Mr. Speaker, at the outset I want to point out that I will be sharing my time with the very capable member for Elgin—Middlesex—London.
I rise to speak in opposition to the motion before us here today which states:
That this House calls for the establishment of an independent judicial inquiry to determine if the Prime Minister is in breach of conflict of interest rules regarding his involvement with the Grand-Mère Golf Club and the Grand-Mère Inn—
At the heart of this motion is the assertion by the opposition that the Prime Minister had some personal financial association with the hotel he helped in his capacity as a member of parliament for Saint-Maurice and supported its application for funds to expand for a tourism operation in his riding.
Let us take the opposition into some unfamiliar territory and examine the facts.
Prior to becoming the Prime Minister of this country, the Prime Minister sold his shares in a company that owned a golf course near a hotel. The shares never returned to his ownership and the opposition, although it tried, has never presented any credible evidence to suggest otherwise. Its fall back position seems to be that if it says something loud enough and long enough it becomes fact. The opposition is welcome to its opinion but Canadians deserve the facts.
Although the facts that I alluded to were first introduced in the House over two years ago, they resurfaced in earnest during the campaign last November as part of the opposition's strategy to discredit the Prime Minister.
During that campaign, at the request of the opposition parties, the ethics counsellor examined the situation. At the time the Leader of the Official Opposition and the leader of the Conservative Party took great stock, no pun intended, in the fact that the ethics counsellor was looking into this matter. For about three days during that campaign the reference to this investigation was used as part of the opposition's campaign to discredit the Prime Minister.
We did not pull the ethics counsellor off the street. He was the assistant deputy registrar, a career civil servant with an impeccable record. At the time of his appointment we consulted, in conjunction with our red book promise, Mr. Lucien Bouchard who was the leader of the opposition at the time. He said:
I want to make clear right away that we fully support the appointment of Mr. Howard Wilson as Ethics Counsellor. We are aware that Mr. Wilson has had a praiseworthy career in the federal Public Service and that we can have every confidence in his ability to take the helm in this matter at a critical time.
The member for Elk Island said at the time:
The person in the position right now is an honourable person...He is a man of integrity. He is a man that can be trusted.
During the heat of an election campaign, after touting the fact that this man was looking into it, when he came back with a decision the opposition members did not like, they said “he's a lap dog”. All of a sudden this man, a career civil servant, is a lap dog. In my riding the candidate who ran against me held up pictures of dogs as a big joke. It is not a joke. The only person laughing at that is the late Senator Joe McCarthy.
It is a disgrace that they would use this ends justifies the means logic. They do not care who gets in their way. They have one motive in mind and that is to discredit one of the most popular prime ministers in the history of this country. They cannot beat him in the ballot box so they are trying to drag him down in the gutter and have their way. We are not going to put up with it. We are not going to stand by and let it happen.
The leader of the Conservative Party, not happy with the ethics counsellor's investigation, called in the RCMP, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Again he said that they were looking into this and that the Prime Minister was under investigation. He said it was a great public relations war that they were winning. The RCMP came back and said that there was no criminal activity. True to form the opposition members moved the goal posts. That is their strategy.
Then the member for Edmonton North said that the bill of sale should be said. He said:
The Prime Minister could get over this in a heartbeat by just tabling the bill of sale for those shares in 1993.
The Leader of the Conservatives on this issue said:
The way the Prime Minister can settle this is to lay upon the table of the House of Commons the agreement for the sale between himself and Jonas Prince.
The member for Roberval put it this way:
Does he not understand that the only way to settle this matter, to exonerate himself—the only way, there are not 50 of them, only one—is to provide us with the record of sale, as we have demanded so many times already? Let him provide that, and the problem will be over.
The Prime Minister provided them with the bill of sale and other relevant documents. In the absence of a human to attack, the opposition members started attacking the document itself by saying “It's a flimsy piece of napkin written in crayon. It wouldn't fit in a typewriter”. They are not saying that it is not a legal document because they know it is a legal document. If they had any guts they would step outside that door and make that accusation.
If they want a judicial inquiry they will get it in an awful hurry. That is a legal document. It transferred the shares. The ethics commissioner upheld that ruling and they have had no evidence today or in the last two weeks to change that fact. That is the foundation that every subsequent allegation they are making is built on and it is built on sand.
The member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca spoke very eloquently. He is a member for whom I have great respect. I listened to the entire debate today and the line he was working on was let us err on the side of safety. Let us just have the inquiry anyway just to clear the air.
The distinguished and respected late Mr. Justice Sopinka of the Supreme Court of Canada criticized such action. He criticized action that was aimed directly at the alleged wrongdoing of specific individuals which needed to operate within the confines of a criminal trial. Mr. Justice Sopinka said that this kind of inquiry based on allegations alone was repugnant.
I do not have to imagine the repugnance because I have witnessed it today. I witnessed it when a member of the Conservative Party compared the Prime Minister's chief of staff to Rasputin. I ask the members if they are sorry for that. I realize now that they are all nodding that they are. I accept that apology from them. It speaks well to them and I appreciate that. I think they just got a little carried away.
Then we had the member for Calgary—Nose Hill stand up and compare the Prime Minister of Canada to Slobodan Milosevic. This is the kind of nonsense that these witch hunts, these inquisitions and these fishing expeditions are going to result in. At the end of the day they have no case. The RCMP told them that.
This is a partisan smear job and it is pay back. The NDP members are upset because we criticized their role in the summit of the Americas. The Tories are upset because they have not quite recovered from the number that Canadians did on Mulroney. If I understood the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca properly, he said we should do this because we are bored. We should launch a judicial inquiry into the Prime Minister of the country out of boredom. It is nonsense.
The Prime Minister has done nothing more than be a good MP for the people of his riding. The motion before the House is an insult to his good name and an insult to his long standing reputation for the highest ethical behaviour. The member for Leeds—Grenville is not going to be drawn into this nonsense.