It is vitally important that the process of donating funds to political parties be democratized. The need to do so transcends partisan political divisions, given that the democratic well-being of the people is at stake. It was in this spirit that my colleague, the hon. member for Richelieu, tabled a resolution respecting donations to political parties. I wish to take this opportunity to invite all members of this House to reflect on this issue and to bring pressure to bear on the government to launch this process of democratizing political party funding as soon as possible. Our political system must be hooked into today's reality and made more open and accessible to the ordinary citizen. This process will breathe new life into the system.
Everyone is well aware of the deals made between large financial backers and certain political parties, mostly the major parties and who can disagree that the Liberal Party is a major party? The Liberals are the first ones to say that theirs is a major party. The well-known deals and arrangements between these large political parties and the big financial backers have led the public to have an unhealthy distrust of our political institutions. There is not one member in this House who has not seen on numerous occasions how deeply suspicious his constituents are of the hidden, close, clandestine, almost incestuous relations between the big financial backers and the major parties that form the government.
All members of this House are aware of this fact. Which ones will put pressure on the government to force it to adopt once and for all a fundamentally democratic measure which is desperately needed and to follow Quebec's example? I am referring to limiting to individuals, the right to donate to political parties a practice which we advocate and follow. It allows us to keep in constant touch with our fellow citizens and gives those who make donations a real voice in the political process. At the same time, it leaves the legislator perfectly free, because his first duty is to the public, not to groups operating behind the scenes.
By raising donations in this manner, we will ensure that the party remains in the hands of the members, irrespective of the ongoing pressure exerted on the party's elected representatives to adopt sectarian positions. This process has a name: transparency. Transparency serves a purpose, that is the promotion of democracy. It is this same democracy that enables all of us here today to represent our fellow citizens. Transparency should be the cornerstone of the governing process. It is imperative that all government business be conducted in a transparent manner, including decisions to award contracts such as the one involving Pearson Airport.
The same holds true with respect to financial backers associated with the government. Here again with the Pearson Airport deal, it is clear that the first and sole beneficiaries of the government's largesse in the contract adjudication process have ties to the previous Conservative government as well as to the present Liberal government. If I may echo the enlightened words spoken earlier by the member for Richelieu, the Lortie Commission which was set up several years ago to consider reforms to the Elections Act and which had a mandate to examine this particular issue, could have given serious consideration to party fundraising practices and could have made more substantial recommendations as to how the process could be made more democratic. However, it did not have the guts to do so.
Although these days, as my colleague said, major companies account for only half of the electoral contributions to political parties, it is still too much because the amounts are still large and this obsolete system leaves plenty of room for all kinds of political schemes.
Lobbyists do not only give money or cold hard cash to election campaigns; they give of themselves.
They are high powered campaign workers. They rarely work for small fry like an ordinary backbencher. They prefer to work for ministers and even the Prime Minister, if possible, and their political zeal is apparent not only during elections, because leadership races appeal to their tireless devotion as well.
And lobbyists are not at all partisan. Every time the government changes, we see them shuffling their deck and generously hiring lobbyists from the winning side. Lobbyists are wonderfully open-minded.
So there are natural ties between contributors, lobbyists and elected candidates. This buddy-buddy relationship is particularly noticeable when a juicy government contract is at stake.
The Pearson contract was a juicy one. In 1993, Pearson Airport made a profit of $23 million, not counting terminal 3.
The rent to be paid by the Pearson Development Corporation was about $27 million the first year, $27 million the second year, $28 million the third year, $29 million the fourth year and $30 million a year from the fifth to the tenth year.
At first glance, renting the facilities for $27 million the first year might seem to be a good deal for the government, compared to the $23 million it makes from it now.
But if you take a closer look, you see that is not at all the case. Indeed, after renovating the air terminal buildings, the Pearson Development Corporation intended to raise the rates charged to airlines from $2 to $7 a passenger, which would have meant millions and millions more income every year. For the whole airport, it is $100 million a year, but since the rate in terminal 3 had already been raised to $7 per passenger, the additional charges for terminals 1 and 2 are quite a lot.
Now who would have paid this additional charge per passenger? The travelling public, of course. In this regard, we were not surprised to learn that, to win Air Canada's support for this privatization, the government had agreed in July 1993 to pay 15 per cent of the rent for that airline and foreign airlines operating in terminal 2.
Since Air Canada's present lease expires in 1997 and the new lease would run for 37 years, this measure alone would have cost the federal government some $70 million.
I think that all these shady dealings are suspicious enough to raise serious questions about the management of public funds, but there is more.
You will see that this huge waste of taxpayers' money has many ramifications. For example, I said a moment ago that these higher rates would have brought in tens of millions of dollars a year, which the federal government could very well cash in if it keeps control of the airport and makes the necessary adjustments and raises the rates itself. These rates would be the same as the present rate at terminal 3 and at most major North American airports.
Of course, this higher rate provided for in the agreement would not have taken effect immediately, but only after the Pearson Development Corporation invested the $700 million it had promised.
But this investment itself is a problem. Pearson had initially promised to invest $100 million of this amount to modernize terminal 1.
However, to encourage the initial investment, the government had agreed to collect only $16 million of the $17-million annual rent, which amounts to a 40 per cent rebate for 1994, 1995, 1996 and part of 1997. Although these amounts were to be paid back subsequently, with interest, by deferring these payments the federal government was actually helping to finance the upgrading of Terminal 1, when it had specifically said it would not do so.
Let us not mince words to describe the scheming and artful dodging that went on around an agreement that was unworthy of the trust that should exist between citizens and their government. The players in this political-financial saga ignored the most elementary code of ethics that should guide the relationship between the electorate and their elected representatives. By their greed they undermined the very foundation of our political system. They made a travesty of the very essence of the social contract that binds society together, to satisfy a craving for profit at any price, and the disclosure of their dealings discredited what was left of the government in power at the time.
It is rather difficult to understand why, after all this, the minister should seek authority to pay them compensation. I think we must ask this question: Is it necessary, appropriate and legitimate to pay these bidders compensation, considering the circumstances in which they operated? Only a thorough public inquiry would reveal exactly who did what and who is entitled to receive compensation and how much.
A number of players seem to have tried to take advantage of their political connections. This was hardly the average business operation you could brag about on the campaign trail, so the friends of the outgoing government and those of the incoming government acted like sensible people and reached a very sensible compromise. They said: "Let us stop fighting. Let us merge our Liberal and Conservative interests". Together, they were to conclude very quickly, before the election, a deal which until then had eluded them.
Not only Conservative lobbyists and personalities were involved. The government has presented this bill as through it were St. George slaying the dragon, in this case the Pearson contract. Away with this shameful Conservative contract and let the House help me raise a wall to protect the citizens of Canada from this contract!
Not only Conservative lobbyists and personalities were involved. Both traditional parties, as they like to call themselves, are represented in this mixed bag of moneylenders, fundraisers and lobbyists.
One of the directors of Claridge is the Liberal senator who received the future Liberal Prime Minister at his residence in Westmount at a $1,000-a-plate reception in the middle of the election campaign.