Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join in the debate today regarding the creation of a special joint committee to develop the much awaited and called for code of conduct for parliamentarians, MPs and senators.
The debate we are having today stems from recent events. On May 23 the Prime Minister announced a plan to introduce eight measures for ethical conduct he said would make parliamentarians more accountable. We welcome some of the initiatives although we challenge the language used in the introduction of the plan. It was called a bold eight point plan of action. We reject the very premise of that, to borrow an expression from the former hon. member for Windsor West. There is nothing bold about the plan. If anything it is rather lame in scope and magnitude. If the government had a real burning desire to make meaningful changes it could look to its own red book which was cited by other speakers today.
In fairly strong language the Liberals' 1993 red book called for the introduction of an ethics counsellor who would report directly to parliament and not just to the Prime Minister. Page 95 of “Creating Opportunity: The Liberal Plan for Canada” said a Liberal government would:
--appoint an independent Ethics Counsellor to advise both public officials and lobbyists in the day-to-day application of the Code of Conduct for Public Officials. The Ethics Counsellor will be appointed after consultation with the leaders of all the parties in the House of Commons and will report directly to Parliament.
That is pretty clear. A promise was made in 1993 to the Canadian people in legitimate reaction to a terrible era of corruption. Tory cabinet ministers were dropping like flies and getting caught with their hands in the till. However at least the Tories did something about their ministers. They brought them into line, disciplined them or kicked them out of cabinet. There were lots of them but there has been a lot of mismanagement here too. Rather than being upfront, honest and transparent about the process the Liberals have fostered a culture of cover up and denial. They have not introduced meaningful changes or shown any well meaning spirit.
The New Democratic Party is no stranger to calling for a code of conduct for legislators. NDP MPs have put forward legislation in three consecutive sessions of parliament to create an independent ethics counsellor and a code of conduct for parliamentarians. One of the bills came up for debate. It was introduced as a private member's bill which, as we know, must go through the process. However it came to the floor of the House and the Liberals voted against it.
It was a well thought out bill. The hon. member who brought it in, the former member for Halifax West, was the ombudsman for the province of Manitoba for 10 years and has a great deal of background in this type of thing. He put together a thoughtful, comprehensive and well researched piece of legislation that called for an independent ethics counsellor and a detailed code of conduct. When it came up for debate the Liberals not only spoke against it. They voted it down. It died after second reading.
That is the Liberal government's level of commitment. The Liberals have had ample opportunities since 1993 to follow their own red book or at least favourably view the efforts MPs from other parties have brought forward to the House.
We question whether the government's so-called bold eight point plan of action is that meaningful. We also question the timing of its introduction. At least a couple of the points, two and three, seem geared more toward thwarting leadership aspirations than cleaning up practices in the House of Commons.
If that was the intention it has backfired. Although mandatory disclosure of campaign financing for the leadership would be retroactive it would only apply to ministers. The former minister of finance is no longer a minister. He is a regular member of parliament so it would not apply to him. That was either sloppily done or plain bad luck on someone's part.
I will walk members through some of the historical context I have alluded to. The Liberal Party has had opportunities to introduce meaningful changes. In a 1973 green paper entitled “Members of Parliament and Conflict of Interest” the then Liberal government proposed a code of conduct for parliamentarians as a first step toward adopting a regime of ethics throughout the public service.
In 1984 the Tory government of the day appointed the hon. Michael Starr and the hon. Mitchell Sharp to head a task force on conflict of interest. The task force was charged with devising a comprehensive conflict of interest regime for public office holders. It recommended rules to deal with nine forms of activity that could lead to conflict of interest and suggested penalties for non-compliance. The recommendations were detailed and comprehensive but concerned only with cabinet ministers and parliamentary secretaries.
In June, 1992 a joint committee on conflicts of interest recommended the adoption of clear rules to guide members of parliament. In March, 1993 the Prime Minister sent conflict of interest legislation to the committee. The committee decided it would not be implemented. We got as far as bringing the rules to committee and the committee struck them down.
