so, Elections Canada is not following a legitimate interpretation of the law.

What's important to remember here is these are different interpretations of the Canada Elections Act that have not yet been decided by the courts. Just as the Conservative Party of Canada is not alleging, and would not allege, that Elections Canada is acting illegitimately in so doing, it is also the case that Elections Canada is not asserting that the Conservative Party acted illegitimately. It's certainly not the language that people out there in TV land are supposed to interpret this as meaning, which is illegally or unlawfully. These are legitimate alternative points of view, which are being dealt with through one of our legal tribunals--the courts--to rule on what in fact is the correct interpretation of the Canada Elections Act.

The Liberals are, frankly, short on scandals...no, they're long on scandals, but they're short on finding scandals that somebody else is involved in and are hoping they can turn this committee into a gong show, having failed to make the House of Commons into a gong show, at which their allegations will be picked up and treated seriously by the media. I think that's unfortunate.

In order to prevent that from occurring, Mr. Chairman, I propose that the motion be amended in the following manner. In the second last line of the English version, following the word “for”, the following words be added: “that are alleged not to be in conformity with the expense limits under the Canada Elections Act”.

I should stop here, Mr. Chairman. I should have said after the word “expenses”, that these words would be added in the last line, and that in the second-last line, the word “illegitimate” be removed. So it would now read:

...Elections Canada has refused to reimburse the Conservative candidates for election campaign expenses that are alleged not to be in conformity with the expense limits under the Canada Elections Act.

I can continue with debate later on, but that is the substantial change I'm suggesting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Colleagues, we have a suggested amendment to the original motion. Just give us a second to confirm the exact wording.

Mr. Reid, could you read the final wording of your amendment, after the words “election campaign expenses that are alleged not to be in conformity”?

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Yes, Mr. Chairman. Why don't I just give you a copy of the text that I've written down here?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Colleagues, I'll read the whole thing, hopefully just in English, which is my specialty, I suppose.

I have ruled the amendment to be in order. It is within the scope of the original motion. It reads as follows:

That the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs investigate the actions of the Conservative Party of Canada during the 2006 election in relation to which Elections Canada has refused to reimburse Conservative candidates for election campaign expenses that are alleged not to be in conformity with the expense limits under the Canada Elections Act.

That's the amendment. We're going to debate the amendment now.

Monsieur LeBlanc.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

To address the amendment directly, Mr. Chairman, we have never alleged that the problem was with the limits. Elections Canada has found—so I don't think we need to use the word “alleged” because it is a finding of Elections Canada—that the expenses were not incurred by the candidates' campaign, but more properly by the national campaign. That is the issue here, Mr. Chairman. It's not whether the limits were too high or too low or whether the expenses were within the campaigns' limits. In fact, we will argue that the expenses exceed the national campaign limit because Elections Canada has rejected them as having been incurred by the local candidate.

Mr. Reid is very clever and very able at trying to sideline an issue, trying to obfuscate or trying to buy some time. We went around the mulberry bush, Mr. Chairman, in September. The issue is that Elections Canada has found that a number of Conservative candidates, some of whom are sitting members, put on their campaign returns expenses that Elections Canada has held to not be acceptable as incurred by a local campaign. Hence, they have rejected them and refused refunds to those campaigns, 60% of which would have come from taxpayers' money. Elections Canada has refused that. The Conservative Party is, in our view, wasting more taxpayers' money by trying to go to court to buy time, arguing that in fact they are entitled to these bogus refunds.

Mr. Chairman, the reason we want to look at this is that a number of Conservative candidates have actually asked and offered to come and explain why they were bullied into this scheme, why they were told that they had to participate.

Mr. Jean Landry, a Conservative candidate from Quebec, has repeatedly stated in the presence of television cameras that he was forced to go along with this scenario. He didn't think that these actions were legitimate and he indicated that he would like an opportunity to come and publicly testify to the fact that he was forced by the Conservative party to go along with this.

Similarly, last week I received a call from another Conservative candidate, Ms. Fortier, who told me that she wanted to testify. She offered to do so. She called my office to say that she was prepared to testify about this rather nebulous situation.

