Debates of April 3rd, 2001

Supply

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for the Minister of Industry. He said we should be moving on to other issues, and I certainly agree.

A poll on the weekend said that most people want us to move on to other issues. However the same poll said that 60% of the Canadian people want a public inquiry or an independent inquiry. I wonder if the minister would agree. That would be one way of taking the issue off the floor of the House of Commons and getting back to other issues.

My other question is that in every province the ethics counsellor or the equivalent thereof is responsible to the legislature and not to the premier. Would the hon. member agree that we should be implementing what was a policy of the Liberal Party and making sure the ethics counsellor is responsible to the Parliament of Canada and not to the Prime Minister? Those are two questions to which I expect brief and concise answers.

[Brian Tobin, Liberal, Bonavista—Trinity—Conception, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his questions. The questions are valid and I think they seek a genuine answer.

The member comes from the great province of Saskatchewan. One of Saskatchewan's great contributions to the country is the training, professionalism and integrity of the RCMP. The RCMP is one of the icons of the country.

In all the shouting across the floor in this debate we have forgotten that it was the leader of the Conservative Party who wrote to the RCMP and said he would like it to investigate the matter independently of parliament or politicians.

The RCMP complied with that request and concluded there was no basis for further inquiries. As soon as he heard that the leader of the Conservative Party, because of his own police training, I suppose, questioned whether the investigation had been properly carried out.

Most people in the country accept that the RCMP is above reproach and that it defines the meaning of integrity and professionalism. When the RCMP speaks most people accept what it says. That is why Canadians say they are not buying the allegation and that it is time to turn the page and get back to the real business of Canada.

[John Reynolds, Canadian Alliance, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. During the minister's answer to my question he stated that I sat in the House with former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. I never sat in the House with the former Prime Minister.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

The hon. member's point has been made.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if the Prime Minister had acted respectfully and responsibly toward this House, we would not be having this debate today, since an independent judicial inquiry would already be looking into the issue.

I want to go back to the core of this matter by looking at the conflict of interest code and quoting some excerpts. In reference to ministers or the Prime Minister, the first requirement provides that they:

—shall act with honesty and uphold the highest ethical standards so that public confidence and trust in the integrity, objectivity and impartiality of government are conserved and enhanced.

The Prime Minister failed to meet that first requirement. The second requirement provides that they:

—have an obligation to perform their official duties and arrange their private affairs in a manner that will bear the closest public scrutiny, an obligation that is not fully discharged by simply acting within the law.

It takes more than just that. Again, the Prime Minister failed to meet that requirement, and I continue:

On appointment to office, and thereafter, they shall arrange their private affairs in a manner that will prevent real, potential or apparent conflicts of interest from arising, but if such a conflict does arise between the private interests of a public office holder and the official duties and responsibilities of that public office holder, the conflict shall be resolved in favour of the public interest.

The Prime Minister also failed on that count.

Let us get back to the first conflict of interest. The Prime Minister made representations to the Business Development Bank of Canada in favour of the Auberge Grand-Mère. That was wrong, since he was well aware that there were financial connections between the auberge and the golf club. One can imagine what would have happened had the auberge shut down, considering that the Prime Minister, as he admitted in the House, had been trying for six years to get paid. Money was owed to him. He had an interest in getting paid.

He said so, and I can see why. But what does he do? We are not talking about an ordinary citizen here, but the Prime Minister. Would the Prime Minister have a good chance of finding a buyer after six years of trying if the auberge went bankrupt and was closed? That is the first conflict of interest.

The Prime Minister's personal interests are in conflict with his role. He should have refrained from approaching the president of the Business Development Bank of Canada directly. Nothing obliged him to do so. Right from the beginning, regional management of the Business Development Bank of Canada advised against it.

The Prime Minister is not just another MP. He ignored the advice of regional management and personally called the director of the bank, whom he himself appointed. He met three times with him at his home in order to tell him, among other things, that it would perhaps be a good idea for him to invest in the auberge.

It is a conflict of interest to ensure that the auberge will survive and not go bankrupt, particularly when one is seeking a buyer for one's shares, for which one has been trying to get paid for six years. These are undeniable facts. It is appalling to see the opposition to this inquiry, opposition which comes from the government, which is denying these facts.

I met a Liberal member earlier and asked him if he had seen the 1999 contract. “No”, he replied, “I have faith in the Prime Minister”. Faith, he says. Now there is a responsible attitude.

