Debates of April 3rd, 2001

Government Response To Petitions

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the standing orders, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to two petitions.

All-Numeric Dates Act

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-327, an act to establish a national standard for the representation of dates in all-numeric form.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to re-introduce the bill. It is very simple. It is directed to Industry Canada so I am pleased that the minister is here.

The bill proposes that we move toward a national standard for dates, all-numeric dates, to avoid confusion, particularly in this computer age.

The system that I suggest, and the one supported by the International Organization for Standardization, is that the order be year, month and day. Today, for example, is 01/04/03. If we all kept to this standard there would be no confusion in our hydro bills, natural gas bills, or on our driver's licence.

I am pleased to propose this bill, which is particularly important in the computer age.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Petitions

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased, pursuant to Standing Order 36, to table a hefty document signed by many concerned Canadians who are worried about the possible negative impacts of the free trade area of the Americas agreement. These people are demanding the right to see the full text that the Canadian government is negotiating with the other 34 countries.

They also state specifically that 5,000 copies should be made available in each language and circulated widely across the country, and that the total document should be published on the Internet.

Supply

[Stockwell Day, Canadian Alliance, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

moved:

That this House call 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; and that the inquiry should have broad terms of reference with the power to subpoena all relevant documents and witnesses.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to indicate that I will be splitting my time with the member for South Surrey—White Rock—Langley.

I rise today on this supply day motion that the House call for an independent judicial inquiry into the various business dealings of the Prime Minister that unfortunately have come to be known, in a negative light, as Shawinigate.

Specifically, we want the inquiry to examine whether the Prime Minister was in a direct conflict of interest when he lobbied crown agencies for money on the hotel he once co-owned and located next door to a golf course in which he had a financial interest.

For several weeks the Liberal government has been saying in this House that we need to move on from Shawinigate and to start debating real issues.

Today, the motion of the official opposition offers the government and the Prime Minister the opportunity to get out of the mess they are in and to take Shawinigate out of the hands of the politicians and put it into the hands of an independent judicial inquiry.

We offer the opportunity to get this out of the hands of politicians and move it into the hands of an independent inquiry.

The Prime Minister has no one but himself to blame for the issue dragging on for the last two years. Had there been full disclosure from the beginning, we would not be here today over two years later calling for a judicial inquiry to finally and fully determine all the facts.

For two years the Shawinigate scandal has been the background noise of Canadian politics. For two years we have been faithfully holding the government to account on this issue.

While the government has continued to go on as if it is business as usual, in its usual “Don't worry, be happy” fashion, every once in a while Shawinigate has popped up like a toothache that has never been treated. It just gets worse and worse. We are proposing a root canal. We want this to go to an independent public inquiry.

More and more Canadians are focusing on this issue every day. At first, with all the stories of numbered companies, financial transactions and secret shareholders, it seemed complicated. However, it really comes down to a simple principle: The Prime Minister pressured a crown corporation to give hundreds of thousands of dollars, $615,000 to be exact, to the hotel next to the golf course in which he had a financial interest.

Those things are very clear. The Prime Minister appears to have used his office to secure his own financial position and that is wrong.

Worse still, the Prime Minister has attempted to cover up the whole affair. The official opposition has been asking questions for two years without any satisfactory answers. His staff and even his cabinet seem to have tried to mislead us in order to cover up for their boss.

The Prime Minister himself has made certain statements that proved later to be false. Shawinigate is all this; not just a bank president, a numbered company, or a legal agreement. It is above all a Prime Minister who appears to be abusing of the powers of his position and then wants to see us put an end to the whole affair.

It is unacceptable. I have been saddened, the people in the Chamber have been saddened and I believe the people of Canada have been saddened to see the highest elected office in the land treated with such disrespect and misused in this way.

It is important that we consider some of the many contradictions we have heard from the Prime Minister and his defenders on this file.

