Mr. Speaker, I would like to indicate that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough.
I will start by making a few brief comments. Following the government House leader's procedural stunt, the debate seemed to cool down, except perhaps that our colleague from the New Democratic Party managed to heat it up a bit.
We got tripped up by procedural considerations on the appropriateness of an amendment and an amendment to an amendment. In my humble opinion, we are ignoring the purpose of the motion under consideration.
Of course, we can talk about the promise broken by the Liberals in 1993. We are used to that. However, the real reason we have this motion before us today is because of the Auberge Grand-Mère issue. Nor must we must dismiss the Canadian Alliance's desire to bring forward a motion about the ethics counsellor, because the Auberge Grand-Mère affair is a case in point.
The real debate must be centred on the Prime Minister, the ethics counsellor and a specific affair or affairs that have led to this debate.
When we look at the facts, we are told “You know, the Prime Minister did his job as an MP”. There is a big difference between the prerogatives of a Prime Minister and those of an ordinary MP. It is not the same thing at all.
Finally, what we want today is to know exactly what happened. We only get snippets of information about what the Prime Minister did in this affair.
When the Prime Minister called the president of the Business Development Bank and told him “Drop by 24 Sussex; we have to talk”, it was clearly not to congratulate him. Then he told the president “Look here, there is a loan application. You have to see to it. Understood?” Suddenly the loan is approved. Soon after there is a default of payment. Something is wrong.
The president of the bank says “Listen, we must call in the loan”. He gets a phone call from the Prime Minister who asks “What is going on?” He replies “They are not making any payments, so I have to call in the loan”. It is a Business Development Bank policy, but this is not how it worked.
A little while later, Mr. Beaudoin was moved out of the Business Development Bank. He got pushed out and the loan was not called in.
I hope the Prime Minister does take care of his riding. However, at one point, the prerogative of a Prime Minister should implicitly and explicitly require a certain amount of reserve, beyond what would be required of an ordinary member. I am not the Prime Minister, but he acted wrongly in this case, he acted very wrongly. That is what we say when we blame the Prime Minister.
As far as the ethics counsellor is concerned, we would like to know what data, what discussion, what evidence brought him to absolve the Prime Minister. Whom did he speak to? Over a two day period, he did not have time to meet with too many people. What evidence was his decision based on? Is he well informed about the whole issue? Did he speak with the representatives of the Business Development Bank? The answer is no.
After two days, he replied: “Everything is fine. I am reacting rapidly because this is an urgent matter. The urgency justifies a thorough analysis of the issue”.
We are asking for the truth, the whole truth. Did the ethics counsellor do his job properly in this case? This is an important case, because the office of Prime Minister deserves respect.
However, if we are to respect the person who holds that office, we must have reasons to do so.
We are told that we keep accusing the Prime Minister. Give us good reasons not to do so, and we will stop. Let the Prime Minister have the ethics counsellor meet with members of parliament. Let him have a good talk with the elected representatives of the Canadians. That is not too much to ask. Does he need the permission of the big boss? Let the big boss tell him to meet members on both sides of the House. We will ask him with whom he had discussions on this issue. Will his answer be “The Prime Minister? I had coffee with him”. That is not good enough. We must go deeper than that.
Once again, the reason we are having this debate today is the questionable conduct of the Prime Minister, who, among other things, approached directly the president of a bank. It is cloudy, and this had nothing to do with the storm that is coming tomorrow.
It is getting quite cloudy on the government's side, concerning the role of the Prime Minister. The best way out of these problems, the best way to bring sunshine back in the Prime Minister's Office and his function is to free from political limitations the person whose role it is to check the conduct of elected officials, Prime Minister included, and let the ethics counsellor be more open.
The ethics counsellor is a good guy, but François Beaudoin, of the Business Development Bank, is a good guy too. Unfortunately he did not do exactly as told by the Prime Minister's Office, so he is gone.
The ethics counsellor must like his work, and I can understand. He probably does not want to frustrate his big boss. That is why we are asking that the counsellor's code of ethics be improved. He should be made independent. The only way for him to be totally independent is to report to parliament as a whole, and not to a group, a party or an individual. That is the way things should be.
The Auberge Grand-Mère issue will no go away as long as the Prime Minister refuses to be more open. It will not go away until the Prime Minister allows the ethics counsellor to meet with us.
Let us not delude ourselves. Something fishy has prompted today's opposition day motion. Parliament should take all action necessary to ensure that the positions of Prime Minister and ethics counsellor are respectable and respected ones.