Debates of May 16th, 2003

Budget Implementation Act, 2003

[Gerry Ritz, Canadian Alliance, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

A soldering gun, Black & Decker.

The government took a little for everyone, tried to please everyone with a little and no one was pleased at the end of the day. We see money thrown into every pigeonhole it could find. I did not happen to see any new reallocation for the pigeon shooers this year. Perhaps they are out of work or the pigeons have moved south. We are not sure. There was that April Fool's joke that there would be a new statute of Pierre Trudeau and I am sure that would have brought all the pigeons back. I know the ones from the west certainly would have rallied around.

The finance minister has challenged the departments of the government with this budget. He is spending $178 billion or $180 billion. He is challenging his departments to find a billion dollars in reallocation money. One-half of one per cent is as tight as he can get, saying that is how accurate the Liberals are with their forecasts and budgeting.

The Auditor General, who has been doing it for a little longer than the finance minister, says that there are $16 billion that could easily be found. She says to trim the fat. He is looking for one-sixteenth of what she says is already there. It just flies in the face of logic that a billion dollars would somehow make a difference in $180 billion of spending. There are so many places that it could go.

It has really been an education in this last session. In the almost six years that I have been here, although some days it seems longer and some days it seems shorter the way things work around here, we seem to be pushing everything uphill. We are in the midst now of the Liberal leadership, and of course we have a frontrunner that no one can catch. It is just not going to happen. Now we have a provisional government.

I have heard members from all parties talk about this interim governing body that is allowed to operate as long as the member for LaSalle—Émard says that is where he wants to go when he becomes prime minister. I guess that is fair enough because no one wants to carry the present Prime Minister's baggage. It just weighs too darn much. I can certainly understand why the member for LaSalle—Émard wants to hold back on certain bills that he feels are being patterned after the logic and the practices of the current Prime Minister. I can see where he would want to make a clean cut with that.

The member for LaSalle—Émard, as finance minister, talked about and initiated under his rule the single largest tax cut in Canadian history. Where the heck is it? Everyone in my riding called me up and asked, “When does thing kick in?” In year four we were supposed to start to see some numbers shrinking in what we had to send in to the federal government. This is year four. It has not happened. Perhaps it will happen closer to the end of the year as we ramp up toward an election. That would be a curious thing if that was to happen, and I am sure we will see it.

We are finally seeing some increases in our dollar. For so long we saw our dollar mired in the 65¢ or 66¢ range and the Prime Minister said that it was good news, that a low dollar was good for trade. It turns out it is good for trade actions. Every time the Americans lob something across our bow, the softwood lumber thing and now another one on the Canadian Wheat Board, it always seems to bring our dollar back to par. That is what they seem to be doing with their trade actions.

Is a low dollar good for trade? No, it has been good for trade actions. We faced a myriad of them and the government has been dismal in its handling of some of those actions. They are dragging on and on.

The government says that it is working on these files. People are losing their jobs while it is working on those files. Where is the interim money? The HRDC minister faced a question here yesterday about the softwood lumber folks in B.C. who have been waiting 18 months for the $110 million which has been promised. I guess the carrier pigeons could not get it out there fast enough. It just has not shown up in their post office boxes.

All these promises come forward and it is always big dollars, always throwing money at a problem. We have seen that with SARS. The government is throwing money at it but It is too late. The damage has already been done. On softwood lumber, it is too late. The damage has already been done. However the money is there. Supposedly fiscally we have the capacity.

I see that in my own riding to the nth degree with agriculture. We have been five years struggling with the agriculture minister trying to get some sort of a program that will stabilize primary agricultural production. Notice I say primary because the rest of the agricultural world, the value added, the processing, the distribution systems and transportation are doing very well. However the primary producers, the guy and his family taking all the risks on the land, are not doing so well.

There is a reason for that. We do not take agriculture seriously in this country. We have never been hungry. We have never faced shortages or restrictions at a grocery store. When we talk to people in a lot of centres now, they are so far withdrawn from the land, where their pioneering grandparents generally were based, that they think milk comes off a shelf at Safeway. It does not. Someone has to raise and milk the cow. That is how it gets there. It does not come in that jug on the Safeway shelf.

It is the same thing with a loaf of bread. Someone has to grow the grain, transport it, mill it, package it, make it into bread and set it on the shelf. There are many steps in between. The steps in between seem to be doing okay but the guy taking the risks on the land is not and has not been for a number of years. Farmers are barely getting by and are farming away the equity that they have built up in their farms: machinery costs, input costs, fuel, fertilizer, chemicals, taxes. Everything has gone through the roof.

Again, it goes back to our low dollar. Everything we do in the primary production of agriculture is based on American money: our fuel, fertilizer, chemicals, machinery, machine parts. Everything is based on American dollars because that is from where we import. We do not do that here anymore. Even the fuel that we did out of the ground here is still based on Texas crude.

We faced a huge hurdle in western Canada with that low dollar on our input side. Then we had it compounded when the Crow rate disappeared.

