Mr. Speaker, it is with great interest that I take this opportunity to speak to Bill C-15, an act to amend the Lobbyists Registration Act.
A lobbyist is recognized as an individual who seeks to influence legislators on a particular issue, with a lobby being an organization to attempt to influence. From this definition of a lobbyist flows the term influence peddling which defines those individuals who allege that whatever the issue, they possess the ability to influence the government in someone's favour, usually in return for some type of payoff.
The payoff can assume many forms, from monetary to favourable media coverage, in return for access. For example, during the Ducros affair, which centred around the intemperate comments made by the Prime Minister's director of communications about the President of the United States and ultimately led to the forcing of her resignation, certain reporters did not even cover the story.
Who lobbied these reporters? Canadians are left wondering what was promised in exchange for practising self-censorship and being a willing conduit for government propaganda?
It is recognized that in a modern, functioning democracy there are legitimate forms of lobbying. It was, however, the not so legitimate types of lobbying that led to the necessity of the Lobbyists Registration Act in the first place.
The government of the day felt that it was important for the public to know exactly who was lobbying the government; on whose behalf the lobbyist was working; the subject matter for which the lobbyist was retained to communicate with a public officeholder or to arrange a meeting with; to identify any relevant legislative proposal, bill, resolution, regulation, policy, program, grant, contribution, financial benefit or contract; and the amount and the terms of the payment.
The government felt that it was important for the public to know the particulars to identify any communication technique, including appeals to members of the public through the mass media or by direct communications that seek to persuade the members of the public to communicate directly with a public officeholder in an attempt to place pressure on the public officeholder to endorse a particular option.
The government also felt that it was important to provide the information relating to the identity of the individual, the client, any person or organization and any subsidiary company directing the lobbyist or anyone who had a direct interest in the outcome of the lobbyist's activities on behalf of a client.
It is interesting to note why lobbying has become an issue now. It has become an issue because the government made its unethical behaviour the issue.
The Prime Minister even promised an independent ethics commissioner who would report directly to Parliament, a promise he promptly broke when it became apparent that the independent ethics commissioner would only be taking up too much time in Parliament reporting on the sins of the current government.
Where is Stevie Cameron or similar civic-minded journalists when we need them? It is time to write the sequel to On the Take . The book could be called On the Take Part Two, starring the Prime Minister and the rest of the Liberal Party.
This need to legislate lobbyists started in 1993 with the Prime Minister accusing the former Tory government of corruption or, more specifically, illegal lobbying.
The industry minister, who is the sponsor of the bill, as justice minister led the witch hunt all the way to former prime minister Brian Mulroney. It is hard to see how he found the time to attack the former prime minister when he was so busy setting up the billion dollar gun registry.
What slowly became apparent was the speed with which the government sought to overtake the previous government when it came to a lapse in political ethics.
In the words of one observer to the federal scene at the end of 2002, “the lost value of boondoggles hits a record high, smashing the ugly 1999 benchmark established by the HRDC mess. The missing money into Groupaction caper, the fraudulent GST claim scandal, the air security tax mess and the mother of all mind-boggles, the $1 billion gun registry database even the police say is flawed or incomplete”.
No one cannot legislate moral behaviour.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the bill because of what it represents, lost opportunity. The decision of the Prime Minister not to do the right thing and respond to the real concerns of Canadians is the hallmark of a corrupt regime.
Canadians are concerned that power and influence is now a commodity in Ottawa to be bought and sold to the highest bidder. The real problem in Ottawa is not the lobbyists who ply their trade as professionals. The lobbyist registry is something that they support as they see the need to clean up what has always been considered to be suspect activity at best, immoral, unethical and, at its worst abuse, illegal.
Legitimate lobbyists in Ottawa are in many ways similar to firearms owners in Canada: law-abiding and doing something that they have always done without a hint of any problem. Then along comes the justice minister and starts to treat all owners of firearms as criminals.
The fact that a lobbyist act exists is an admission on the part of the government of criminal activity and the fact that we have amendments to existing legislation confirms that the criminal activity associated with lobbying is getting worse.