First, the Prime Minister said that all of his assets were placed in a blind trust. He said that very clearly. In his public declaration of declarable assets dated March 1, 1994 the Prime Minister declared:

I declare that I hold a third of the shares of J&AC Consultants Inc., a private company managed by a third party who is not dependent on me and without a right of regard on my part.

Those are the legal words for a blind trust. The only regard of which he does not have any is his disregard to the Canadian people.

It was J&AC Consultants that owned the shares in the Grand-Mère golf club. J&AC Consultants was still owed $300,000 from Mr. Jonas Prince after the supposed sale of the shares in November 1993.

The Prime Minister said in the House on March 23, 1999 “I put all my assets in the trust. It is a blind trust. I did exactly that so I would not have to reply to that type of question”. He did not want to reply to the question, that is for sure. We know now that his blind trust had peripheral vision.

We know from the ethics counsellor that the Prime Minister and his lawyer acting as an agent were actively involved in trying to find new buyers for his shares, shares which the Prime Minister supposedly did not own after November 1, 1993. That is what he tried to tell us.

At the same time the Prime Minister was lobbying for money from the Business Development Bank of Canada and meeting with immigrant investors, some of whom were being investigated for criminal reasons, while the Prime Minister's staff was pushing for HRDC grants, all to help the neighbouring Auberge Grand-Mère.

Second, we have the contradictions over the ownership of the shares themselves. The Prime Minister claimed repeatedly that he sold the shares in the golf club on November 1, 1993. Now we know that the supposed buyer of those shares, Mr. Jonas Prince, in his own words, never considered himself or considered the flimsy back of a napkin note on which the supposed sale was written to be a purchase. It was simply in the mind of Mr. Jonas Prince, an option to buy.

We also know that Mr. Prince paid the Prime Minister's company $40,000 in November 1997 to settle this botched agreement. In the words of Mr. Prince, it was to extricate himself from that deal and make it be known that he had nothing more to do with it. Only the Prime Minister had a lot to do with it. In his own words, Mr. Prince indicated this.

We now know that the corporate records of the golf club were never changed to show that Mr. Prince was the owner of the shares. As far as we know, J&AC Consultants may have been listed as the owner of these shares until some time last week.

Melissa Marcotte, the lifelong friend of the Prime Minister and the daughter of one of the co-owners of the golf club, admitted to the National Post two weeks ago that “he never sold them”. Then after some pressure, we do not know exactly what it was, the story changed and maybe he did own them. The pressure from the Prime Minister's office was significant and severe.

We have been walking through this charade, we have been walking through this dance of seven veils and we continue to get no answers. We think the people of Canada deserve the answers.

Some of the Prime Minister's disciples and followers, the few who are sitting in the ranks opposite, have said that the Prime Minister could not be capable of such a thing, that he could not be capable of anything less than full disclosure and full honesty and that it would be impossible. It is important to note that we are talking about the Prime Minister who, in a situation related to a vote on the ethics counsellor, ordered men and women to vote against their own word. We are talking about a Prime Minister who ordered them to break their word. Would he be capable of contradiction on this file? Absolutely he would and he has proven it. This needs to go to an independent inquiry.

We have other contradictions over the Prime Minister and his role in lobbying for the auberge. The Prime Minister, the Minister of Industry and the Prime Minister's spokesman, Mr. Donolo, all said that the Prime Minister had not interfered with the BDC, which acted independently and according to normal procedures. They were all on record saying this.

Peter Donolo said:

The government does not get directly involved in the lending decisions of the BDC. Decisions for that are made entirely by appropriate officials within the BDC.

We now know, after pressure from us and others, that internal BDC members said the loan in fact did not follow normal policies and that the Prime Minister met with the bank president personally at 24 Sussex Drive to discuss it, and called him about it on the phone.

No wonder the majority of Canadians in every poll which has been taken are asking that this be moved to an independent inquiry.

These are just a few of the contradictions we face. Canadians need to know the truth. It is too late now for the Prime Minister to restore his promise about bringing accountability to the House of Commons. That day has passed. It now needs to move to the hands of an independent inquiry.

