Debates of April 3rd, 2001

Supply

[Paul Devillers, Liberal, Simcoe North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the ethics counsellor was someone who was appointed with approval of the opposition parties at the time. It was the ethics counsellor's idea that he remain a counsellor and not a commissioner because of the principle of the independent, accountable government. If we were to have a commissioner telling the Prime Minister what to do, then why not just vote for the commissioner? Why would we have an election every four years and vote for a prime minister?

[Paul Forseth, Canadian Alliance, New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a sad day to have to rise and give reflection on, what so many in my riding are concerned about, ethics, truth and basic standards of governance.

I know the Liberal members opposite just do not want to look down into the abyss and contemplate what their leader has done and what they have done along with him. Recoil, deflect and excuse as they may, and uncomfortable as it is, we must go there, for the good of the country, to defend the credibility of parliament and preserve the basic idea of what Canada as a nation is all about.

The motion before us says:

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: and that the inquiry should have broad terms of reference with the power to subpoena all relevant documents and witnesses.

Sadly, for parliamentary leaders and even previous prime ministers, the problem was often money, combined with opportunity, greed and apparent need which was their eventual undoing. By the Prime Minister's own statements in the House, it appears he had all those elements.

It was thought that we as a nation had to overcome the old style behaviour of arm twisting for one's own riding, using favouritism and personal clout rather than rational program criteria at arm's length from officeholders, but not for the old style Liberals.

By the way, Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time.

What did the Prime Minister do to get money into his riding? The experience seems to suggest that the first thing for getting hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in federal money is to be under criminal investigation. Followers of Shawinigate may disagree and say that having a questionable business record worked better. Others might insist that making the right political contribution is the key. However, in reviewing those who got the money, it looks like having a criminal record, moving to Shawinigan and offering to buy any of the Prime Minister's assets made a lot of tax dollars just appear.

Take the case of the Grand-Mère hotel owner Yvon Duhaime. He has a number of criminal convictions, ranging from drunk driving to threatening fellow constituents. His previously failed venture with the L'Hotel des Chutes, for which at one point left him owing $150,000 in unpaid taxes as well as other bills, had to be a help to get him the Business Development Bank loan. plus another $189,000 in transitional job fund grants from the federal government.

Pierre Thibault, a recent immigrant from Belgium, who received $700,000 in TJF grants and another $925,000 in federal loan guarantees for Shawinigan's Auberge des Gouverneurs, could have secured federal funding for sure when he made an admission in writing to fiddling away nearly $1 million from his former business partners in Belgium.

If we wanted a ticket to ride on the Liberal gravy train perhaps it was example set by Paul Lemire and Mario Pépin, two Prime Minister supporters in Shawinigan who ran Groupe Force, a federal business development agency.

Lemire's credentials included being convicted for tax dealings and cheques, but then he and his partner were charged with theft and fraud for systematically diverting millions of dollars in federal development money into their own pockets.

I do not know if the Prime Minister's political friend, René Fugère, would find it more difficult to get federal funds when the police investigation into his affairs yielded no actual charges. However, maybe it is the fact that on some occasions he is the representative of the Prime Minister, which allowed him to get a stipend of 5% to 10% off the top of federal grants, of those it looked like he was able to secure for his business buddies.

Maybe we should follow the lead of Claude Gauthier who was fortunate enough in 1996 to buy some land from the Grand-Mère Golf Club, of which the Prime Minister may or may not have been an owner, but in which he admitted he had a financial interest. Mr. Gauthier paid $525,000 for the land, which help the golf course retire a $300,000 debt. In 1997 he was also the largest single contributor to the Prime Minister's re-election fund.

The following year, one of Gauthier's companies, Placeteco Inc., received $1.2 million in transitional job funds, although it apparently did not create a single lasting job but instead skipped the federal guidelines and just paid off an existing loan. However, in this case the pattern was broken and the Prime Minister's office worked for Gauthier to get his tax money, despite the fact that he had no known criminal record.

It is old style political parties that just have no shame. What values are the Liberals showing? During the last election the Prime Minister declared that the Liberal Party of Canada represented Canadian values. What Liberal values was the Prime Minister demonstrating when he refused to tell about being involved in securing a loan from the Business Development Bank for the man who bought the Grand-Mère hotel for him?

The Shawinigan affair also has a basic economic aspect. Even if we take the Prime Minister at his word, what was the rationale for giving $615,000 of our tax dollars to a perennial losing venture? The Prime Minister and his defenders declared that it was for economic development, but even if we allowed that charade to go unchallenged, did the Grand-Mère hotel have the greatest potential for long term economic benefit for the region? The Business Development Bank had already turned down the loan for good reason.

Can anyone be surprised that a hotel, which consistently had financial problems and could not pay its bills, would be unable to meet new debt obligations? We must remember that the Grand-Mère never made a single interest payment on the Business Development Bank loan that the Prime Minister lobbied so hard to get.

How little financial sense would one need to go to bat for such a program? Is this really what passes for economic development? I am afraid of the answer, in far too many cases for the government, has been yes. I am afraid that this whole episode gets us to the heart of Liberal values. When one peels back the layers of the white onion, we discover that it is rotten black in the core.