Let us distinguish between legitimate lobbying activity and the activity these amendments to the lobbyist act hope to curtail.
Criminals do not register their firearms. Lobbyists who seek government favour for financial payoff do not want to be identified as a lobby registry. The lobbyists who are engaged in suspect activities have not registered and will not register.
It is under the table deals that Canadians fear about the current government. If any individual or activity demonstrates the need for an independent ethics commissioner it has to be the events surrounding the former solicitor general.
The spin is that the former solicitor general resigned because of the ethics counsellor's ruling that he broke conflict of interest rules by lobbying the RCMP and Correctional Service Canada for a $6.5 million grant for a college that is run by his brother.
Amazingly, before that resignation the former solicitor general was trying to defend an untendered $100,000 contract to his friend, Everett Roche's Prince Edward Island accounting firm of MacIsaac Younker Roche Soloman, with Mr. Roche's name as the signatory on the contract.
Everett Roche was the former solicitor general's official agent in the 2000 federal election.
If I have identified Mr. Roche incorrectly as the campaign manager for the former solicitor general in the 2000 federal campaign, I am pleased to confirm the fact that Mr. Roche was the chief financial officer, in many respects the most responsible position in the election campaign.
I also want to make it clear that in the case of the former solicitor general's brother, I do not know if he personally gained from the activities of his brother.
However it is a matter of public record that the lobbying for $6.5 million for the P.E.I. college run by his brother was a conflict of interest and it was that activity that was identified as the cause of the former solicitor general's resignation.
After the former solicitor general's resignation, more and more information surfaced about the accounting firm of MacIsaac Younker Roche Soloman, with thousands of more dollars in untendered contracts, only this time in the form of verbal agreements. How convenient that verbal agreements leave no paper trails.
Treasury Board guidelines require verbal agreements be backed up by a formal written agreement. There was no contract for work billed by Everett Roche's accounting firm in one case and a contract for other so-called work was signed five months after it was finished, in May 2001. What a coincidence that this so-called work was completed about the time of the last federal election.
Unfortunately, if there was any legitimacy around these activities Canadians would never know because we do not have an independent ethics commissioner, which is the most serious flaw in Bill C-15. Only an open court of law will reveal whether or not the subject matter of the former solicitor general's untendered contract with his election campaign's official agent involved getting money for the minister's brother's college.
The lobbyists act, as is, unamended by Bill C-15, prohibits inter-ministry lobbying. Canadians may never know the secret lobbying that took place by a member of the Prime Minister's staff to shut the Emergency Preparedness College in Arnprior. Still bitter about being rejected by the people of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, the government has been looking for ways to punish the voters. Mean, petty and vindictive are the only words to describe the action to shut down 60 years of teaching excellence. This move to punish the people of Arnprior has already backfired.
I invite the Prime Minister to read the headlines in the local newspaper which read:
This Liberal Government has shafted us with the...(helicopter) contract and again this time with the Emergency Preparedness College.
A local councillor goes on to observe:
--there would be a serious political price to pay for what has been done. The Liberals have made sure they will never have this seat back again.
How much secret lobbying is taking place in the Office of the Prime Minister? Ottawa valley residents know that the someone who is in his office with no known responsibilities has received money from the horse racing industry, and this is a matter of public record.
What is not widely known is the lobbying that this individual is doing on behalf of this group from which he has accepted money in the past. In fact, this individual brags about his ability to influence the Prime Minister.
Addressing a racetrack gathering in the United States recently, he said “Speaking of power. Never underestimate the power of the unelected--.The key is to get to the powerful people. I am the special advisor to the Prime Minister so I can gain access to him and have meetings with these people”.
What is that power of the unelected to lobby from the Prime Minister's Office?
In the section referred to as Insider News of the Standardbred Canada in Trot magazine in an article dated April 22, 2002, which was basically a reprint from an article that was in the Recorder & Times , which is the local newspaper in Brockville, an application to build a $230 million racetrack was floundering, which I now understand is not proceeding. This was after the developer of the project bragged that the application was almost complete.