The Prime Minister placed himself in conflict of interest twice, once in 1996-97 and once in 1998, when he asked the Department of Human Resources Development to do everything legally possible to ensure that Placeteco received a $1.2 million grant. Let us keep in mind that one of the requirements of the code is to not only to comply with the law but also to not have any conflict of interest, even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Who owns Placeteco? It belongs to Claude Gauthier, whose lawyer is also a shareholder in that company, which was bankrupt at the time, and who was to be appointed, contrary to all trusteeship rules of the Department of Human Resources Development, and therefore something that ought not to have happened, to negotiate for Placeteco. Thus he was negotiating on both sides, negotiating with himself, to obtain a $1.2 million loan.

Then, when the Prime Minister was looking for someone to pay for the shares for which he had not been paid, the same Mr. Gauthier, the owner of Placeteco, injected the modest sum of $525,000 into the Grand-Mère golf club. This took place at the very moment that the Prime Minister was trying to find a buyer for his shares in the golf club, which could not go broke without taking the inn along with it. Mr. Gauthier turned up with his $525,000, and then turned around and got $1.2 million from the Department of Human Resources Development. Hon. members will agree that this was mere happenstance.

The interests of the Prime Minister are in direct conflict with his position as Prime Minister. Not only ought he not have approached the bank, he ought not have intervened in the Placeteco case in order to obtain a grant, which was obtained through an irregular procedure, as even the Minister of Human Resources Development has had to admit in this House. That is the second conflict of interest.

The third conflict of interest was when these documents were tabled, and not all of them were, because between 1993 and 1999, and this was even the opinion of the so-called ethics counsellor, the senior official who is more of a cover-up counsellor, a political adviser to the Prime Minister, who said that the Prime Minister had been saying for six years that the shares did not belong to him and that Mr. Prince, the alleged buyer, had been saying the same thing, the shares were in limbo.

In the meantime, I imagine that the Prime Minister thought he was in heaven, surrounded by Liberals who could not ask him any questions. He intervened directly because he was looking for someone to pay him for his shares. Mr. Prince had not done so, as the Prime Minister admitted.

So, in 1999, the Prime Minister signed this contract a most extraordinary contract in article 2.1 of which he waived all ownership rights. Where I come from, if someone waives his ownership rights, it is because he has some. In law they say that parties do not put something in writing without a reason. If it was written that he waived ownership rights, he must still have had some.

In this same agreement, the Prime Minister provided a seller's guarantee. If one provides a seller's guarantee, it is because one has something to sell. The most marvellous thing of all is that he found a charitable soul, one Mr. Michaud, a longstanding friend who in the end supposedly bought Mr. Prince's shares. Ultimately, Mr. Prince was an intermediary in the golf club saga. He was the Prime Minister's caddy. That was pretty much what Mr. Prince's role in the whole business amounted to.

The money went from Mr. Prince's right pocket to Mr. Prince's left pocket, and ended up with Mr. Michaud. It is so obvious that, in article 3.6 of the contract, the Prime Minister tells Mr. Michaud “Listen, should there be an inquiry or damages, do not worry, my company, J&AC Consultants, will pay you, it will pay your lawyer's fees if there is an inquiry”.

Are there many people who are not involved in a case, but who say “If there is a problem, I will pay for you”? I do not know any person so charitable as to walk around, asking people “Do you have a problem? If so, even though I am not involved in this, I will pay”. Who are they trying to fool?

Worse still is that they are saying there will not be an inquiry. First, the Prime Minister helped the shareholder, who happened to be himself. That shareholder, by signing the contract, because he is a party to the contract signed on September 29, 1999, prevents the Prime Minister from taking action, because it is very clear. If the Prime Minister launches an inquiry, he is the only one who can do so, which is also an aberration, he will be the target of that inquiry. Moreover, should that occur, he will pay for Mr. Michaud. This is what we call a conflict of interest.

The private interests of the Prime Minister prevent him from acting like a responsible and honest prime minister. That is the problem and the third conflict of interest.

Why must there be this fundamental respect for the code of ethics? The Prime Minister happens to hold the most important office in the country. Things have reached the point where Canadians want a public inquiry, because they do not believe the Prime Minister. Naturally the public has said “Could we move on to something else?” The public is right. How do we go about moving on to something else? The Liberals read half the contracts, they way they read half the polls and the way they do half their job.