This is not an isolated incident. The auditor general made it clear in October that there is a secret group of unelected Liberal insiders who vet and determine every grant in Quebec. There are four other RCMP investigations into federal grants in this riding.

In the past decade billions of dollars have been handed out solely for political purposes under the guise of economic development. It is crude vote buying with public funds and it does not even cross the Prime Minister's mind that all this is wrong.

This is old time Liberal political values in action. The more important question is how closely these values reflect the values of average Canadians.

A reasonable person looking at the facts would conclude that a conflict of interest is not in doubt at all and basically is no longer even denied. The Prime Minister boasted of what he did and admitted that he had a great personal motive in that he wanted to get paid and that he needed the money as he did not get a top up salary like the Conservative leader does.

The outstanding debt for his shares meant that the Prime Minister had a financial interest in the golf club, yet he was pouring public funds into the adjoining inn. After a halfhearted attempt to explain away the conflict by claiming that the inn had no business ties with the golf club, shown to be utterly false by the way, the Prime Minister and his defenders have reverted to simply reciting balderdash.

Beyond Shawinigan there stretches the great, uncharted wasteland of the Human Resources Development Department and its programs, a billion dollar money pot whose disbursal was overseen not just by Liberal MPs but by unelected party hacks.

Maybe it could be said that the Grand-Mère Golf Club is ground zero for a much larger phenomenon of the government: the politicization of public spending and of public institutions, such as the Business Development Bank and other crown corporations whose boards are packed with Liberal Party friends to the corruption of their legal purpose and to the detriment of the public interest.

What cannot be denied is the historical pattern over the years of sleaze from both the Liberal and Conservative governments in the past, and this one does not disappoint us at all; it is just business as usual.

The Prime Minister, by his conduct, sets the tone, just as Mulroney did. No one is accusing the Prime Minister of a crime, yet. Nevertheless, rather than compare the Prime Minister's behaviour to that of a criminal, a better yardstick to measure is: What would an ethical leader have done?

When Duhaime approached the Prime Minister, he should have kicked him out of his office and told him that he could not intervene as their business interests were intertwined. An ethical person, indeed a lawyer, would have gone out of his way to even avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, especially when he was the Prime Minister and had an extra duty to lead by example. Indeed, public office holders are obliged to do so by the conflict of interest code.

However, an educated person would not need such instructions or rules. In a position of public trust, they would know that it is not another person's role to maintain standards and values. It is his job alone to keep himself above suspicion.

The Prime Minister may claim, trying to cover his tracks, that his conduct did not technically violate the code, that the issue involves many grey areas and that maybe he was sloppy as a lawyer and as leader of the country.

However, an ethical person does not need to seek refuge in grey areas and fuzziness. A real leader insists that there should be no clouds over his integrity by behaving properly. A worthy Prime Minister takes the steps that are needed to be sure of standing in the light so he could never be called a crook.

I would ask the Prime Minister, for the sake of the country, to accept today's motion before the House.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate. I have been puzzled by some of the remarks earlier, and I will come back to it with a question for the hon. member opposite because I know he is from British Columbia.

The leader of the fifth party earlier talked about the former premier of British Columbia, Mr. Bill Vander Zalm, and he talked about a report that had been done by Mr. Ted Hughes. I think he said that in his report Mr. Hughes had stated that the premier was the highest elected position in the province and that he had a duty with respect to conflict of interest.

I was living in British Columbia at that time and what I think the right hon. member forgot to mention was the fact that there was a small matter of $15,000 or thereabouts in bank notes that were in the safe of the premier's fantasyland gardens, or whatever it was called, just outside of Vancouver, and it happened to be from a land developer, et cetera.

In this particular case, it is fairly clear that the Prime Minister had no personal interest. He had a debt owing to him but the shares had clearly been sold even though the share register was not updated. As a chartered accountant, I have dealt with many companies with registered shares that had not been updated for years on end. I had to tell them to update.

The shares were clearly sold. The Prime Minister tabled the bill of sale. He had a receivable from someone who was an executive of some means so that the loan could be recovered through the courts. It had nothing to do with the interdependence of the golf course and the hotel. It had everything to do with a receivable from a person who had the means to pay the receivable. It was a fixed sum.

I find the debate is really out of hand. I know the hon. member is from British Columbia so perhaps he will remember the incident involving the former premier, Bill Vander Zalm. I think to draw that analogy is absolutely scurrilous.

[Paul Forseth, Canadian Alliance, New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, what I was trying to point out was that what appears to be surrounding the Prime Minister's riding is just the tip of the iceberg, a part of a longstanding pattern of Liberal governments going back many years. It is just the old style of politics.

It is also obvious, I think, that the average Canadian understands that if all the government money from various departments and programs did not come into the riding by various means, the Prime Minister would not get paid. He stood in the House, put his hand over his chest and admitted how much of a desire and a motivation he had to get paid. Certainly he moved all of government to make sure he did get paid. That is what the appearance is.

However, in the context of British Columbia, I would also say that if this whole scenario were being played out in the legislature of British Columbia we would not be debating this today. This would have been dealt with, because the standards in British Columbia for apparent conflict of interest are much higher than those of the House of Commons.