[Joe Jordan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I think what the Leader of the Opposition has done is laid out for Canadians a series of dots, but they are lacking the lines between the dots. They have a lot of statements such as apparently and allegedly.

I want to point out something. I want to quote the hon. Leader of the Opposition's phrase when he said the “flimsy back of a napkin” and how that was not an agreement of sale.

I want to bring his memory back to a company called Multicorp. Five years ago in Alberta there was a company that was being promoted by the premier of Alberta. The shares in that company were given to the wife of the premier and the wife of a Mr. Rod Love. After the shares skyrocketed and it became apparent that this may be an illegal gift, the Leader of the Opposition was confronted with the information and asked if perhaps this violated a conflict of interest. At the time he stood firmly and said no, it was a verbal sale that was acceptable to him. He also said it had no business in front of a judicial inquiry as it was simply the regular business of things.

Therefore, I want to know how he reconciles the fact that in Alberta, with certain political motivations and interest at stake, verbal sales are fine. However, when presented with a legal purchase agreement here, when his political motivations are different, all of a sudden we get the crocodile tears. Could he speak to that for a second?

[Stockwell Day, Canadian Alliance, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the research is worse than shabby. He talked about linking up all the dots. There are so many dots across the way that are not linked up, it looks like some kind of a maze that nobody can figure out, but a public inquiry could figure it out.

In the particular case he referred to, there was an ethics commissioner in place who reported to the legislature, not a personal ethics trainer who reports to the Prime Minister. Also, that ethics commissioner cleared the premier. However do the members know what the premier did? The premier went even further and said that because there was an appearance, he gave those shares back, something this Prime Minister has never done nor referred to.

What did the Prime Minister do? The Prime Minister told his members to vote against their own promise. Every one of these members voted against their own word. They promised an ethics commissioner but voted against their word. They broke their word in public, and they need to be held accountable.

He used the example of a man who took accountability against one who refuses to take accountability.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

I would ask all my colleagues to remain somewhat calm. We all know that this debate can incite many emotions, so please take it upon yourself to do it calmly.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition spoke of a loan for which the MP lobbied. Is he aware of and could he advise the House how much the original loan application of the Auberge Grand-Mère was from the BDC, how much the actual loan turned out to be and what was the interest rate?

[Stockwell Day, Canadian Alliance, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is one of a number of questions that has to go to an independent inquiry. We asked a number of questions over the last two years where we would get one answer then find out another.

We asked a very basic question. We asked the Prime Minister if he had ever been involved with the BDC. He and his disciples said there was no involvement, then we found out there was. We then asked was there a blind trust. We were told absolutely that there was a blind trust, but we then found out that it was not blind at all. As a matter of fact, he could fully see what was happening, and he had his lawyer trying to flog those shares.

We have asked question after question to which we got no direct answers. That is why I appreciate that question. It is one of a number that we need to see go to an independent inquiry because when we asked that question we did not get a direct response. An independent inquiry will give us that direct response.

[Val Meredith, Canadian Alliance, South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a shame for Canada that we have to be debating this in the House of Commons. It is a shame that there is not parliamentary reform that takes this issue out of the hands of the Prime Minister, where it is not legislated that the House can deal with the issue and that a private inquiry would be automatic in a situation like this.

It is really unfortunate that the members of the government cannot see that Canadians want this issue to be resolved by independent inquiry. They are doing everything that they possibly can to stop this from happening.

The issue we are dealing with in the House of Commons is whether or not there was a conflict of interest by the Prime Minister of Canada. That is the issue we must concern ourselves with.

The issue is very clear that the Auberge Grand-Mère Hotel received funding from the Business Development Bank of Canada because of the interference of the Prime Minister of Canada.

The Auberge Grand-Mère is adjacent to the Grand-Mère golf course in which the ownership of the shares was suspect at the time the Prime Minister was lobbying the BDC for a loan. The loan had been refused prior to the Prime Minister's lobbying. The Prime Minister told the House that he sold his shares in November 1993, three days before becoming the Prime Minister of Canada.