In a letter to the editor of the Brockville Recorder & Times Anton Stephens, the developer behind the racetrack proposal, publicly thanked the special advisor in the Prime Minister's Office. The same article in Trot magazine said the following about the Prime Minister's involvement:
Amazingly, the development group did manage to obtain a meeting with the Prime Minister (Chrétien) on December 12 after which the federal portion of the project was assigned to the Prime Minister's (Chrétien's) senior advisor Hector Cloutier.
We know what this employee does. He lobbies for racetracks and that is not all.
I have in my possession correspondence that was blind copied to the Prime Minister's Office over other racetrack lobbying with a federal government agency.
The true rot in the government is the secret lobbying that takes place behind the closed doors in the Prime Minister's Office. The worst thing about these practices is the fact that members of the government, not all I might add as the courageous members with principles do not go unrecognized by the official opposition and ordinary Canadians, see these practices as normal, as nothing being wrong with them. Unfortunately, the horse racing industry is often penetrated by organized crime.
I want to get back to the need for the lobbyist registration bill and how the Prime Minister's Office is underscoring this need.
In the case of gambling we are talking about billions of dollars. This same individual, as a confidante of the Prime Minister, had this to say when he was confronted by a local parish priest in my riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, the late Rev. Ken Bradley of Our Lady of Sorrows parish in Petawawa, about the evils of gambling, horse racing, and his involvement. He said:
Let me get this straight, Father. We have parish bingos every week. What's the difference?
When the good Father tried to explain the difference between God's work and lining the pockets of a few individuals, the official word on behalf of the Prime Minister's Office was:
Now you have to figure out how you're going to ameliorate with God so you can move ahead on this gambling.
He then went on to attack the efforts of social workers who have to pick up the pieces of the shattered lives of gambling addicts. I have a complete copy of this individual's comments published on the web for the world to see, so there can be no question about the authenticity of these quotes.
The secret lobbying by the anti-rural wing of the Liberal Party to waste a billion dollars on a useless firearms registry has resulted in the needless deaths of thousands of Canadians as health care lineups get longer.
I see the frustration on the faces of government members of Parliament who have to face angry rural constituents who are justifiably upset over more social engineering by the urban lobby. The transfer of power from the elected representatives to the faceless minions in the Prime Minister's Office is destroying our democracy.
A Liberal backbencher is pressuring the industry minister to prove he is not under the influence of companies funding his underground former leadership campaign. The member for Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge is suggesting that Warren Kinsella, who has been closely associated with the industry minister's failed leadership bid, is the most obvious example of a conflict of interest for the Prime Minister's ethics counsellor to look into.
The member's comments were in response to the fact that Mr. Kinsella is still registered as a lobbyist on the Competition Act even though it now falls under the responsibility of the industry minister.
There is talk that senators on the banking, trade and commerce committee are planning to send Bill C-23, the competition bill, back to the House, a move the member for Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge said would effectively kill the bill.
The industry minister is expected to appear before the committee sometime in April. The member for Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge said the minister must speak against any amendments to prove he is not under the influence of the large corporations that are trying to derail the legislation. He told The Hill Times :
We have yet to hear from the minister on his own bill. I'd be interested to see why that hasn't happened.
When asked whether he felt Mr. Kinsella is in a conflict of interest, the member said:
I'm sure I'm going to be proven wrong, but given those who have been alleged to be affiliated with the industry minister's failed campaign have been also those who have been identified as being opposed to this legislation, I'm wondering if [federal ethics counsellor Howard] Wilson's musings wouldn't be more appropriately directed toward the most obvious example.
The Prime Minister has got away with using millions of taxpayer dollars in slick ad campaigns while child poverty in Renfrew County continues to rise thanks to the policies of the government.
The Canadian Alliance will continue to be elected in western Canada and more and more in Ontario, and the Bloc Québécois in Quebec, as long as the real concentration of power and inter-office lobbying remains in the Prime Minister's Office.