Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time in this debate with my friend and House leader, the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough.
I very much regret having to join in this debate today on an issue that, as the leader of the New Democratic Party has just said, could have been resolved months ago, years ago, by the Prime Minister simply declaring the truth, not part of the truth but the whole truth. This may well have started as a simple error in judgment by the Prime Minister. If so, he should have had the courage to stand at the time and tell the truth to the people of Canada and to the House of Commons.
What has become so offensive since then has been the consistent attempt at cover up, the lack of information given to the House, the partial information that has been given to the House, and the attempt to try to stifle democracy on this issue.
The issue is conflict of interest. Did the Prime Minister have a continuing financial interest in the Grand-Mère Golf Club at the same time as he was lobbying the Business Development Bank for the adjacent Auberge Grand-Mère, a hotel that has inextricably close linked interests with the golf course?
I just happen to have a copy of the advertisements issued currently by the Auberge Grand-Mère.
The advertisement, which is in French, says that the Auberge Grand-Mère is a mere two minutes from the Grand-Mère golf club.
The auberge and the golf club are adjacent to one another. The viability and success of one affect the viability and success of the other. The market value of one has a direct impact on the market value of the other. Each promotes the other. The auberge's advertising offers golf and overnight accommodation packages. The golf club reserves banquets and dinners at the auberge after golf tournaments. The auberge's advertising talks about the 18-hole Grand-Mère golf course.
Yvon Duhaime, the present owner of the Grand-Mère golf club, is very certain that the auberge and the golf club are interdependent. Last November, when Yvon Duhaime appeared before the Régie des alcools du Québec to defend his case, he said that he needed a liquor licence because many golfers dined at the auberge following their golf tournaments and that most of the auberge's revenue came from clients who had purchased the golf package and from clients who were tourists.
The press also published Mr. Duhaime's comments to the effect that there had been “agreements, deposits and contracts” between the auberge and its clients.
Furthermore, in 1999, Mr. Duhaime said: “We send people over to them to play golf, and they send people over to us for supper. What is there to explain? If it were not profitable, would we keep on doing it”?
The Prime Minister claims to have sold his shares in the golf club in 1993. By 1996 he was not paid for those shares. No payment, no sale. At that time he started to lobby the Business Development Bank for loans for the adjoining auberge while his lawyer acting as his agent was trying actively to sell the shares of the golf club at the very same time.
The value of the golf club shares depended on the successful business of the adjoining auberge. The debt owed to the Prime Minister constituted a continuing financial interest in the golf club. The lobbying of the president of the Business Development Bank was a conflict of interest.
The Prime Minister's statement of disclosure to the ethics counsellor was made under the 1985 code of conflict. Section 24 of the 1985 code states:
A public office holder shall make a confidential report to the ADRG (Assistant Deputy Registrar General) of all assets that are not exempt assets as described in section 19.
The debt or the shares, whichever the Prime Minister claims he had at the time, should have been declared to the ethics counsellor. It was a declarable asset. The definition of assets in the new code brought in by the Prime Minister states clearly assets that are not exempt assets are either declarable assets or controlled assets.
Under either code the Prime Minister should have declared the golf club shares or the debt arising from their sale. He did neither.
The Prime Minister has stated that he has released all the relevant documents. Yet the more documents that are released, the more questions are raised.
The handwritten bill of sale is not witnessed. The repayment schedule is not set out. We do not know what province it was signed in.
Where the note was signed is critical if the Prime Minister chose to sue for non-payment of the contract, because the law is different in different provinces. In Quebec one has three years from the date of signature, while in Ontario one has six years. However, the government refuses to answer this, as it refuses to answer most questions.
The value of the shares has fluctuated. We know from the documents released that the Prime Minister received less in 1999 than what he agreed to with Jonas Prince in 1993. A question: when did the Prime Minister declare the disposition of the shares on his income tax? Was it in 1993 or was it in 1999? This is a very germane issue. Was the Prime Minister informed of Mr. Claude Gauthier's purchase of land from the golf club? Was he, or his lawyer, consulted as to how the $525,000 paid by Mr. Gauthier, who became a serial recipient of government contracts, would be distributed to shareholders or used by the company?
These and many other questions remain unanswered.
A public inquiry, under the auspices of the Inquiries Act, would be able to subpoena witnesses and gather evidence, including financial and income tax records. A public inquiry would be able to determine in an independent fashion if the Prime Minister was in a real or apparent conflict of interest when he lobbied the president of the Business Development Bank on behalf of the Auberge Grand-Mère.
In the Sinclair Stevens commission of inquiry, Justice Parker defined conflict of interest as the following:
A real conflict of interest denotes a situation in which a Minister of the Crown has knowledge of a private economic interest that is sufficient to influence the exercise of his or her public duties and responsibilities.
That was the judicial finding when that issue went to inquiry, as this one should.
The Prime Minister had knowledge of his private economic circumstances. His lawyer openly discussed the sale of the golf club shares with him. He knew in January 1996 that he would not be paid for the 1993 sale, yet not 90 days later he was lobbying the president of the Business Development Bank on behalf of the Auberge Grand-Mère.
In the examination by Mr. Justice Ted Hughes of the sale of Premier Vander Zalm's Fantasy Garden World, the premier was held to be in conflict of interest, in part because:
The Vander Zalms retained an interest in the financial well-being of Asiaworld.
Asiaworld was the private company.
Mr. Justice Hughes also found the premier in conflict because:
The Premier, the highest ranking elected official in British Columbia, telephoned the highest ranking executive of Petro-Canada on August 20, 1990 to discuss—