Canadians are concerned about the supposed agreement of sale with Jonas Prince, the owner of the Delta Hotel chain. It is unbelievable that two corporate lawyers would sign a handwritten agreement with no witnesses, with no place of signature and with no corporate seal, and Canadians do not expect that it is real. There was no down payment. There was no deposit even. In any kind of sale, even transferring the ownership of a car, there has to be some exchange of money.

Mr. Prince did not make a $75,000 loan payment on November 1, 1994, as was called for in the agreement. He did not make another similar payment in November of 1995, two years later. It was on January 27, 1996 when the Prime Minister first contacted the ethics counsellor to inform him that he had not been paid. If it was in a blind trust, how in heaven's name did he know he had not been paid? He was not to be informed of what was going on.

According to the ethics counsellor, the Prime Minister and his lawyer were to look for a way for him to get paid. If that is not involvement in a blind trust, I do not know what is. If the contract was truly valid, why did the lawyer, who was supposedly handling the affairs, not take the issue to court? That did not happen. Three and a half years later these shares eventually were passed on, sold, transferred to one of the original partners in the golf course.

One has to ask oneself why there was an accompanying document in 1999 signed by the Prime Minister in regard to his company J&AC Consultants. Why was there even that document in 1999 if he had no interest? It is quite clear to Canadians watching this unfold that there was a financial interest of the Prime Minister in what was happening not only with the golf course but the hotel next door.

Liberal members may believe in incredible coincidences, but within a month of informing the ethics counsellor that he still was owed money, the Prime Minister held a private meeting with immigrant investors to discuss investing in a hotel. Funnily enough, one of the coincidences was that the Grand-Mère hotel eventually received $2.5 million in investor funds.

A couple of months later, and this is another coincidence, the Prime Minister called the BDC on behalf of the hotel. After the BDC rejected the loan, the Prime Minister continued to lobby on behalf of the hotel, and gee, what happened? BDC changed its mind and loaned some money to the hotel.

That did not happen without the interference of or influence by the Prime Minister of Canada. He is not an ordinary member of parliament but the Prime Minister of Canada and he actually met on occasion with the president of the bank at 24 Sussex Drive. I cannot invite somebody to 24 Sussex Drive to lobby him. The Prime Minister went to extreme lengths to ensure that the Auberge hotel stayed afloat. The question is why. Gee, I wonder why.

For any of us here to try to pretend that what happens next door with regard to property we may own has nothing to do with our financial well-being is fooling ourselves. Before coming to this place, I spent years as a realtor and I was also in municipal government. Let me tell the House that a municipal government informs adjoining property owners of any changes to properties next door because there is an interest. As a realtor, there is no way that I would ever have sold a house on a handwritten document that had no witness, no place of location and no corporate seal. There are reasons why realtors would not do that when selling someone's property: because it would not be upheld in a court of law and would not be made binding.

We talk about interest because that is where the conflict of interest comes in. There is absolutely no doubt in the minds of Canadians that there was a financial interest to the Prime Minister and his associates with the golf course and with the hotel. If that hotel had gone bankrupt, the Prime Minister would have lost a whole lot more money than he did with the value of his shares. If—

[An hon. member]

If, if, maybe.

[Val Meredith, Canadian Alliance, South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, BC]

The Liberals are trying to pretend that these coincidences are just normal, common events. Unfortunately, there is a whole pattern here and this does not stand out as being unusual. There is a whole pattern in the Prime Minister's riding of this kind of exchange of money and exchange of influence, and people who are friends and colleagues end up with great sums of investors' money, bank money and HRDC money. This happens all the time.

There is a pattern here, but this one concerns Canadians because there is a conflict of interest. There was a financial gain to the Prime Minister of Canada with his interference with the BDC and getting that loan. There was a financial interest.