Mr. Chairman, we want to move forward and avoid the Conservatives' tactics which are merely aimed at delaying the proceedings. In our view, Mr. Reid's amendment totally changes the purpose of this exercise. The issue is not expense limits, but rather why Elections Canada formally refused to reimburse Conservative candidates for expenses incurred for local advertising which, in the opinion of Elections Canada, was really national advertising. Unfortunately, if we tally these expenses, we might find that the Conservative Party exceeded the national expense limit by more than one million dollars. That is the issue.

Mr. Reid is trying to change the issue. It's not about the limits. The issue is a technical one: why Elections Canada believes that 66 Conservative returns...and we believe in fact there are others that Elections Canada should look at, including a Conservative candidate in Guelph, who we saw last night was in fact turfed as a candidate. We believe that campaign also may warrant a review by Elections Canada. And we find it strange that he would simply unceremoniously be dumped as a candidate yesterday, but the Conservative Party can explain why they've moved so far from their grassroots democracy of some years ago.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Monsieur Godin.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Chairman, I won't belabour the point, but I do think the issue is clear. A national political party must stay within certain expense limits. Doing indirectly what is not allowed directly is one way of skirting the system, albeit not the most honest way. If the Conservative Party has nothing to hide, then it won't have a problem with the Procedure and House Affairs Committee, to whom Elections Canada reports, moving forward and conducting its investigation.

Mr. Chairman, the RCMP investigated the sponsorship scandal, Justice Gomery conducted his inquiry and at the same time, the parliamentary committee assumed its responsibility as a parliamentary body and also looked into this matter. The Conservatives did not raise any objections at the time. They were the ones spearheading the debate and they were quite vocal about things. You may recall the arguments that they raised at the time.

In this particular instance, Mr. Chairman, based on the information we're getting, it's clear that the Conservative Party exceeded the allowable expense limit during the 2006 election campaign. It looked at the party's candidates and asked itself how it could “pump” some money from them. Apparently, the Conservative Party thinks that money comes from a pump, that there is a direct link to the Alberta pipeline and that the money simply flows in. It felt that it could help the ridings and give them some money, but also that it could get some money from the taxpayers as well. If the Conservatives have nothing to hide, then they will defeat the amendment put forward by our colleague, Scott Reid, and we will proceed with our study.

If you have nothing to hide, then you will be very happy and you can clear the name of Canada's Conservative Party, now that Elections Canada has said you acted improperly. We can call in the necessary witnesses and clarify things.

However, if, as the Chair suggested, the Conservative Party does some filibustering and prevents the committee from doing its job, that would mean it has something to hide, or that it is trying to hide something. If the Conservatives want to block the work of the committee and take their time, then Canadians would have reason to think that the Conservatives really do have something to hide. That is why I am not in favour of the amendment. I would like us to vote immediately on the motion and to carry out an investigation.

I know I'm repeating myself, but I think it would be a worthwhile initiative. If the Conservatives disagree, then it means that they have something to hide from Canadians.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Is there further comment on the amendment?

Mr. Preston, you were next, and then Mr. Epp, please.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I find it extremely strange that we're being accused of having something to hide when we adjust a motion to say go ahead and look at the books. Mr. Chair, I can't seem to put those two things together. We're simply asking for a wording change in this motion at this moment to take out some...whatever you want, I won't look at it. We're looking at changing the motion to be clearer, we think, as to what the current situation is. I have no problem with changing the wording in the motion to get to that result. At the end of the day we get the chance to do what the motion says. If we can adjust the wording to what Mr. Reid has said, it makes it a little more--to use the word in the motion--legitimate and it lets us clarify the facts.

You mentioned certain other investigations that parliamentary committees have done in this House. It is the right of parliamentary committees to move forward and to do those types of investigations. I would think that at no time should we close our eyes and be narrowly focused as to what we're trying to look at. The narrower you make this motion, the less work this committee can do. What we're asking here is that we move this motion outwards and expand it so that we can look at all things that happened. It's only fair that this committee is allowed to do its work.

I'll be supporting Mr. Reid's amendment to this motion so that we can get down to actually looking at facts, rather than scandal-mongering here in the committee. I'd like us to get to work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Mr. Epp.