[Roy H. Bailey, Canadian Alliance, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I want to get to my hon. colleague's remarks, but I just want to say that I have lived at least 21 years of my professional career under some pretty severe rules of conduct and professional behaviour. As a young man I was a principal. I could have put my wife on staff, but I did not because I could see that and we had a code of ethics as board members. I had a code of ethics before me, all written out, as a member of the legislative assembly. If anyone on the board had phoned a bank to guarantee that a contractor would get a job, bingo, he would have been off the board.

The Prime Minister admittedly phoned the Business Development Bank. It was a total conflict of interest. That fact cannot be successfully denied by anybody in Canada.

I would like to ask the hon. member this: cannot your constituents see that it is a total conflict of interest and the Prime Minister should admit that guilt now and come clean on defending what is supposed to be a code of ethics for all members of parliament?

[The Deputy Speaker]

I am in a bit of a dilemma because time has lapsed. I will take it as a way of comment to the House, respectfully to the colleague who had the floor.

[Keith Martin, Canadian Alliance, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak on this motion. I am somewhat disappointed that it has actually come to this, that the House has not been able to deal with more constructive issues. However, we, as an opposition party, and other colleagues on this side of the House are obligated to try to get to the truth of the matter.

Contrary to what the government says, the public does want answers. Eight out of ten people want this issue to end. They want it to be over and done with so that we can get to the real issues affecting Canadians. However, eight out of ten Canadians also want there to be full disclosure of the Prime Minister's papers. They have said to the Prime Minister very clearly that they want to have answers to the questions that are there in front of him, that they want full disclosure and they want the truth, and that then they can move on.

I am sure that the Prime Minister, after 38 years of service in the House and in the winter of his political career does not want to have the stench of Shawinigate hanging around his shoulders as he leaves office. It would do a huge disservice to him and the years of service that he has put into the House and into this country for him to not answer the questions that have been posed, not only by my colleagues here in the House but also by members in his own caucus and of course by the public. The public wants to move on, but it wants answers.

The Prime Minister's tactic of relying on public fatigue, on opposition fatigue, will simply not wash. It will not end this issue. There has been ample evidence presented by my colleagues as to why he should make full disclosure.

This whole issue reflects a more disturbing trend in politics in Canada today. In fact, it reveals the unrivalled power that our Prime Minister has in our so-called democracy. Indeed, no leader of any other western democracy has the power the Prime Minister of Canada has. The president of the United States, I think the public would be interested to know, would do cartwheels down the White House lawn if he had the same powers our Prime Minister has. That must change.

In fact, this whole issue reflects the unbridled and unaccountable power that the person in that office holds today in our country. When Mr. Trudeau said that MPs were nobodies 50 feet off the Hill, he was merely reflecting the power that he himself was beginning to amass around him. Indeed, it has become more centralized as time has passed.

Many individuals in the House and, indeed, members across the way in the government have spoken quite eloquently on the unbridled and unaccountable power that the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister's Office hold today. It is not something to be proud of. It is not something constructive for the members of the House or, more important, for the Canadian public, the reason being that it muzzles and compromises the innovation and abilities of every single person in the House, including those in cabinet.

Cabinet members unfortunately are unable to exercise their abilities and their rights to the checks and balances that have occurred. I think the public would be very interested to know that the right hand person of a minister of the crown is a deputy minister not appointed or approved by the minister but by the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister's Office. That is an intriguing check and balance on the ability of any minister of the crown to be able to exercise foresight, responsibility and leadership in the area of their chosen field.

It also reflects a lack of responsibility and accountability to the public and a lack of respect for the public. We have, as my colleague mentioned, an ethics counsellor appointed by the Prime Minister and responsible to the Prime Minister, as opposed to having an independent person in that position. We see money spent without accountability or public scrutiny. In fact, the auditor general has repeatedly warned the House and the public of the dangers of that. Year in and year out, he has put forth constructive solutions as to how we can deal with it. Is he ever listened to? No. Are those solutions ever implemented? No, they are not.

What a tragedy for a good man, Mr. Denis Desautels, who is now leaving his position after 10 years. He has worked hard for the public good and has given direction to every member in the House as to how we can improve the use of the public purse. The tragedy that I think the public should know about is that those solutions are rarely, if ever, adhered to and implemented. How disheartening for a good team of people trying to engage in the public good.

We have seen, as my colleague mentioned, where public moneys are used—the Export Development Corporation, the Business Development Bank, crown corporations, the new fund for innovation and $1.25 billion—without accountability, without public scrutiny. We have seen contracts for CIDA that have often been disbursed not on the basis of what is useful or what would be wise but on who the friends of the government are or for political reasons.

All this is reflected in the fact that we now see fewer people engaging in the public process and fewer people voting. We saw it in our last federal election, where only three-fifths of the Canadian public actually came out to vote. Why is there this declining number? Because the public sees this institution as increasingly irrelevant to their lives and, indeed, as unable to tackle the big issues that face all of us.

We have seen ministers talk about fictional burning crosses. We have seen ministers call a member in my caucus a pig. Why? I think it is because the members on the other side are bored. They are bored, they do not have direction and they do not have vision, because the Prime Minister is predicating his actions on trying to keep the opposition fractured rather than articulating a vision to deal with the big issues that face our nation.