What does that say? It says that it will take an inquiry to put an end to this debate, that all the documents should be made public. The public is saying “We want out of the auberge, and the Prime Minister has the key”. It is time he opened the door and ordered an inquiry. Then we can move on to something else. Besides, when we ask them, they will not be answering any of the questions they say are so important today. They will fall back on their old habits of saying we are always wrong. But not everyone is misled all the time, and the Prime Minister can no longer mislead us.

The message he is sending by not meeting ethical standards, is that he is denying everything that, according to him, his career is built on integrity. In 1993, he said:

We will bring honesty back to politics; politicians are not elected to serve themselves, but to serve.

I think he has forgotten the words. He does that. He must have got the terms mixed and he has understood that politicians were there to serve themselves, because this is what he has done. He served himself in this matter.

This fine Prime Minister added:

I have talked a lot of integrity and honesty in the campaign. I have made my career in politics knowing the dangers of political life, and I think that, when a person is well informed, they do not succumb to temptation.

First, he was ill-advised, because if he trusts his ethics counsellor, he will not go far. This man had not even read the documents he said he had read during last fall's election campaign. He had said “I read everything”. He saw everything people wanted to show him. That is the problem. He did not see much, this so-called ethics counsellor.

The Prime Minister is thumbing his nose at the basic rules of ethics. He has been elected twice on the basis of those rules. I have always said that he called the election last fall because he did not want this business to get out. There is a total of twenty investigations involving this government.

Imagine if now we were a few weeks away from the election. Do hon. members not think that things would be really hopping in the auberge affair? Do they not think that there would be at least two candidates to replace the Prime Minister who would doing everything possible to see that a convention was held because they would be feeling “We are not going to win with this guy who has fiddled with the rules”?

That is why the election was called last fall. Liberals wanted to act while the public was in the dark about the situation, which was corroborated by an accomplice, the ethics counsellor. That is why the public has had enough of all this. It is fed up with the Prime Minister's contradictions, telling us there is no connection between the auberge and the golf course. Of course not. Do hon. members think that it would be good for a golf course to be located next to a hotel with a “Closed on account of bankruptcy” notice on it?

Mr. Duhaime told us under oath on November 2, 2000 “Of course, we share customers with the auberge, because golfers eat there”. The auberge serves as an intermediary. There is, of course, no legal connection. What we are talking of is financial connections, apparent and potential links, which have an interest in existing over and above any legal links.

The legal veil must come off. It is time to look at what is happening in real life, and that the owner of the auberge has told us.

The Prime Minister, who attended the opening of the auberge, intervened twice with the Department of Human Resources Development and the Business Development Bank. The Prime Minister's riding assistant intervened in the negotiations between Mr. Duhaime and the bank. He himself oversaw the transactions for the new purchaser. Guess who the new purchaser is? One of the operators of the golf club, a friend of the Prime Minister. Coincidence, once again. This business is full of coincidences.

The Prime Minister says there was no more financial link with the golf club. When I asked the so-called ethics counsellor, Mr. Wilson, if the Prime Minister had a financial interest in the golf club, he said “Oh, yes”. It came out very quickly, quite naturally. He had not thought to try to hide that. Yes, there is an interest. There is a big interest, and everyone understands that.

This was confirmed subsequently by Mr. Corriveau, the spokesperson for the Michaud family, by Melissa Marcotte, who began to speak out. Then, when she began to speak out and people saw she was making sense, she was asked “Could you not keep quiet, my dear”. That is exactly what she did.

The Prime Minister is denying all this evidence. He is refusing to make his documents public. I said at the outset that his attitude was very annoying. It is so annoying that, when he says, as he has for some forty years, that his career is built on integrity, does he realize that he is in the process of destroying it?

He ran the last election campaign, which was probably his last one, precisely to make sure this would not come out during that campaign. He should rise to the level of his position and have enough dignity to say “We will hold an inquiry. We will table all the documents, not just the documents that are appropriate for us, not just the documents selected by a so called ethics counsellor, who is a political adviser, but all the documents. This commission of inquiry will do its job and, in the meantime, we will move on to other issues”. This is how the Prime Minister should fulfil his duties responsibly and in the respect of his office, instead of behaving like he has been since 1993.

Let us remember the GST. The Prime Minister was seen and heard on television saying, with a rather unique choice of words, “We will scrap the GST”. Once in office, he never said that again. Everyone saw him, on the news. There are videos to confirm it. The fellow that we saw looked a lot like him, if it was not him. Everyone was convinced it was him.

