Mr. Speaker, we are again on an opposition day motion. We are talking about an issue that has been around for two years. It has been through the scrutiny of the ethics counsellor, through an election campaign and through an RCMP review. Through all that time no one was able to make a case to justify that the Prime Minister was in a conflict of interest.
The Prime Minister has tabled personal documents in the House. That is a precedent which to my knowledge has never been done in the history of parliament. We have been through all that and yet when the Canadian Alliance has an opportunity to choose the topic of debate in the House, to have a meaningful debate on issues that are important and relevant to Canadians, we talk about Shawinigate.
I have a headline from the editorial of the April 12 Orillia Packet & Times which reads “Shawinigate obsession is getting tired”. It goes on to say to the opposition that it is time to move on. There is nothing there. Why does it keep tying up the business of the nation dealing with an issue when there is no case to be made?
We know why. It is really a contest between the Progressive Conservative Party and its leader who has championed this obsession and has carried it forward. The Canadian Alliance leader was a little distracted for a while with some of his own personal problems, but now he is into the contest.
Why? It is very clear. The media has widely reported that Bay Street has said to the right and the righter party that it would cut off their financing if they do not get together. There is a contest between the right and the righter party to try to get themselves together, so they are trying to outdo one another.
This has expanded into an unholy alliance with the Bloc Quebecois and to a certain degree the NDP. The NDP is trying to play both sides because if there is any mileage to be made, it wants to be seen to be part of the coalition. If it backfires, as I am sure it will, then it wants to keep its distance. The NDP is playing it particularly cozy.
We have to look at the facts and they are very clear. Opposition members said that if they were told who the fourth shareholder was they would drop the matter. We know who the fourth shareholder is and it is not the Prime Minister. However they did not drop the matter.
Opposition members said that if they had the documents and the bill of sale they would drop the matter. The bill of sale was tabled and still the matter has not been dropped. They do not want to drop the matter because they want to play politics with the issue.
The opposition wants to sully the reputation of the Prime Minister, a man who has been in public service for 38 years without any hint of a scandal. It wants to sully his reputation for purely crass and political purposes. That is a disgrace to the whole House. That is something Canadians recognize and they know full well that it is not what it should be.
The opposition then said that it would look at the documents and the bill of sale. However it criticized the bill of sale. It said that there was no date, location or seal on it, et cetera. By law it is not needed. Shares can be sold on a verbal contract.
All discussion on the bill of sale becomes irrelevant because we have the letter from the corporate solicitors for 161341 Canada Inc., the company that owns the golf course. The letter was tabled in the industry committee on March 20 and it states:
On November 1, 1993, the board approved the transfer to Akimbo Development Corporation of all the company shares held by J&AC Consultants Inc. Since that time, J&AC Consultants Inc. no longer appears in resolutions by the company shareholders, and—
The Prime Minister's name appears here.
—no longer appears in resolutions by the company directors;
That is corroboration that the shares were transferred and that they were acknowledged by the corporation in a resolution. That letter comes from the corporate solicitors.
The opposition will now take the position that those solicitors are either incompetent, dishonest, in the pocket of the Prime Minister, or smoking dope. Opposition members will find some way of discrediting the corporate solicitors because they have not told the opposition what it wants to hear. It is clear that nothing will satisfy the opposition.
The motion put forward by the opposition today calls for an independent inquiry. Even if it got an independent inquiry, I am sure those members would say that it was not done properly and whoever was appointed was not the right person and so on.
In our legal system there is the onus of proof. There is no onus to prove oneself innocent. The onus is on the person making the allegation of a conflict of interest to show some evidence. In this case we have been through the process for two full years and no one has been able to make the case that there is any evidence whatsoever of a conflict of interest.
What we have is a debt. The Prime Minister sold his shares. It was an unsecured debt. Mr. Prince owed the Prime Minister some money. The Prime Minister or his company retained no interest in those shares. They had no right to retake the shares regardless of what happened to the value of the shares in the golf course. If the golf course went bankrupt or if the shares tripled in value, the Prime Minister was only entitled to collect his original debt.
We see that the Prime Minister's trustee was involved in trying to collect on the debt. As part of the settlement on the debt there was a repurchase of the shares by someone else from Akimbo. We have evidence that shows that Mr. Prince was mistaken in law in thinking he had an option. He acknowledged in one of the subsequent agreements that he obtained a legal opinion that convinced him. I do not know why that would not satisfy the opposition, but it convinced Mr. Prince that he was mistaken in law and that he did retain the shares, so he resold them.
Opposition members quibble about the wording of the release clauses in the agreement or the indemnification clauses. They say there is a double conflict of interest because the Prime Minister's company said that if they dragged it into court it would be indemnified for its legal costs through the whole process. That is a standard legal agreement on any settlement.
As a solicitor I have signed many releases on behalf of clients or prepared them for clients. There is always an indemnification clause in any settlement agreement. It is a normal legal practice, yet the opposition continues to ask questions, et cetera.
The question comes down to what would be gained by having an independent inquiry that the opposition is requesting by the motion. I submit that nothing would be gained. A lot of public money would be spent when we should be dealing with more important issues.
Members throughout the debate have mentioned the question of the vote last Thursday when the opposition moved adjournment of the House. The government was responsible for not maintaining quorum and the House adjourned. Opposition members have not only been wasting the House's time in question period by dominating this one issue but they have also been wasting the time of the House by bringing in mischievous motions of adjournment when we should be dealing with the business of the nation.
I said to my constituents that as part of the government I assume responsibility for not being there to protect Canadians from the mischief of the opposition. I assume that responsibility, but I assure the House I will not permit the mischief of the opposition to carry the day on this motion. I am sure this side will vote against the motion so that we can get on with the business of the nation.