While Rome burns, the following is not happening. We are not seeing action to save a health care system in a critical state of disrepair. We have a medical manpower crisis where the average specialist is in his or her mid-forties to mid-fifties, including general surgeons, urologists, obstetricians and gynecologists who are all toward the end of their careers. There is a severe lack of individuals in these critical specialties. We have to act now to train those who will replace them.

We are seeing an unsustainable system of pensions in the country that will not provide for members of the Canadian public when they retire. The expectation is that there will be pensions that they will be able to live on. As we know, the people who constructed our pension scheme knew it was a Ponzi scheme and knew it would not be there to provide the moneys that would be needed for our people to retire on.

As a result we will have massive numbers of people in future generations who will not have enough money. They will be part of the elderly poor, individuals who will live from hand to mouth every single day for the remainder of their lives.

We have a dollar that is one one-hundredth of a cent away from the lowest it has ever been. Are we seeing this crisis dealt with by the government? No.

On environmental systems, we are labelled as one of the worst polluters around for an OECD nation. Our government is partially responsible for this.

We have a parliamentary system that is undemocratic.

We have an education system where the cost is so high that education is becoming the purview of only the rich and the connected. We see a dearth of professors and teachers. We have to deal with that now so our children will have people to teach them and so we will develop the excellence necessary to move the country forward in the coming years.

In our defence system, our soldiers have been given a raise, but the public may want to know that the money is being taken away from them in raises to the rents for private married quarters and in further costs imposed upon our soldiers. These people are worn out and tired and their numbers are insufficient to meet the demands the foreign affairs department places upon them. These men and women who put their lives on the line for our country are worn out and tired and many are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorders.

While Rome burns, this House behaves like a group of people in a sandbox. It is the responsibility of all of us to change that. All I can say is that the Prime Minister has in his hands the ability to answer questions about Shawinigate. He and only he has the ability to put this all out on the table so that he can close this chapter in Canadian politics and move on to the big issues I have articulated.

I wish to say on behalf of all Canadians, Mr. Prime Minister, open the books, answer the questions and let us move on.

[Mac Harb, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman seems to be a reasonable member of parliament. I want to read for him three quotes.

The first one is from the Leader of the Opposition when he was in Alberta in 1996 and an issue affecting some sort of situation in the House came up. He said “It would be an abdication of our role as legislators if we depart from dealing with the internal proceedings of this House and hand it over to some other adjudicating body”.

The second quote is from the member for Calgary—Nose Hill. The member on January 2 in the National Post in an interview commented on this whole situation. She said “I don't think that warrants a criminal investigation. To be a credible person, especially in public life, you have to go to the facts...I don't think it would be responsible to make these kinds of suggestions”.

The third and final quote I want to ask my colleague to comment on is from the member for Edmonton North in Hansard on March 15 when she indicated that “The Prime Minister could get over this in a heartbeat by just tabling his bill of sale for those shares in 1993”.

I want to ask my colleagues to frankly put all of the partisanship aside. With respect to all those statements, the Prime Minister has dealt with each one of them in a very effective and efficient way. He has answered each one of them openly in the House, outside the House and during an election campaign. At the same time, on the issue of the investigation and potential criminal offence the RCMP has looked at these issues and one of our colleagues has said there is no problem there. With regard to the third point on tabling the bill of sale, the Prime Minister has tabled the bill of sale.

We have the House to debate the issue in and we have been doing so for a long time. With regard to the second point, there is no criminal action by anyone. On the third point, the Prime Minister has tabled all of the necessary documentation.

Having heard all of that, does the member really believe that the House should vote for a public inquiry and spend millions of dollars unnecessarily?

[Keith Martin, Canadian Alliance, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition was quite correct in saying that things ought to be dealt with internally. The problem with the issue is that the internal mechanisms in the House are inadequate to deal with this.

We tried to make the ethics counsellor an independent officer of the House and the government decided not to. This was against its red book promise. If the internal mechanisms functioned in the House, as the Leader of the Opposition wanted when he was the treasurer of Alberta, we would not be debating this today because these questions would be answered. The problem is that the internal mechanisms do not work and the questions still need to be answered.

The opposition is merely echoing the statements made by the Prime Minister's own colleagues from Oshawa, Guelph—Wellington and Vaudreuil—Soulanges who want to see an independent public inquiry into this matter.

This inquiry does not require millions of dollars. In fact, it does not require one red cent. The Prime Minister only has to put the papers on the table, answer the questions and we will move on.

[John Bryden, Liberal, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that bothers me about this debate is that there has been evidence presented by the Prime Minister, and I think it is very full and complete evidence. However the accusations remain. I always thought there was a presumption of innocence.

Does the member not feel that what is actually going on here with this call for an inquiry is the Prime Minister is being asked to prove his innocence? Is that not what is being asked?

[Keith Martin, Canadian Alliance, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member is quite right. People are innocent until proven guilty. In all accusations and in a court of law people have to put forth their side of the story.