Unless the Prime Minister did like the Canadian Alliance member who was replaced by his assistant, and the assistant looked a lot like him. Maybe that was it. It was someone who said that the Liberals would scrap the GST. The Canadian Alliance member did apologize. He assumed his responsibilities, but the Prime Minister continues to deny the obvious. He thinks that by continually denying, people will eventually forget.

In Quebec, a poet, Gilles Vigneault, wrote a song on a Mr. Lachance, I will not mention his first name, because it would not be appropriate in the House, that ended with “If you think we do not notice”. Well, we do notice.

As for us, everything we have said in the House we have repeated outside the House. I said a lot more outside than inside the House. Since we are not allowed to say in the House that someone lied to us, I did not say that. However, I did outside. I stand by everything that I have said here.

When we asked that the bill of sale be released to put this issue to rest, it was because we thought the Prime Minister was acting in good faith. When we saw the whole thing, we realized that it was not the case. The documents prove otherwise and the Prime Minister's good faith no longer exists.

[Eugène Bellemare, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister for International Cooperation]

Mr. Speaker, the leader of the Bloc Quebecois is linking the Grand-Mère golf club to the Auberge Grand-Mère for purely political reasons.

I have some questions for him. The auberge obtained loans from the caisse populaire and from the Fonds de solidarité des travailleurs du Québec. I ask him what the total of those loans was. Was it not $2 million? What was the amount of the loan from the Business Development Bank of Canada? Was it not $615,000? What was the rate of interest? Was it not 25%, while today's interest rates are around 7%, 8% or 9%? What was the favour to the auberge?

There are hundreds of golf clubs in Quebec. They do not need an adjacent hotel. Very few golf clubs do not have their own clubhouse. As for the Prime Minister, he was a co-owner, not the owner, of the Grand-Mère golf club. He owned perhaps 25% of the shares.

I ask the leader of the opposition what percentage of shares the Prime Minister owned and when he sold them, not when he might have sold the entire golf club, which did not belong to him.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I find the hon. member's last comment interesting. He was asking on what date the Prime Minister sold the entire golf club that did not belong to him. I am still trying to unearth the intrinsic logic in all of this.

Second, what share did he hold in the golf club? That is a good question, indeed. We do not know, because one document says 25% and another 22%. This is a contradiction, one I had forgotten. I thank the hon. member for reminding me.

Third, he says there are a lot of golf clubs in Quebec. How many have had the Prime Minister intervene directly in order to help in their sale? How many besides the one in Grand-Mère?

He says that the Fonds de solidarité and the caisse populaire put money into the Auberge Grand-Mère. So what? One thing I do know, however is the president of the Fonds de solidarité, Mr. Bachand, held no interests in the golf club because this would have placed him in a conflict of interest. Neither, probably, did the president of the caisse populaire. Therein lies the difference.

The Prime Minister, who is the head of something called Canada, no trifling matter, and holds the most important position in the land, has intervened directly while he had a financial interest in the matter.

Fourth, what is this link? I would ask the hon. member whether he things that an auberge adjacent to a golf club—

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

With the same address.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Never mind the address. So somebody is looking for a buyer of his shares, whether 22% or 25%, we do not know, but if the hon. member were to ask the Prime Minister perhaps an answer would be forthcoming. Maybe he could ask in caucus tomorrow morning. Anyway, does he think it would be good news for that person on the way to the cottage to see a notice posted on the hotel, saying “Closed on account of bankruptcy”?

So what does the Prime Minister think? He says “I'd better do something about that or I will never get my money. I will never get anyone to buy my shares if the hotel goes bankrupt and closes”. That is the reality.

A person does not need a degree in economics from the HEC to understand that. Anyone can figure it out.

[Paul Devillers, Liberal, Simcoe North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have here the letter the lawyers for the firm the golf club belonged to, which was submitted to the Standing Committee on Industry.

The fourth paragraph reads:

The board of directors approved, on November 1, 1993, the transfer to Akimbo Development Corporation of all shares of the company held by J. C. Consultants Inc. As of that date, J. C. Consultants Inc. no longer appeared in the resolutions of the shareholders and the company of—

Here they name the Prime Minister.

—no longer appeared in the resolutions of the shareholders and the company;

Why does the leader of the Bloc Quebecois not accept this letter from the well known lawyers Pouliot and Mercure, the company's lawyers? Why does he not accept that the sale took place in 1993?