In conclusion, what we have here are a lot of unanswered questions and a lot of things that have to be cleared up. They will not be cleared up with this government. The government has refused to allow the principals to come before the industry committee to answer some of these questions and clear up this issue. The government has refused to co-operate and has left the opposition no other recourse than to call for an independent judicial inquiry to get the answers that are needed.

It is a shame that it has come to this point. It is a shame that there was not full disclosure earlier, that this thing could not have been cleared up earlier so that the House of Commons could move on to other important issues. However, Canadians are concerned that the high office of the Prime Minister shall not be tainted by a scandal, by all these questions left unanswered. Canadians want the issue cleared. Canadians want full disclosure and they want it sooner rather than later. They want it done by an independent inquiry that is not controlled by the Prime Minister, not controlled by the Prime Minister's Office and not controlled by the House leader of the government. Canadians want to know whether or not the Prime Minister was in a direct conflict of interest by lobbying for a loan.

At this time I would like to tell Canadians that we are hopeful the government will support this motion and see that inquiry happen.

I would like to move the following amendment to the motion. I move:

That the motion be amended by inserting before the word “establishment” the word “immediate”.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

I declare the amendment to be in order.

[Janko Peric, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. Leader of the Opposition took the liberty to say in his statement that he speaks on behalf of Canadians. Through you, Mr. Speaker, to the hon. Leader of the Opposition, there are some comments from individuals—

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

I am sorry to tell the member that it is the member for South Surrey—White Rock—Langley who was the main speaker, therefore comments should go through me to her.

[Janko Peric, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, to either one of them I want to pass on some comments from individuals in my riding who are saying that the opposition should stop, that enough is enough. Another constituent is saying “Enough is enough and the opposition should stop attacking Chrétien. Chrétien does not deserve this. It is stupid and ridiculous”.

Comments made by the previous speaker were an insult to me. The comments were that I was forced to vote with the government. My record will show and prove to them that I voted freely in the last two and a half terms, more often than any opposition member who was with the government.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

I would just remind the hon. member that members do not address each other by name. The hon. member should know that. He has been here for seven years.

[Val Meredith, Canadian Alliance, South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think the issue here is that Canadians do want this matter cleared up. If there is nothing to hide, if there is no reason that this should not be brought to the table, then why are the government members and the Prime Minister so opposed to having an independent inquiry? If there is nothing to hide, what is wrong with having an independent inquiry?

[Joe Clark, Progressive Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the hon. member who just spoke. With respect to the alleged bill of sale, were there witnesses to that bill of sale? Do we know the town, city, village or province in which it was signed? Is there any evidence of corporate records indicating that the sale in fact occurred?

[Val Meredith, Canadian Alliance, South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in answer to the hon. member's question, I do not even know if the two parties were together in the same room when this bill of sale was drafted. There is no recognition of witnesses to verify that those signatures are in fact the people who they purport to be. There is no witness or corporate seal to justify that the two individuals were in the same room at the same time or in what province it was and therefore in what jurisdiction it could be challenged.

That is why we need this judicial inquiry: so that the background information that may or may not support it is brought to the table. Like I said, in real estate and in municipal government we would never even have considered a document such as that.

[Joe Jordan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I must congratulate the opposition on its strategy. The first two speakers are very experienced in this issue, I think, having both come out on the wrong end of libel suits; the opposition has sent its pros to us.

However, I do want to ask a question of this speaker, who stood in the House of Commons yesterday and made a very serious allegation against the Prime Minister. She said that the owner of the Grand-Mère hotel had sworn on the Bible that there was a business relationship between his facility and the Grand-Mère golf course. I have the disposition here. Will she say that outside?

[Val Meredith, Canadian Alliance, South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the Liberals are willing to say things about us in here. I would like to know whether the hon. member would take his comments outside as well.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I believe you would find consent for the following motion:

That at the conclusion of the present debate on today's opposition motion, all questions necessary to dispose of this motion be deemed put, a recorded division deemed requested and deferred to the expiry of the time provided for government orders on Wednesday, April 4, 2001.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

Is there consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

(Motion agreed to)