The fact of the matter is the Prime Minister is not an ordinary MP. Things have taken place of a private nature but public funds were used. Maybe nothing did take place. However questions have to be answered. These questions refer to public funds being used. Many people have asked these questions, including the Prime Minister's own colleagues.

Since we are all in agreement that questions need to be answered, the member should either get his Prime Minister to answer the questions or have the public inquiry.

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

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.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I did not get into this debate yet and I did that for a specific reason. Frankly, sometimes I think I have terrible luck because I got stuck being on duty today of all days, and I have had to listen to this debate ad nauseam.

I honestly believe that all the points were made were in the first two speeches. That was much earlier today, and I have had to sit here. I think the public is probably tired of hearing about all of this. I honestly do not know if there is any substance to these allegations or not, neither does the public nor does anyone in this room. This is all the more reason why more and more people are asking parliament to be done with this issue and move on to some issues of substance.

However the reason the House of Commons could be seized by such a petty issue is that the legislative agenda of the Liberal government is such thin gruel that there is very little else to debate. Nature hates a vacuum and when there is one all kinds of things rush in to fill that space. That is what we are seeing with the precious time we have in the House of Commons.

Would the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister not agree that there are far more issues of substance that we should be dealing with? We should be dealing with the recent articles we saw from groups like the anti-poverty activists on the growing gap between the rich and the poor, which is expanding to an embarrassing degree. Would the parliamentary secretary not be willing to admit that his government is partly at fault for not having any issues of substance for the country to really get seized on, therefore leaving a vacuum that can be filled by the waste of time we are witnessing today?

[Joe Jordan, Liberal, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let me just say to the member who I have a great deal of respect for, if we are guilty of that, let us be guilty of that. However the frustrations that many of us feel with the disconnect that we are having with voters should not manifest itself in some kind of judicial inquiry based on revenge. I do not think that is the way the system works. We have to keep these issues separate.

I go back to my original point. The critical piece that is missing from the glass house that has been built by the opposition is the fact that the shares were sold in 1993. Without that link, without the potential for financial gain, they have nothing. To walk down the road of a judicial inquiry to the highest office in the land based on no facts, I have to share Justice Sopinka's view, would be a repugnant act and a disservice to our constituents and Canadians.

The issues that member raises are valid. I think Canadians want this place to start addressing the issues of the day. I had to laugh today when the Leader of the Opposition stood up and said they had been talking about softwood lumber for months. He must be referring to the pine trees on the golf course because that is the only lumber that they have been talking about for four months. They have been absolutely obsessed with this thing, like a dog with a bone.

The leader of the Conservative Party is on a self-confessed fishing expedition. I hope he is outside because it is getting warm, the ice is melting and I know he is not a good swimmer. He is going to go down into a very deep hole if he is not careful.

Canadians want us to move on. In the absence of any facts or proof, when we are standing here with a document from the ethics counsellor and a document from the RCMP saying there is no criminal wrongdoing, then there is no basis to go any further than this. It is just cheap partisan tactics and it ends here.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Given the co-operation earlier from the member for Elk Island in a similar situation, I will give him the floor.

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured that the Liberal member would quote from one of my speeches back in 1994 when the ethics counsellor was first appointed.

I probably said what he quoted. I do not have a total recollection of what I said that many years ago. I can hardly believe that he quoted everything I said because I would almost certainly have said “too bad that he is not independent”. I trust the ethics counsellor as a person but he is not independent as promised in the election campaign.

I would like the hon. member to comment on the fact that the ethics counsellor was hired by and is answerable only to the Prime Minister and not to parliament directly.

[Joe Jordan, Liberal, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, was the member referring to me? I was elected by the people of Leeds—Grenville to represent them.

I quoted the member accurately. For the love of God, I will not go back into the archives and read any more of his speeches to correct it.

[Gar Knutson, Liberal, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I commend the previous speaker and I congratulate him on the fine job he did. I also want to pick up on a theme of my hon. opponent from the New Democratic Party.

It is repetitive because the facts in the matter are not very complicated. The whole issue turns on very simple facts. We debated those facts during the election campaign. Why in heavens name would the opposition want to bring up an issue that was discussed very thoroughly? It did what opposition parties do in a campaign, which is to try to make the Liberals and its leader look bad.

Canadians heard that the Prime Minister called a bank manager about getting a loan for a business in his own riding. The Prime Minister explained that was a normal function of what a member of parliament does. They intervene with businesses like the Business Development Bank. I have called the Business Development Bank on behalf of constituents in my riding.

While Canadians may have felt some unease about the power of the Prime Minister's office, they acknowledged that he is a member of parliament, that he sits as an ordinary MP and that he plays by the rules. They knew he had constituents to represent the same way all of us do. They made a judgment and re-elected the Prime Minister with a bigger majority than he had in the previous election.

However the opposition feel that there is some tiny nugget or some huge scandal. Talking to the people in my riding, Canadians are sick of this issue and sick of the opposition tactics. They do not understand why we are not discussing issues of significant merit.

Do members remember the debate we had on free trade years ago and how that was a huge issue for parliamentarians? There was a big debate across the country. We will have an extension of that in a few weeks time with the negotiations in Quebec City. Do we hear about that from the opposition? I agree that we hear about it from the fourth party. The New Democrats are making an issue of it but the remaining parliamentarians are relatively silent on this.