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first it is not J.C. Consultants, it is J&AC Consultants, I would point out.

And then, why do I not accept it? Because I do not accept things in good faith, I take the time to verify and do not just swallow things that hide reality.

Among other things on this paper, the lawyers talked of February 29, 1999. There is no such date. They could always consult a calendar. This is part of a serious document.

I do not accept it because there is another document, article 2.1 of September 29, 1999, in which the Prime Minister says he gives up all his rights of ownership in 1999. How can someone give up rights that the person has had since 1993?

Then, why did the Prime Minister, in all goodness I imagine, say “If a problem ever arises for the person who supposedly bought the shares of the person to whom I sold them, but who never paid me, if there is ever trouble for this person, out of my great goodness, I will pay his legal costs”?

Does that make sense to you? Do you think it works that way in real life? If you find that normal and if I ever have a problem, I will invite you to pay my legal costs.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to indicate at the outset my intention to split my time with the NDP House leader, the member for Winnipeg—Transcona.

Let me say absolutely clearly and unequivocally that the New Democratic Party supports the call for the establishment of an independent inquiry to adjudicate on the Prime Minister's conduct in relation to his financial interests in the Grand-Mère affair.

Further let me say that we are in agreement as well that the powers of such an independent inquiry and the terms of reference for the inquiry must be sufficiently broad to allow all necessary documentation and all relevant witnesses to appear before the inquiry so that the truth may be fully divulged.

An inquiry has become necessary to bring the matter to a satisfactory resolution, to deal with the allegations swirling around the conduct of the Prime Minister and, equally important, to allow members of the House of Commons to get on with the nation's business.

Let me say that it is regrettable in the extreme that the Prime Minister's affair with Grand-Mère has reached this stage. It is regrettable because it was so absolutely avoidable.

Had the Prime Minister not betrayed his commitment to Canadians to establish an ethics counsellor independent of the Prime Minister but rather accountable to parliament, operating under the benefit of an all party committee and reporting directly to parliament, we would not be in the state today where parliament is virtually paralyzed from getting on with dealing with its responsibilities.

If the Prime Minister had not engaged in a virtual legal striptease over the last several months, refusing to divulge all documents but instead letting them out one at a time carefully selected, obviously many documents withheld, we would not be in the position today where the people of Canada are looking on with horror, wondering what it takes to deal with a situation that so obviously needs to be fully examined and explored.

We would not be in this parliamentary paralysis today if the complaint that was laid, if the inquiry that was put before the ethics commissioner by the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, had been properly dealt with in the first instance. I say that with regret because my colleagues and I have tried to give the benefit of the doubt to an ethics commissioner whose mandate is unnecessarily restricted, whose independence has been curbed by the Prime Minister's refusal to set up the ethics commissioner office on a proper basis.

My colleague from Regina—Qu'Appelle, a full two years and two weeks ago, on March 19, 1999, wrote to the ethics commissioner to raise concerns about the Prime Minister's conduct. Let me quote briefly from the letter the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle directed to Howard Wilson, the ethics commissioner at that time. He raised concerns about whether the Prime Minister had contravened certain sections of the conflict of interest code, specifically part I, section 2, which states that the object of the code is:

—to enhance public confidence in the integrity of public office holders and the decision-making process in government.

From day one it was absolutely apparent that the Prime Minister had showed colossally poor judgment in his conduct in relation to the Grand-Mère affair.

The concerns were deeper than that from the beginning and my colleague from Regina—Qu'Appelle wrote further in the same letter to the ethics commissioner that the situation in question in his view was not in compliance with part II, section 23(1) of the code, which states:

A public office holder shall take care to avoid being placed or the appearance of being placed under an obligation to any person or organization, or the representative of a person or organization, that might profit from special consideration on the part of the office holder.

It was disturbing, to say the least, when the response that came back from the ethics counsellor at that time was that there was no problem. I do not think that one needed a law degree or a lot of political experience. I think one needed just to have a bit of common sense to understand that at the very least it placed the Prime Minister in a place that was questionable in terms of his conduct because of the financial interest that could be effected, the financial interest from which he so clearly stood to benefit.

It is regrettable we have reached this point in the whole matter because the Prime Minister and his government are as we speak busy selling off important aspects of Canada's future, selling off through flawed trade deals and selling off through the erosion of important public services, public programs and institutions.

