Mr. Speaker, I am also very pleased to have the opportunity to take part in this debate. I want to congratulate my colleague from the Bloc Quebecois. I think that he has worked very hard on this bill. It is a most important issue for parliament and for the country.
I also want to acknowledge the comments of other members, particularly the previous speaker from Windsor who consistently brings a very thoughtful and insightful approach to the debate at all levels in this place. This is without a doubt subject matter that is very troubling for many, given what has transpired in recent years and what has transpired very recently with respect to the record of the government.
I have to take great umbrage and great offence to the parliamentary secretary who continues to add to the hints, hyperbole, veiled illusions and broad strokes with which he likes to paint the former administration. This is consistent with the pathological pursuit of a former prime minister with respect to something that has never been proved. In fact we have seen probably enough paper used to cause another softwood lumber crisis to try and substantiate something that simply is not true, which is that the former prime minister was involved in some kind of illegal activity. Yet both the government and unfortunately the Alliance Party like to contribute to this common myth. Stevie Cameron has written much fiction about this as well.
I caution the parliamentary secretary because he is really on thin ice. I take some personal offence to the perpetrating of this myth because my father was part of that administration. Again I take great exception to the broad tarred brush that he and others in his administration would like to use.
I would like to bring it back to some facts when we delve into the issue of ethics. Some of those facts include things like Pierre Corbeil, a Liberal fundraiser in the province of Quebec who was out tollgating. Armed with HRDC lists of grants and contributions he went to potential contributors who were on that list and said “Pony up a little money for the Liberal Party of Canada and we will see that those projects are approved”. That is a fact. It is a fact because he was convicted of influence peddling. That is a fact.
There are other facts to which I could allude. I could allude to the admission by the Prime Minister that he went to the president of the Business Development Bank to lobby for money for a friend, colleague and fundraiser in his riding of Shawinigan, an owner of a golf course that he used to own to get money for that project. Is that ethical? Is that legal? That is for Canadians to judge.
The cancellation of the EH-101 helicopter project, on which the hon. member for Saint John has spoken in the House many times, with the stroke of a pen cost $800 million and thousands of jobs in western Canada. Then the government turned around and on the last day of budget allocation spent $101 million to buy luxury jets to fly the Prime Minister and the cabinet around. Is that ethical? Those facts are on the record.
There was the cancellation of the Pearson airport deal at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. There was the bold-faced promise to cancel and repeal the GST. We all remember that one. Was that ethical? Was that honest?
The issue with respect to free trade was another dandy. That was a very forthright promise made by the Prime Minister, a promise of course which was reduced to writing in that famous, fabled, fairy book, the red book. It contained one of the very subjects of the private member's bill with respect to the promise to have an ethics counsellor reporting directly to parliament as opposed to the person who could be the subject of unethical behaviour, the Prime Minister himself. It is completely perverse and completely perverts the member's wish that we have ethical behaviour.
There is a legion of other issues. There is the appointment of Mr. Gagliano out of cabinet and sending him off to Denmark to avoid accountability for his actions here in this country. Is that ethical? Was his behaviour in this country prior to his departure ethical? It all remains to be seen.
It is all done in the hopes that if they deny, ignore and delay, it eventually will go away and they will get re-elected. That is the ultimate purpose. We have heard the Machiavellian intent and the parliamentary secretary has echoed it here again, “Let us just get re-elected”. That reaffirms. That cancels everything out. That says “Everything is fine because Canadians have embraced us yet again”.
We in opposition have to take some responsibility for that if we are not prepared to give Canadians an alternative, a group, a party, a movement that they can trust. Surely these things should be examined and Canadians should be reminded of the behaviour. That has been the mantra of the Liberal Party forever: repeat it; it does not matter whether it is true or not, just keep repeating it over and over and eventually it will take hold.
Should we have an independent ethics counsellor that could preside over parliament, could examine issues, numerous issues that have arisen under this administration? By all means. I wholly endorse the spirit and the intent of the member's effort in bringing forward Bill C-388 which provides for a code of conduct for ministers.
That would certainly help enhance public opinion and public impression of ministers of the crown, particularly when we now see ministers in the government vying for party leadership and having campaign cheques sent to the wrong office. We would not have to worry about the potential conflicts of interest if we had an independent ethics counsellor that would bring the issue back here, having delved into it in some detail.
What is frightening is the litany of things I have listed is only the tip of the iceberg. Those are only the things we know about. It seems that it is only when somebody slips up and sends a cheque to the wrong office that it comes to light, or when some talented investigative journalist brings it out, or perhaps it is something that the auditor general points out, like the public works minister and his warm welcome to his new administration. It was not his fault. He inherited that problem. The government had paid twice for the same report. It is absolutely shocking and an absolute treacherous waste of money. There was $7 billion we heard about in the last auditor general's report that does not appear to be too clearly accounted for.
Ministers have been accused of stepping outside the bounds of democracy by illegally voting in byelections. We all remember the occasion where a minister of the crown voted twice.
All of these occasions that I have referenced did not result in ministers resigning. They did not result in the Prime Minister taking any action to have the ministers removed from office. No. Delay is the deadliest form of denial.
What the Prime Minister does is he waits it out. He hunkers down and waits for the blaring headlines to go away. He hopes that those headlines will not occur at all. He simply ushers them off the stage quietly or dispatches them to Denmark. What did the Danes do to deserve that?
Our party's position has been clear on this. We would require that the ethics counsellor report directly to parliament instead of to the Prime Minister as is currently the case. We have advocated that for some time.
There have to be guidelines. We know the guidelines are very much needed to ensure that conflicts of interest between a minister's job and a leadership race do not occur. Guidelines are needed to ensure that friends of the government do not receive special access to public funds. Guidelines are needed to ensure that ministers will be held accountable to the House before they are sent away to represent Canada abroad, or that ministers who give false information to the House might be held accountable.
When these promises are made pre-election, when these fiction writers and producers decide to put these promises in print, I hope Canadians will look to members such as the sponsor of the bill to look for ideas and ways that we can bring back some form of democracy and accountability to this place.
We saw another blatant example today. We have seen the massive overuse of closure. Today was another new low where the government basically pulled a private member's bill off the table.
It is no wonder that the level of frustration goes up and the level of cynicism bordering on apathy continues to rise. The government has done very little to promote ethics or accountability during its almost 10 years in office.