There was a huge debate at that time. I was one of the folks who said that maybe it was time for that to go that way because now we would have access to the value added sector. That means I can take my durum and grind it into pasta flour, export it that way and get one step up the food chain. We are not allowed to do that. That was the second half of the Crow rate reduction. It was a cash payout for a number of years of freight balance and then the ability and the right to look after my product and do with it as I saw fit.

The government forgot that half of the equation. That is why the pulling back of the Crow rate has been such a huge economic factor in western Canada. Each farmer lost on average about $25,000 to $30,000 a year, right off the top, because of the increase in transportation costs that the Crow rate stabilized. We have lost timely access to markets and things like that because we can no longer control it.

We have seen the Liberals in the Ottawa bubble here try to come with transportation and agricultural policies to fit a western Canadian problem about which they know nothing. The minister and some of his cohorts may travel out there but the bureaucrats that design and develop this stuff do not. They are still here in the bubble. They crunch numbers, they crunch percentages and say, “There you go”, but it does not work in actual fact and it does not work in the true application.

We have pointed this out again and again to the minister. We are not allowed to speak to the bureaucrats because they are faceless and nameless. We can never get access to them. However the minister says that he will get right on that but it does not happen.

We still do not have the rules in place for CFIP for 2002. The members can check their watches. What is the date today? It is 2003. My farmers are on the ground. They are seeding. The government still does not have the rules in place to make the payouts work for 2002. That is shameful.

The government is sending out a portion of what our guys need 100% of, and they may get the balance in December 2003. That is after the next crop year. That is ridiculous. The money has been pigeonholed. It is in play according to the minister. Where the heck is it? We cannot trigger it.

Now he is screwing around with our NISA accounts, the only part of the safety net that ever was worthwhile. Now he will take that and start to funnel programs through there. He is ripping it apart and there is nothing to be gained. There is not a farm group or a business group in the country that agrees with the APF. No one says that there is any basis in here to build a good solid foundation on and we will be stuck with that sucker for five to six years because that is the lifetime that it is supposed to run.

We have been two years trying to get it in play so I guess it is like the helicopter deal. As long as it is being talked about, somehow they think we have new helicopters. We do not. We just have not got it right.

Little things like that drive people crazy. We see the money and numbers tossed around. Everybody is supposed to feel better about their lack of progress on these files because they are talking about money that is in play. It is not getting anywhere and that has been the problem with the budget, a little bit to a lot of places. Nothing ever gets there.

On balanced budgets, the member for LaSalle—Émard, as finance minister, made a big thing out of balancing the books, and the Liberals were talking about it again today. How did he do it? Taxes went up. There are more people paying more and more.

The Liberals talk about the job numbers being great, that they have created 462,000 jobs. There is a reason for that, everybody has two or three part time jobs. There is no such thing as a big full time job anymore. They have it watered down to the point where nobody has a good full time job, something to build a future on, and they do not seem to like that point.

Anybody could balance the budget by taking the $40 billion surplus out of the EI fund and applying it to whatever the person wants. Take the $30 billion surplus out of the civil servants' pension plan, take the $25 billion that was cancelled out of the CHST and lump all that together. It does not take a great mathematician to say that we could finally balance the books. There would an extra $100 billion to use as a slush fund to make it happen. That is exactly what did happen. It was not done on fiscal prudence. It was done on the capacity to rob every column possible and make creative accounting work.

We saw that happen but it is unfunded liabilities like this that will come back to bite us right where we sit, and it is going to happen, whether it is this term or the next. It is going to come back to haunt folks.

We see all the moneys piled up. We had the other contender from Hamilton in the leadership race, visit my home community of the Battlefords a week ago or whatever. In her zealousness to become leader, she has been scattering $100 million across the country, a few bucks here and there, kind of a calling card, so they would recognize who she was and maybe remember her when she left.

In the Battlefords we have the seat of the old government for the Northwest Territories as it was called at that time. We governed more of Canada from Battleford, Saskatchewan, than Ottawa does now. We had the whole north end and everything, other than Upper and Lower Canada and parts of Manitoba. British Columbia did its own thing. We had it all. We cannot get 5¢ of funding out of the heritage minister to attach that government house to the our national park, the old Fort Battleford. We cannot get 5¢ of funding to maintain that government house and make it the tourist attraction that it could be.

We have groups from Alberta who want to disassemble it, move it out by taking private money to do it, and set it up again, but they were not the capital, we were. The grounds are still there. The graveyards are there along with the land registry building and government house. All those things are there and there is no money.

If that sucker was built in Quebec, Ontario or even the Atlantic provinces, guess what? There would be no problem getting money. I have been to a lot of those historical sites. Some of course have some significance like ours and some do not, yet there is no problem getting funding to put them on the map and make them a tourist attraction. What is wrong with us? I guess we did not vote Liberal but I can say that my folks out there will never make that trade.

[An hon. member]

They never will.