What are we embroiled in? We are in a never ending debate not capable of coming to a resolution on the question about the sell-off, the failure to sell off, or the financial interests associated with the sell-off of shares of the Prime Minister in a golf course, for heaven's sake.

Canadians have made it clear that they do want this matter resolved, but they also want parliament to get on with dealing with the real issues that affect the real lives of real people.

I have been able to agree with very few words that have come out of the mouth of the Minister of Industry over the last many months on this whole sordid affair. However, I do agree with him when he says that this spectacle must end. What the industry minister fails to say, and he knows it to be the truth as does every single member of the House, is that the only way this spectacle can end is if the Prime Minister, the one person with the power, the authority and, unquestionably, the responsibility to put an end to this, takes the action that must be taken. He must call for an independent inquiry to get to the truth of this matter.

It is the Prime Minister's steadfast, stubborn refusal to bring this thing to public light that is causing a great deal of consternation among Canadians. This is not a time that we as parliamentarians, not on the government side nor on the opposition side, can afford to ignore the erosion of public confidence in politicians and in politics.

I want to make it clear that every member of the opposition in the House is onside on this issue. This is one of the few times, perhaps in the life of this parliament, where we are of one view, which is that the Prime Minister has a responsibility to clear the paralysis in parliament and begin the process of trying to restore public confidence in officeholders and in the conduct of their elected officials. He must call that independent inquiry so we can get back to business on the concerns of real people around real issues.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Secretary of State (Amateur Sport)]

Mr. Speaker, when one makes comments, one should have some credibility.

The NDP leader, who is advocating civil disobedience, she is currently taking civil disobedience courses, and is telling Canadians to disobey the law, is the same person who is tarnishing the credibility of our Prime Minister. This is shameful.

Since the issue was not only decided during the last election campaign and since the same old things have been repeated for the past two years, I would tell the hon. member that if she does not want to be part of the circus, she simply should not get on board. I thought she was a lot more serious than that.

Does she think it is honest and appropriate to promote civil disobedience while trying to admonish our Prime Minister, who has been a model of integrity and credibility as a public figure for the past 40 years?

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, what diversionary tactics. Let me deal directly with the question or the allegations.

I am one of many Canadians, possibly hundreds of thousands and, I would be prepared to say, millions of Canadians, who find it literally terrifying that a member of the government can stand in the House and describe as a circus the peaceful, legitimate, meaningful protest of Canadians against a trade deal that threatens to sell our future down the river.

The House is in a state of paralysis around the stubborn refusal of the Prime Minister to deal with a very serious issue of public confidence in his conduct and in his government. While the Liberals try to push ahead with the free trade of the Americas deal with no significant input from citizens and no transparency about what it is they are negotiating, there is a further erosion of the rights of government to act on behalf of its citizens and be responsible to its citizens.

If the member wants to describe peaceful, meaningful, legitimate protest as a circus, then I say that will go down on the record of the government as being of the same ilk as the Prime Minister's refusal to clear the decks with respect to Shawinigate.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a quick comment. The hon. member talks about democracy. Democracy is ruled by rules. I was appalled because for one moment I thought the New Democratic Party had chosen not to engage in this McCarthyistic inquiry.

Let me quote what the member of the NDP said the other day when she was being recruited by the leader of the Conservative Party. She said that she chose not to engage. She wanted the House to get on to running the affairs of the nation.

The RCMP and the ethics counsellor have cleared the Prime Minister. The hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle was answered not once but three times. When does this end?

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I worked really hard to hear a question but I did not hear one. However, let me take the opportunity to say that I have been asked, again and again, and as recently as this morning, by many reporters whether I actually think members on the backbench are comfortable with the Prime Minister's refusal to clear the air here.

There are two dominant issues at the moment that Canadians are looking at and watching with some horror. Do I think that all backbenchers are in agreement with the decision of the government to try to demonize dissent in what is happening at the FTAA proceedings? I cannot answer that question for backbench members, but I do know that if they seriously represented the interests of citizens and had any courage whatsoever, they would not be acting like trained seals for the government on the FTAA or on Shawinigate. They would be standing up and representing the concerns of their constituents about the paralysis of parliament.

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased and honoured to share in the debate today with my leader, the member for Halifax.

I listened with care but also with disgust to a lot of the things that have been said on the government side, not just today but on other occasions, in defence of the Prime Minister.

I am reminded, probably because of my previous training, of a number of biblical insights in which people talk about ears that cannot hear and eyes that cannot see. Of course the more common version of this is “there are none so blind as those who will not see”.