I, like the rest of my Liberal colleagues, will not support the motion. We see it as cheap political theatrics. It is not doing parliament nor the opposition any good, and the polling numbers will show that. If we were to have an election today I think we would come back with even a stronger majority, but I agree that is speculative.

I oppose the motion because we have all the relevant documents. The ethics counsellor has confirmed that there is no conflict of interest. Did the Prime Minister do anything wrong? Most certainly not. He had no personal interest in the hotel. The opposition has tried to string together the business of the hotel with the business of the golf course to say that he did but that just does not wash.

After the Prime Minister sold his shares in 1993 he had an outstanding debt owed to him. Any changes in the value of the golf course had no effect on the value of the debt. That is basic to any contract.

If the opposition members wanted to they could probably make an argument that the Prime Minister had an interest in all Mr. Prince's affairs. What do we want to do? Do we want to look at everything that Mr. Prince owned and see if the Prime Minister was involved in trying to make Mr. Prince more able to pay back the debt? That would be a huge fishing expedition.

The member for Edmonton North said that the Prime Minister could get over this in a heartbeat by just tabling the bill of sale for those shares in 1993. The Prime Minister tabled the bill of sale though he did not have to do so. When he tabled it the opposition then said that it did not mean anything. That has been typical of the whole scenario.

If we were to have a judicial inquiry and it cleared the Prime Minister or said that he did not do anything wrong, that he acted as a normal parliamentarian, I am sure the opposition would then slam the judicial inquiry. It would then ask who the judges were and say that they were appointed by the Prime Minister and that they were biased. It would go on and on.

Members opposite made a lot of fuss about the bill of sale. The members for Roberval, Edmonton North, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, and Calgary Centre said that all the Prime Minister had to do was present the bill of sale to the House and the matter would be over. It is now two weeks since he presented the bill of sale in the House. Is the matter over? No, because the opposition wants to keep grinding at it.

This raises the analogy of beating a dead horse. The opposition got the bill of sale and it is not happy because it shows that the Prime Minister did not have a personal interest in the whole affair. His interest was for a constituent and he did what any of us would do as members of parliament. He intervened on behalf of his riding. That is what members of parliament do. That is what the opposition does.

Did the Prime Minister do anything wrong? I ask members in the House who have made representations on behalf of their constituents if they have done anything wrong. This issue of calling the bank came up at all candidates debates during the election. It probably came up in the campaigns of my colleagues. It was an issue that needed some explaining during the campaign and Canadians have spoken.

I came back with a bigger majority and a greater margin of victory than in the last election. Canadians understand it even if the opposition does not.

I hope the opposition will be honest enough to say that in our constitutional system one of the most important responsibilities of members of parliament is to represent the interests of their constituents. It is a fundamental part of our form of democracy. We are elected out of communities and we are supposed to represent those communities.

Did the Prime Minister do anything wrong? We can ask the ethics counsellor who has already told both the official and the unofficial opposition leaders:

—the Prime Minister had no personal financial interest in play. He was dealing as an MP on behalf of a constituent.

In his statement on March 1 he said:

The legal debt owed the Prime Minister was unaffected by the value of the golf course. If the value increased, the Prime Minister had no claims for a higher payment. If the value of the course were to decrease, the debt owed to the Prime Minister remained the same.

The opposition tried to discredit the ethics counsellor, a respected public servant who has only done his job. I wish to say that I believe what he told us when he said:

—it would be unfair and inappropriate to the interest of a minister's constituents to extend to crown corporations the rules which apply in the case of a quasi-judicial tribunal and which limit the capacity of a minister to represent his or her constituents.

In other words, do we want to put constituents of the Minister of National Defence, the Minister of Justice or the Prime Minister at a disadvantage because they elected people who are qualified and honoured to serve in cabinet? I do not believe so. Does the opposition actually think that the constituents of Saint-Maurice have less a right to the service of their MP than the constituents of another MP?

The Auberge Grand-Mère received a loan from the BDC, the caisse populaire and the Fonds de solidarité. The BDC was not the only group to consider the Auberge Grand-Mère a worthwhile investment.

Did the Prime Minister influence those other organizations? Was there something untoward in that? Of course not. To suggest it would be ridiculous. Did the Prime Minister do anything wrong? We can ask the people for whom the expansion of the hotel created some 20 new jobs. We can ask the people in the region of relatively high unemployment who have a source of work today because the hotel has been able to stay open for business.

Did the Prime Minister do anything wrong? We can ask the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who looked into the matter at the request of the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party.

The RCMP found that there were no grounds to launch a criminal investigation. Therefore on what grounds should we have an inquiry? Judicial inquiries should not be created to satisfy the political interests of the opposition. There was no hard evidence of criminal activity. There was none and the RCMP has told us as much.

What would be the point of such an inquiry? The opposition referred the issue to the ethics counsellor and it did not like what he said. It referred it to the RCMP that found no grounds for investigation, but it did not want to hear that either.