Shortly after that a third Special Joint Committee on a Code of Conduct was struck in 1995 and was jointly chaired by Senator Donald Oliver and the current Speaker of the House of Commons. Its March, 1997 report was quickly buried by the 1997 election but it recommended specific rules that would apply to all parliamentarians. That is why we are pleased that the fifth point of the government's eight point plan makes reference to the committee's report. In May the Prime Minister stated in the House of Commons:
For the fifth point in our action plan, in consultation with the opposition parties and drawing inspiration from the Milliken-Oliver report, it is our intention to proceed...with a stand-alone code of conduct for members of parliament and senators.
Let us look at other jurisdictions. The NDP is no stranger to this concept. It was an NDP government in B.C. that introduced the Members' Conflict of Interest Act that applied to all MLAs and ministers. It provided for a conflict of interest commissioner who would report to the whole legislative assembly. That is right on track. It is pretty much the standard the general public demands.
It was an NDP government in Saskatchewan in 1979 that introduced the Members of the Legislative Assembly Conflict of Interest Act which was similar to the B.C. act. It was an NDP government in Manitoba in 1987 that introduced the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Conflict of Interest Act, one of the most rigid and binding pieces of conflict of interest legislation anywhere in the country. It was an NDP government in Ontario in 1994 that brought in the Members' Integrity Act under which an integrity commissioner would report directly to the legislative assembly.
Unfortunately, the other provinces have not had the pleasure of having NDP governments so they do not have worthwhile conflict of interest legislation although they have some semblance of it.
Australia has a strong ethics system for its public service and elected officials. In his speech in Australia our ethics counsellor Howard Wilson said:
--we are not as advanced as Australia in introducing strong ethical systems into the public service. And our Parliament has yet to introduce a conflict of interest regime applying to backbench MPs and Senators--
It is a little embarrassing that we send our ethics watchdog to Australia to admit that we have fallen far behind our other Commonwealth colleagues in that regard.
We look forward and welcome this joint committee that may finally lead us to a mature and evolved code of conduct and code of practice for all members of parliament. The timing is such that it does not take a person with a jaded view to realize that this was introduced as a smokescreen to take the public's attention away from the real issue of the growing body of evidence associated with scandal after scandal that is coming forward every day now at the public accounts committee.
The government has finally realized that what looked like isolated incidents of mismanagement and wrongdoing have been threaded together and can safely be viewed as a comprehensive, elaborate, and illegal criminal scheme to defraud Canadians and to defraud parliament in fact.
Let me explain. As a member of the public accounts committee I receive a lot brown envelopes and confidential phone calls from current and former civil servants. I wish to describe what is happening with these Groupaction scandals.
This is not a kickback scheme. This is not nearly as primitive and as crude as a customary kickback scheme. In the old days, in a less sophisticated time, the government would give a juicy contract to a company. The company would then kick back a little campaign donation to the party. That would be the extent of it, and that has been going on too much in previous years.
This is far more elaborate and comprehensive than that. What we have here is not a kickback scheme. It is a kick forward scheme. When Groupaction charges $500,000 for a contract where no work gets done and nothing gets produced, it banks that as a credit so that when the Liberal Party of Canada comes to Groupaction at election time to buy a small communications contract, it gets $500,000 worth of work done. The same applies to Lafleur, Everest, and to that whole group of Liberal advertising contracting companies. They are holding taxpayer money.
Taxpayers paid good money for a service. The service was never delivered and the company pads the billing hours, et cetera, to look like $300,000 or $400,000 of work was done and it was not. It is like a credit being held in store. This is what has come to light.
I believe the government is nervous that we are that close to having civil servants come forward to testify that is what is happening. People within public works were being asked to sign cheques for work that was never performed. They knew full well it would not be performed because it was a way to shelter taxpayers' money in these companies until such time as the Liberal Party could come and pull it out.
I would like to outline some of the other things that we have been learning. It will be interesting on July 9 when Pierre Tremblay and Chuck Guité finally appear before the public accounts committee. That is what we have been waiting for. A lot of the things that we have theorized and speculated about will be borne out. We look forward to calling other witnesses too.