It seems to me that we have this kind of wilful blindness on the part of government backbenchers and on the part of everyone on the government side who refuse to see that there is a genuine problem here with respect to how the Prime Minister behaved in relation to his shares in the Grand-Mère golf course and in relation to the various things that he did in respect of the future of the Grand-Mère inn, in particular, calling and lobbying the president of the Business Development Bank with respect to a loan for the inn.

I am also reminded of the teaching which condemns people who are so busy pointing out the sliver in the eye of someone else that they cannot see the beam in their own eye.

What we have seen time and time again in the House is a form of ad hominem argument that I think degrades this place over and over again, which is responsible in part for the low opinion people have of politics and politicians.

Over and over again we have heard from the government side, when members get up, comments made about the Leader of the Opposition and the troubles he had with respect to a libel suit in Alberta. We have had the fate of the hon. member to my left here in law school mentioned. We have had all kinds of things mentioned that have absolutely nothing to do with the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the call for an inquiry, or the allegations that have been made which lead to the call for an inquiry.

It does no one any good to have the Minister of Industry talk about people who are making these allegations and calling for the inquiry. We saw it recently when a Liberal member got up and instead of asking my leader a question about her speech, he made some allegation about the NDP being in training for the civil disobedience at the Quebec City summit, which was false to begin with because what people are training for is how to handle the police when they come after them, not how to go about committing civil disobedience and getting arrested. Even if that were true, what would that have to do with the quality or the legitimacy of the call for an inquiry? It is like playing in a sandbox here. Somebody makes a legitimate request and people get up and say that our mother did this, our father did that or our grandfather did this yesterday. It is no wonder people do not have a high opinion of this place.

It seems to me that the Liberals are so accustomed to patronage and to feathering their own nests and the nests of their friends that at a certain point they cannot tell any more when patronage, which is questionable in itself, particularly when it is to the extent that the Liberals practise it, moves over on the gauge into conflict of interest. Frankly, I think this is what happened to the Prime Minister. At a certain point patronage crossed over into conflict of interest and he hardly noticed because there is so much arrogance there. There is a feeling that it is a one party political state and a one party political culture and basically the Liberals can do whatever they like.

It is that kind of attitude that permeates everything that has to do with the disbursal of government money. We see it not just in respect of the Prime Minister's actions, but we see it in the actions of the Business Development Bank in general. We see it with respect to the Export Development Corporation. We see it with respect to the Canadian International Development Agency. We saw it in spades last year when we talked about the way money was disbursed through HRDC.

Everything is turned to political ends, either political in a collective sense or political in a sense of rewarding Liberal friends for support. In this case, the money was sought for a hotel, a situation in which the Prime Minister stood to gain.

One of the more curious arguments that has been made. again by the Minister of Industry, is that because the Prime Minister lost money, this clears up the matter. Did it not occur to the Minister of Industry that those shares stood to go up or down, contrary to what the Deputy Prime Minister said at one point in the House when he tried to tell the House that the price of the shares was fixed so it did not matter what the Prime Minister did?

We have found out that is not true, like a lot of other things that have been said over the last several months. The price of the shares could change. The price of the shares in the end was less than what the Prime Minister originally sought to sell them for. This is supposed to be argument enough for us to drop it; but if the value of the shares was in flux, then yes, the Prime Minister lost. However he could have lost more or he could have lost less.

Does the Minister of Industry think that the Canadian people, the media and members of parliament were born yesterday? If the price of the shares could change then they could go up or down. That is precisely a question of the Prime Minister's behaviour between the period of 1993 and 1999, between the initial bill of sale and when the sale was finalized. We want to know what happened in between. Is that so unreasonable?

I remember being on my feet in the House calling for the Prime Minister to release all relevant documents. The problem is he has not released all the relevant documents and it looks like he does not intend to. We need to have an inquiry in order to determine what happened in that space of time. Why do we need that? It is for a number of reasons.

Frankly I would like to see the inquiry clear the Prime Minister. I do not want to live in a country where the Prime Minister is found to be engaging in a conflict of interest. I do not want to live in a country where it is never cleared up as to whether the Prime Minister was in a conflict of interest. I would much rather live in a country where an inquiry is held when there is a serious allegation of conflict of interest and the matter is resolved and cleared for the benefit of all.

Another reason is so that parliament can get on with doing more of what we should be doing. Government members have been very cute in this regard. They ask why the opposition did not ask about this and ask about that. When we do, we do not get decent answers anyway. They sure showed that last week. It has been suitably reported and they have had to answer for it.