The Prime Minister has been subjected to unthinkable scrutiny and questioning and has taken the unprecedented step of tabling in the House the private documents the opposition asked to see. It is still not satisfied. The opposition wants us to spend thousands and millions of taxpayer dollars so that maybe it can dig up something on which to attack the Prime Minister. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, to be found. The opposition still would not be satisfied.

The government was not elected to waste time and money on this kind of nonsense. The government and all members of parliament were elected to devote time, energy and resources to what matters to Canadians: the environment, health care, international trade, and the well-being of the agricultural sector. Canadians are more interested in having their time and money spent on those kinds of public inquiries.

We are ready to get on with the business of Canada whenever the opposition gets over this and turns to what matters to Canadians. I ask all hon. members to oppose the motion.

[Roy H. Bailey, Canadian Alliance, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, every professional organization I know of in Canada formulates its own code of ethics. Lawyers, doctors, teachers and every local government board that I served on formulate their own code of ethics. They have a living document in their possession. We in the House do not have a living document as to what constitutes a code of ethics.

Would the hon. member who has just spoken not agree that the House and the most senior government in Canada should have a living document that spells out a code of ethics? Should we not have a part in what formulates it so it can be shown to all Canadians that we adhere to one policy on both sides of the House and not the way it is right now? Should we as a parliamentary group not select, much as we do the Speaker, the ethics counsellor?

[Gar Knutson, Liberal, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member is asking if we need a code of conduct. I appreciate that and perhaps there is a good argument that we should have a code of conduct.

The member was not an MP between 1993 and 1997, but there was a committee that studied the issue of a joint parliamentary code of conduct for private members and members of the Senate. It dealt with issues like accepting money for travelling and a variety of other issues.

The issue we are debating today is not a code of conduct for parliamentarians. It is a code of conduct for the Prime Minister himself.

I remind the hon. member that the Prime Minister, in order to remain as Prime Minister, must enjoy the confidence of the House. He is the one who is ultimately responsible for making sure that his government maintains an ethical standard. As first minister he is the one responsible for that. He is not one of my equals. He is the Prime Minister, and as such he is the one responsible.

If he does not live up to the standards expected of him then presumably he would lose the confidence of the House, and there would be consequences that would flow from that.

[Philip Mayfield, Canadian Alliance, Cariboo—Chilcotin, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of questions that leave the issue wide open. When people look at an issue and see that questions are half answered, that questions are evaded or that answers do not match the questions, they keep coming back to ask them. These questions will not go away until they are clearly answered.

For example, why was there a bill of sale when no money was ever exchanged? It seems like the bill of sale was a meaningless document. Why did a banker who was either fired or demoted take his problems to the courts?

Why did Madam Marcotte say in the National Post recorded interview that this father figure wanted the property for his retirement? These are all questions that Canadians want to have answered.

My constituents are saying that we should get beyond this. However there is a problem: we need the answers or nothing can happen. Would the member comment on the necessity of having questions clearly answered?

[Gar Knutson, Liberal, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I could not disagree more. The questions have all been asked and in fact have been answered.

He raises the issue of the bill of sale. It is normal routine that cash does not always transfer or payment does not always transfer at the time something is bought. I go to the store every day and sometimes I make purchases on credit. There is a wonderful thing called credit. Do I still have a bill of sale when I walk out of the store even though I have not paid for it? I may have bought it on credit but I have not paid my MasterCard yet or whatever. That is a normal part of business.

He talked about the bank manager being fired and raising it in the courts. I will remind the hon. member that this fellow obviously thinks he has a grievance. He was a Mulroney appointment. He was not our appointment. The gentleman thinks he has a grievance in terms of wrongful dismissal, so of course he will whip up as many problems as he possibly can to try to paint himself as a victim of something negative that happened.

Perhaps he was fired for perfectly legitimate reasons. I do not know, but that still does not affect the basic issue. The details of this fellow being fired do not go to the heart of the matter. The heart of the matter has been fully discussed. It has been fully answered. It was fully discussed in the midst of a campaign and Canadians have indicated that they are satisfied with the answer.

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I beg your indulgence as I am having trouble with my voice today. I guess I will not be able to do what some other members have done, which is to yell louder when the argument is weak. Since I will not be able to do that today, I had better make sure my arguments are solid. I will be sharing my time with my colleague from St. Albert.

I have a very difficult chore today. Actually I am asking for a miracle. My chore is to persuade enough Liberal members to vote for the motion. I think that all or most opposition members will vote in favour of the motion. My chore is to persuade enough Liberal members that the motion has sufficient merit to vote for.

The reason my chore is so difficult is that the Prime Minister, who is actually the subject of the motion today, has the authority by the traditions of the House to tell those members how to vote. I have an idea. I do not have any evidence for it, but I have a strong suspicion that all Liberals on command will vote against the motion. I am aware that the vote has been deferred and will be held tomorrow night. We will see what happens.

We should begin by looking directly at what the amended motion says. It would state:

That this House calls for the immediate 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.

I will now argue in favour of the motion. Many of the speeches today on both sides of the House have been arguing the various aspects of the case, which I believe should be argued in front of an independent judicial committee.

What has happened so far is that accusations have been made from this side that the opposite side vehemently denies or refuses to answer. As a matter of fact, from my point of view it adds credence to the suggestion that there is guilt on the other side. When one evades the answer it is because the answer is self-indicting. I should not use quite that strong a term, but that is what happens.

