Mr. Speaker, I am always honoured to rise in the Chamber to take part in a debate such as this one.
What has happened in this instance is that a cloud has descended over the Prime Minister and over his behaviour. This debate is very much focused on the ethical behaviour of the Prime Minister. As a result it broadens to how parliament operates and how we should hold elected officials and their conduct to a certain standard.
It is only through an independent and impartial examination of circumstances that we can arrive at the truth. This should be a truth seeking exercise.
The tragedy in all of this is that the government and the Prime Minister are hiding behind this office they have created. They are holding it up to Canadians and saying that they have been cleared by this individual, this individual who is appointed by the Prime Minister and reports to the Prime Minister.
They are telling Canadians that the Prime Minister makes the rules, is the judge and appoints the referee. However the referee only reports to him. How can Canadians have any faith in what that referee might say, let alone know the standard or the guidelines that the referee is operating by?
We have asked the Prime Minister to, at the very least, put forward the guidelines and the framework within which the counsellor is to work. This is not a reflection on the counsellor himself but the office. Sadly, what may emerge from this is that the office itself has been so denigrated by the process that Canadians will never have faith in that particular form of office. That is why we should explore other avenues, such as the one in British Columbia. Perhaps we do need an independent special prosecutor who can be arm's length and can help to gather evidence in order to shed light on these types of circumstances.
There are many, particularly the supporters of the Prime Minister, who want him to be exonerated and want him to clear the air on what has taken place in these circumstances. That can only happen with a credible examination of all the facts, not the blurred facts, the fuzzy facts, the special words, the nuances and the treatment that we might tend to put in this Chamber, but done by an impartial examiner. It can only happen if, and only if, there is an office created that will allow an individual or group of individuals with staff to examine facts.
The whole substance of the motion before the House was originated by the Prime Minister and his government. This is not the creation of the opposition. This is not something that came out of thin blue air. This motion came directly from that now infamous fairy tale called the red book. This was an example of a promise that the Liberals put before the Canadian electorate on the eve of an election because they new the electorate wanted it. However, as we have seen time and time again from the government, it was pulled back and put on a shelf when the election was over. When the votes were counted those words no longer rang true. They had no validity whatsoever.
What we hope to do in the brief time that we have as members of the opposition is to pose the important questions that come from this particular circumstance. This standard of behaviour coming from the Prime Minister should be something that is particularly troubling to Canadians.
I would like to refer to a member of the current government's own backbench, the newly elected member for Vancouver Quadra in British Columbia, who has quite a storied past with respect to the justice system and to examinations of these types of questions. He is a former land use commissioner and deputy attorney general, positions that would give a unique perspective on ethical performance of government. He said that one of the things we needed was a conflict of interest commissioner who would be a legislature officer rather than a part of the executive of government and therefore independent of the executive. There is a lot of wisdom in those words. He went on to say that the more senior the politician, the greater the need to be explicit about what the rules are and what the communication is about. This is in the context of a communication between a senior member of government, in this case the head of the country, and an appointed official, and what the communication between those individuals is meant to bring about.
What we now know is that the Prime Minister of Canada, acting in his capacity, so he says, of a simple and humble member of the House, called the head of the Business Development Bank and said that there was an individual, a constituent who was in need of a loan, and that he would like the bank to look favourably upon.
It did not stop there. There was another phone call. It was an invitation to come to 24 Sussex, which again, I dare say, no member of the House, short of the Prime Minister, has unfettered access to. We cannot say what took place during that conversation in the cozy confines of the living room of the Prime Minister, but lo and behold we do know the result. The loan was approved against previous recommendations by individuals in the Business Development Bank.
Where it again became very blurred was the personal connection of the Prime Minister to the particular deal. He was the former owner of the hotel and owned lands adjacent to the particular hotel that was partitioned some time previous. This element of personal connection to the property for which the loan was secured is troubling because it was the personal benefit that might flow by having a loan approved that would improve and enhance the value of the hotel and therefore vicariously enhance the value of the adjoining lands.
There is much speculation as to when the Prime Minister actually disavowed himself, when he actually sold that property. That is very unclear. All of that examination, were it actually done by the ethics counsellor, is not available to the general public or to members of the House. It is exempt from public examination.
These are parts of the factual background of the situation which highlight the need for independence from counsellors if, most important, they are to have any credibility in the eye of the public or any credibility in the way members of the House conduct themselves and conduct their personal business affairs.
The Prime Minister made many promises to Canadians during his tenures as official opposition leader and Prime Minister, and during his ongoing attempt to build a legacy for himself.
As reported in a 1994 edition of the Ottawa Citizen the Prime Minister said that there could be no substitute for responsibility at the top. He indicated that he set the moral tone for the government and must make the ultimate decisions when issues of integrity and trust are raised.
Those words ring hollow today. When simple questions are posed to the Prime Minister in the Chamber he will not even dignify them with a response. He is completely backing away from his previous words, as we have seen him do on many occasions.
By appointing an ethics counsellor and then having that counsellor report only to him, the Prime Minister is so shallow and denigrates so much the entire idea of having an ethics counsellor that it further undermines public confidence. It drives even further underground the ability of the public to respect and have faith in public officials. That is perhaps what is most troubling of all about the subject matter.
There is a unique opportunity here for the Prime Minister not only to fulfil an electoral promise but to signal to Canadians that the Chamber can create a change and the public can once again have confidence in elected members. These are basic principles that should and could guide the Chamber in our future attempts to govern the country.
The ethics code and the ethics counsellor have lost credibility for reasons now very apparent to the Canadian public. The counsellor has lost the ability to report directly to the House and to report to the public on how the Prime Minister and ministers of the government conduct themselves. A higher standard has to be applied.
The argument of the Prime Minister and the government House leader that ultimately the Prime Minister reports directly to the House falls short. They left out important detail. The Prime Minister has to be responsible to the House. We have seen an utter and complete failure of the Prime Minister to be accountable and to be respectful of the House in the way he has conducted himself in these affairs.