I call the attention of the House to an earlier time in another place when an allegation of conflict of interest was made in May 1986 against a cabinet minister in Manitoba, a good friend of mine, former energy minister Wildon Parasiuk. What did he do? He immediately resigned. Former chief justice of Manitoba, Samuel Freedman, was asked to conduct an inquiry. By August he was back in the cabinet because he had been cleared and the allegations were found to be false. Is that not a much better scenario for the Prime Minister?

I am not suggesting that the Prime Minister resign, but certainly an inquiry could be set up. At some point we could have a ruling on just what went on. That would be a much better way to deal with this matter than the way the Prime Minister has dealt with it so far.

[Paul Devillers, Liberal, Simcoe North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it was with some amusement that I listened to the NDP and its position in this regard. The hon. member just mentioned that it was a question of there are none so blind as those who would not see, but I think it is more a case over there with the unholy alliance between all the opposition parties of monkey see, monkey do.

The leader of the Tories, the Progressive Conservatives, has made this a personal inquisition he is conducting against the Prime Minister and all opposition parties are trying not to be outdone in the process.

The member talked about the government being cute on the issue. I think the NDP is being particularly cute in trying to suck and blow at the same time. It is trying to be part of the attack but it recognizes the necessity of dealing with the important issues in the country. It is trying to have a foot in both camps, so to speak.

I asked the leader of the Bloc Quebecois why he does not accept the letter of March 20 from Pouliot, Mercure, solicitors for the company that owns the Grand-Mère golf course. The letter confirms that the resolution was passed confirming the sale in 1993. Why does that not put an end to the matter?

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure whether the member was referring to some question he asked the leader of the Bloc in the past or whether he is asking me the same question as he asked the Bloc. I did not think I had become a separatist in the course of my speech.

The member talked about the position of the NDP in this respect. Our position is quite a defensible one. As the member knows we have raised the Shawinigate affair in the House. We have asked the Prime Minister to table documents. We have asked for the inquiry. We have done this on a number of occasions. Have we done this to the exclusion of everything else? No. We agree there are other issues.

We have asked questions about water, the Kyoto accord, the summit of the Americas in Quebec, health care and infrastructure. We have asked a number of questions. I do not think that is trying to have a foot in both camps. I think that is doing our job.

There are many things that are called for in terms of what should be discussed on the floor of the House of Commons. We have contributed to the debate around Shawinigate in the House, as we have contributed to other issues. That is appropriate behaviour on our part.

The document the member refers to is one of the things we should have an inquiry to look into, to see whether that document jibes with a whole lot of other documents on the table and to see whether that document is as sufficient as the member claims.

[Bob Speller, Liberal, Haldimand—Norfolk—Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to comment a bit on what the hon. member has been saying. He talked about the level of debate in the House. I was hoping to come to the House today and that the opposition might be able to put new information on the table that would cause me to think my constituents were wrong by not calling me a lot on this issue and feeling there is nothing new.

The hon. member talked about comments coming across the floor. On the one hand he says the government is saying nasty things about their doing that. On the other hand he talks about feathering our nests on this side and other comments like that. That does not add to the debate.

It be useful if the hon. member would come forward with some new information that is not already out there. The Prime Minister has laid on the table all the relevant information. The RCMP has investigated. The conflict officer has looked at it. The disparaging remarks these hon. gentlemen have been making about the conflict officer are wrong. He is a very well respected, long term member of the public service. They should withdraw their scurrilous allegations.

What new does the hon. member have to put on the table that would make my constituents believe we should actually take this issue to any further level of investigation?

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, this is precisely the dispute, is it not? There is lots of information on the table. Obviously it is not enough to make one side or the other drop its particular perception of what is said by what is already on the table. That is why we need an inquiry. We cannot come to any resolution here.

I do not believe the hon. member's constituents are as disinterested in this matter as he says they are. I do not think there is any information we could bring forward that would bring the Liberal backbench around on this, at least in a public way, because they are so cowed by the power of the Prime Minister. I will finish on this. The fact is if the Prime Minister does not—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

Order, please.

[Charlie Penson, Canadian Alliance, Peace River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I was listening very carefully and I could not hear the answer of the member for Winnipeg—Transcona. I am interested. I think he should be allowed to give his answer so that members of the House can hear it.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

Is there unanimous consent?