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Thank you very much.

I want to respond to one thing that Mr. Godin said. He indicated that being against this motion as originally worded seems to imply that the Conservative Party has something to hide. Mr. Chairman, in a way, the attempt by the opposition here today is to change this committee into a court. Unfortunately, in our legal system in the country, just because a person pleads not guilty doesn't mean they are. And that is the assumption he is making, that if we protest this, somehow we are admitting that we have something to hide and that we're guilty.

It is just the opposite, Mr. Chairman. I believe we have a committee here that should be in essence non-partisan, and it's turning into a very partisan thing. It's true that the opposition outnumbers the Conservative members in this committee, but it has become partisan. Just the wording of this motion, which says these are illegitimate expenses, presupposes the outcome of the hearing. I think it does a disservice to this committee to behave in such a way.

Mr. Chairman, I have one more little comment. In five elections that I have run in my riding, it is my opinion...and I don't want to state this as fact, because I would have to check it out. In every one of those election campaigns, I don't think the NDP in my riding had enough support to raise enough money so that they could have run a campaign, and they always received money from the national party, as far as I know. And, Mr. Chairman, if they had ever had enough votes so that they were eligible for reimbursement of expenses, I am sure they would have put them in as local expenses.

The same thing is true for the Green Party. The Green Party, to my knowledge, Mr. Chairman, used a national campaign in every one of the ridings. I know that in my riding there were no local signs at all; they were national campaign signs, and that money came from headquarters for the most part, in my opinion.

I'm being as loose here as I can because I'm just going on my perceptions of what happened. I didn't pay a great deal of attention to this at the time of our election campaign, because that was not my focus at that time.

Mr. Chairman, I really think this committee should focus on the wide general principle, if they want to examine it, to see whether the Elections Act and the conditions that are spelled out in that act have been carried for all parties. That, I think, would be legitimate. The fact that they are here trying to single out one party to the exclusion of the others belies their partisan motives.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

I will just mention, members, that we are debating the amendment to the original motion.

Madam Redman.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to add a couple of comments.

One of the reasons I cannot support the amendment Mr. Reid has put forward is that, quite frankly, it is factually incorrect.

Just to speak a little bit to Mr. Epp's concerns, I would point out the fact that the mandate of this committee in the Standing Orders, under subparagraph 108(3)(a)(vi), talks about “the review of and report on all matters relating to the election of Members to the House of Commons”, so it certainly is within the purview and definition of this committee to be looking at this issue.

I'd also point out that we're not asking for the audit of any party. Every party, every candidate, files audits of their financial transactions during a campaign with Elections Canada. These allegations have been made by Elections Canada against the Conservative Party alone, not against the Green Party, the NDP, the Bloc, or the Liberals. Also, none of the opposition parties are levelling these allegations; they are coming from Elections Canada.

It is absolutely in the purview of this committee, and appropriate, that we look at this, and for that reason I will not support the amendment.

Then I would ask if we could move forward on the issue at hand.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I think you're asking me to call the question. I can't because I still have speakers on the list: Mr. Reid, Monsieur Lemieux, then Monsieur Godin, and then we have no other speakers.

Mr. Reid, please.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Chairman, Ms. Redman just asserted a moment ago that she opposes my proposed amendment because it is factually inaccurate. She didn't actually then go on to point anything out, so I'm assuming that she is not actually referring to some new factual inaccuracy she was going to point to but rather to something that had been pointed out in previous comments. I'm assuming that she's referring back to Mr. LeBlanc's earlier commentary in which he objected to my use of the word “alleged” in the motion, and he went on to use the terms that Elections Canada has “found” the limits were violated, and Elections Canada has “held” . Those are the two words he used.

Of course, “held” and “alleged” are actually synonyms, Mr. Chairman. Perhaps I'll send a thesaurus over to Mr. LeBlanc's office to assist him in these matters for future reference. Certainly regarding the word “found”, I suppose one could argue that findings in law are somewhat different. I would point out therefore to Mr. LeBlanc that Elections Canada is not a court; Elections Canada is an administrative body. It does indeed come up with interpretations of the law. It also stresses in those interpretation bulletins--and members of the committee will recall the fact that I actually drew attention to this point when Mr. Mayrand, our Chief Electoral Officer, was here as a witness before our committee prior to his appointment--that they are not in fact binding. They are their interpretations, which are subject to court review.