When we ask questions of members on the other side, whether it is the Minister of Industry or the Prime Minister himself, they do not answer the questions at all. They talk about something else.

It actually reminded me of when I was a youngster decades ago. I remember one in vogue joke that was going around. It was a little riddle that asked how many flapjacks it took to shingle the roof of a doghouse. The answer was 24 because a cow does not have feathers. If you can make sense of that, Mr. Speaker, I will give you the highest mark. It was just the weird sense of humour we had in Saskatchewan when we were youngsters.

However the House can see my analogy is that the answer had no relevance at all to the question. Even the question did not make any sense. Who knows anything about using flapjacks to shingle the roof of a doghouse? Both the question and the answer were nonsensical.

Liberal members say our questions are nonsensical and so they give nonsensical answers. On the other hand we think our questions have great merit. We ask our questions, but the perception on the other side is that they are nonsensical questions and therefore deserve nonsensical answers. Then we hear the nonsensical answers and we say they totally evade the facts.

I appeal to about 50 Liberals today. I know I will not get them all. They say they trust the Prime Minister. They believe he is clean in this matter. They are tired of this mess. Therefore they feel it is high time to put this matter to rest and to make sure it is put to rest they need somebody who is independent.

I was involved in the joint House of Commons-Senate committee in the 35th parliament where we talked about producing a code of ethics for parliamentarians, for MPs and senators. I had quite a bit of experience at that time. We were talking even then about the necessity of having an independent ethics commissioner, which is vastly different from the ethics counsellor we have now.

It just so happens that in the 1993 election campaign the Liberals campaigned on having an independent ethics counsellor, one who would report to parliament as the auditor general reports to parliament. Instead we got a non-independent ethics counsellor.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister actually quoted me when I said that we trusted Howard Wilson. He is a good man. I probably said that. I know that was my thinking at the time. I presumed he quoted accurately that part of my speech.

Even at that time I was adamant that person should be independent of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has shown over and over again an almost unseemly level of loyalty to his ministers. I do not know whether it is at the Prime Minister's instigation or whether they did it by themselves, but I think of the minister of immigration who during the election campaign said things that were totally untrue. She laid accusations at the feet of members of our party that were just not accurate. Did he hold her accountable for that? No.

The same could be said for the junior minister responsible women's issues and whatever else. I do not remember all of her title. She also has made statements lately that categorize people in a most unseemly way. The Prime Minister stands and defends that person.

The Prime Minister says that his ministers can pretty well do anything they want and that his job is to defend them because the Liberal Party can never make mistakes. That weakens the position of the counsellor. Even if the ethics counsellor says things which are accurate, they are not believed because of the relationship the counsellor has with the Prime Minister.

Many people believe that part of the role of the ethics counsellor is to be on the damage control team. That is very unfortunate and neutralizes a lot of the benefit that we could have if we had a true, independent ethics commissioner with the right to look up documents and to ask people to give accurate information. Instead, we have an ethics counsellor who occasionally conducts media interviews but other than that answers only to the Prime Minister.

It is interesting that the ethics counsellor questions his role. I was intrigued to read in some notes that were prepared for us that he gave a speech in Australia a little over a year ago. It is interesting that when asked about his role he basically said that he had no legal status and no powers of investigation. He answers only to the Prime Minister and sees himself as his defender. He said in his speech in Australia in February 1999:

The system has evolved so that I would be expected to publicly defend the decisions of ministers. I have had to do so to explain the Prime Minister's interests in a golf course.

Basically he was saying that because of his relationship with the Prime Minister he was expected to do that.

I appeal to Liberal members that we do not have an independent ethics commissioner. We have an ethics counsellor. We basically have a spitting match between opposite sides of the story, even between the different media. The Globe and Mail says one thing. The Toronto Star joins in and then the National Post says just the opposite. We are all talking to one another.

It is time that we have an independent judicial inquiry as proposed in the motion so that it is able to get at the truth by having the ability to subpoena witnesses and documents and that when it gives its report it will be believable because it is truly independent.

[John Bryden, Liberal, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, ON]

Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of the member opposite, I would like to read a precis of what his leader said at the opening of this debate in justification of an inquiry. He said that some of the Prime Minister's disciples have said that the Prime Minister could not be capable of anything less than full disclosure and full honesty. “It is important to note that we are talking about the Prime Minister who ordered men and women to vote against their 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”.

Nobody asked me to break my word. When I speak in the House it is my word that is my guide and my conscience. What the leader did in impugning the honesty of the Prime Minister was that he impugned the honesty of every member in the House. This is what the debate is really about. It is about a leader who has in fact broken his own eighth commandment, which I point out is not just about lies. We do not say he lies. It is about harming the reputation of another individual. That is precisely what was said here.

It is hard not to get excited, but the majority of people on this side and in the House act according to their conscience. When one attacks the leader of this country, when one attacks his honesty based on his ordering people to break their word, it simply is not true.

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, if we had a chance to debate between the two of us, I would simply challenge the member. In the 1993 election he campaigned for an independent ethics commissioner. The vote that he is referring to—