There is one name that keeps coming up in a lot of the information. It is a man named Roger Collet, who was the executive director of the old Canada information office. He was the first executive director. He used to brag to his co-workers and colleagues that he did not take directions from anyone but the PMO and that Jean Pelletier was in regular communication with him, giving him direction as to how to get this money into Quebec and how to get this scheme going there.
We have a great deal of information about Mr. Collet. It is interesting that he has taken sanctuary under a contract for the current minister of immigration. He seems to have an incredible capacity to land on his feet when he moves along.
He first became infamous because he delivered the $5 million from Heritage Canada to the no campaign during the Quebec referendum. There was the scandalous idea that Heritage Canada could find $5 million to deliver to the no campaign to try to influence the Quebec referendum. It was Mr. Collet's job to be the bagman for that and to make that happen.
There are a dozen questions we would like to ask Mr. Collet if we can ever get him to appear before us but Mr. Guité will be revealing too. This is why, as we approach that July 9 date, it became important for the government to get the public seeing the government dealing with codes of conduct and conflict of interest legislation when this information was about to blow at the committee stage. I can sympathize and understand why government members are in such a rush to get this started now when they were not in any rush from 1993 on.
Mr. Guité was unwilling to come to the committee until it was made clear to him that the information given in committee could not be used against him in a court of law. One of the unfortunate byproducts to the evidence given and what we will learn in committee is that guilty men may walk free. Frankly, those of us on the committee do not care if Mr. Guité ever goes to prison even if it would be well deserved. Once that information is given as testimony it has the same privilege as if it was testimony given in the House of Commons. The RCMP could not use that information against Mr. Guité in subsequent charges unless it can prove the same thing by a completely separate body of evidence.
That is an unfortunate byproduct but the truth must come out. We must know what motivated these senior civil servants to break every rule in the book which is what the auditor general said. I do not believe that senior civil servants or senior bureaucrats would jeopardize their job by breaking every rule in the book unless they were told to do so from somebody higher up. Did the former minister of public works direct these guys to break every rule in the book? Did the PMO contact Chuck Guité the way he was contacting Roger Collet when he was running the former Canada information office to break every rule in the book?
All of those questions will come to light on July 9. This why we are seeing the government scrambling to paint itself in a more positive light when it comes to issues surrounding codes of practice and codes of conduct. If the government was serious about implementing these changes it would implement fundamental changes. If the government is going to talk about the financing of elections and codes of conduct around that, why do we not go one step further and take an example from the province of Manitoba and ban all union and corporate donations for all elections? Why not make it so that only a person on the registered voters list can make a contribution for a political campaign?
Then we would not have all these Liberal dominated contractors getting handouts because they would not be allowed to reward the government or to pay back the government with campaign donations. It would be barred, outlawed and cleaned up. The public would appreciate that.
The only people who screamed about it in the province of Manitoba were the National Citizens' Coalition. The head of that organization was jumping up and down, and ranting and raving that we were trying to silence it by taking away its political voice and stifling debate. It was ironic that it was not the unions that raised the protest. They said if their money was not wanted, fair enough. However, the National Citizens' Coalition went ballistic because it felt it was being silenced by the bad government.
I would be interested to know how the current Leader of the Opposition would react to a proposal like that from the federal government. I would be interested to see how he might respond. That would be true reform. That is not to be found in this eight point mushy document. This is not a bold plan of action. This is a wishy-washy, lame plan of action that is designed to take away the spotlight from the terrible scandals that are boiling over and will be coming to a peak on July 9 in the public accounts committee.
I am glad to have had this opportunity to share some of our views. There are good models out there. I hope the government borrows heavily from the Milliken-Oliver report. I hope it borrows heavily from some of the private member's bills that have been brought forward and debated with good recommendations as to how we can have an ethics counsellor who would be independent and a code of conduct that we can all be proud of that would elevate the standards of the House of Commons.