Elections Canada itself does not assert that it makes findings. It makes interpretations that are tentative and that it expressly states are tentative. They are sincerely held interpretations. They are interpretations that Mr. Mayrand and the other people who work there believe are the correct interpretation of the law, but they are not themselves an adjudicative body. They are not a judicial body. They are not a quasi-judicial body. They are a body that seeks to enforce the law, look for potential infractions of the Canada Elections Act if it finds them, and then at that point there are a variety of remedies available, but they ultimately involve going to court and settling the matter in court, which is what is going on now. Because they also administer the law in an active way, such as handing out rebates, it is completely legitimate for someone, again, with a genuine, sincere belief to think they have been denied a rebate that they are owed; and they can seek redress, but you have to go to some other body such as a court to do this because that's the way the system is set up.

Mr. LeBlanc would not have us use the court system. He would have us use this body, this committee, as a sort of parallel process that would decide on offences that are not actually under the law. They are under whatever interpretation the Liberals think they can spin of what is legitimate and illegitimate. The court is the court of public opinion. Of course their hope is that they can then control the nature of the hearing so as to ensure that a practice that is carried out by the Conservatives and also by the Liberals is seen as being illegitimate when the Conservatives do it, but there's no opportunity to demonstrate that the Liberals do the same thing by way of example. They also are anxious to make sure that their own prior practices, some of which, as I pointed out, were not merely in violation of the Canada Elections Act but were acts of theft from the Canadian public to the tune of millions of dollars, are also excluded from the investigation.

Actually, Ms. Redman made an interesting point, that we don't want to get involved in the audits. Well, no. Audits, appropriately, have seen someone like our colleague from West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, who appears to be channelling money in envelopes, to have over-the-limit expenses. Of course that's a Liberal MP, who, according to his own family members, was funnelling envelopes of cash to pay for various over-the-limit expenses.

Mr. Chairman, what's going on here is an attempt in the proposed amendment to remove the language the presupposes guilt and use language that is anodyne, language that simply states in a non-inflammatory way, a non-prejudging or prejudicial way, what the actual factual dispute is about.

It seems to me that this suggestion is vastly superior to the original suggestion. In terms of the point of the original suggestion, let's understand what's going on here. This is a partisan body, where all the votes are taking place on partisan lines, where the speeches are designed for the cameras as opposed to having a finding of fact that's legitimate and valid. What's going on here is an attempt to ensure that we can all leave at the end of this committee hearing with the ability for the Liberals to turn up before the cameras and say, “Oh, look, the committee is investigating the illegitimate actions of one of the parties here. This proves”--because the courts don't count, apparently, in the minds of the Liberals--“that this terrible, illegitimate practice, not illegal but just illegitimate, according to some standard that we have in our pocket and aren't going to share with the public, is taking place. We should all be scandalized and horrified and whatever.”

Mr. Chairman, the suggestions are inaccurate, frankly, but I do get the impression that the Liberal members have made up their minds as to how they're going to vote. On the basis that we're unlikely to get a fair or reasonable hearing even to changing the language in a way that doesn't affect the substance but only removes the presupposition of guilt, and since I think it's clear that we're not going to get a fair hearing even for that minor change, I'm going to withdraw my proposed amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Does the member have unanimous consent to withdraw his amendment to the motion?

We're missing one member.

Everybody is okay to withdraw the amendment?

(Amendment withdrawn)

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

We will resume debate on the main motion.

Mr. Reid, are you wanting to stay...?

I have Messieurs Lemieux, Godin, and Preston on the main motion now. The amendment has been withdrawn.

Please, Mr. Reid.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

I think my name got on the list for the main motion. I then used that opportunity to introduce the amendment. Strictly speaking, I think I have probably used up that speaking opportunity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I'm going to suggest that you have.

Monsieur Godin, you have a point of order?

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

According to my colleague Ken Epp, the Green Party and the NDP already paid for signage. However, we have to remember that Elections Canada has not said that they did anything wrong.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

That is debate.