[Gerry Ritz, Canadian Alliance, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

They never will because they have been promised and denied so many times. They remember little things like the gun registry, the invasion on their civil liberties, and their rights and freedoms.They look at things like the national energy program. They remember things like the payout on the home heating fuel that went to prisoners and people who did not even live in the country. They look at these guys as poor fiscal managers. That point is getting nailed home.

I look at polls and they show the Liberals at 38% in Saskatchewan. That means that all three people voted because that is how many people in Saskatchewan get called when they do a sample of the country. I guess all of them were Liberals, but in my riding we would be hard-pressed to find anybody who would stand and say “I am a Liberal and I like it”, because the family is under attack, the sex offender registry does not go anywhere because the Liberals will not make it retroactive and it does not protect our kids.

The DNA database that the police are crying for is not retroactive and never will be, so we have a bunch of blank sheets of paper. What good is that? We have Police Chief Julian Fantino from Toronto saying to take the money from the gun registry, put it into a sex offender registry, and make it work. He runs the largest police force in the country. He just had a huge tragedy in his area and he realizes what needs to be done. We have to get it done. A majority government can do these things.

The Solicitor General stood up in reply to a question in the House today and said that a motion I introduced totally scuttled Bill C-23, the sex offender registry. That is a David and Goliath story if I ever heard one. As if I took down a majority Liberal government. I would like to pass a couple of other motions on a few other things if it were that effective. However, he did not read the other half of the motion which said that Bill C-23 should be withdrawn until it is made retroactive. It is useless until we have some names in the registry.

Even when the government does implement the half measures it is talking about, the offenders can still apply to a judge and say that they cannot have their names there because it is not in their interests. Well of course it is not. It is in the interest of the poor victims out there who suffer again and again at the hands of these perverts. These guys just cannot help themselves.

We took many years to make a few changes to the Young Offenders Act and then it was softened because one province said it was too strict. The other nine said it was not strict enough, so the majority did not rule. Democracy does not count for a darn thing in this place at times. It is political will.

We see that in the helicopter replacement procedure. The government keeps crying that there is no politics in this replacement procedure. History shows that it was politics that cancelled it, it was politics that debundled it, and it was politics that bundled it again once the government saw a consortium coming together that it wanted. Now it is politics that says the specifications are all watered down.

During the late show last night I presented all of the things that have been changed, such as payload requirements and the potential for crash landings. The Liberals can lose the aircraft and nobody is concerned because that is how they have dumbed down the specifications. That is not good government. That is not good practice at any level in the private sector or government organization. We cannot do that. We cannot play politics with major procurement systems like that. We cannot play politics with sponsorship programs or job creation funds. They all hit the proverbial fan.

People in Canada are finally starting to keep a scorecard, saying “This is where it went off the rails. This is where it went wrong. This is why we have to hold these guys accountable”. That has to be done and there is a political price to pay for all of this tap dancing that we see around the edges.

[An hon. member]

They lost the byelection.

[Gerry Ritz, Canadian Alliance, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Yes, it cost them a byelection. It really did. People are starting to pay attention. It just flies in the face of everything we talk about.

Another thing out west that has people really upset is this whole Kyoto protocol that we ratified. Where is it now? We were in such a rush to put this in play, however I do not see a thing on the agenda that even speaks to that issue anymore, and rightly so. We do not need it. Canada contributes 2% to the global problem. We could clean everything up within an inch of its life and it would not make a difference globally.

We did this for the public relations spin and for the politics of the issue. As people became aware of the costs attached and what the targets would and would not be, they moved away from it. Western Canadians were enraged when they saw the auto sector get an exemption. It will save 40,000 to 50,000 jobs in Liberal Ontario, but it will put 40,000 to 50,000 jobs in Alberta and Saskatchewan at risk because the Liberals do not represent them.

Well we do and we will not stand still for that type of action from the government. We will never tolerate it and these folks will never elect Liberal members in my part of the world because of the way they handle these files.

There is no consultation. Liberals do not talk to the folks that need to be involved. They ignore them and say that they are smarter. They say they are from Ottawa and they will make the rules. Canadians should just abide by them and pay their darn taxes and keep them coming. It is an atrocious way to run a country.

[Paul Devillers, Liberal, Secretary of State (Amateur Sport) and Deputy Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I heard the hon. member's comments regarding the job creation record in the last few years. I also heard his explanation for those impressive numbers. He said that these were all part time jobs and that we all had several jobs, or words to that effect.

I know the hon. member would not stand in the House and make up these allegations. I definitely know he has done much research to be able to stand in the House and make that type of allegation.

Would the member share with the House the statistics supporting his comment that the reason the job numbers were so impressive was because we all had several jobs?

[Gerry Ritz, Canadian Alliance, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Madam Speaker, let us talk about the folks who have multiple jobs. All my constituents must have jobs outside the farm and so on to support their farming habit. I am told that 75% of the farms in western Canada are viable because of off farm income.

I talk with my constituents all the time. They complain that the major employers in this country, the Wal-Marts and so on, do not offer a full week of employment. My daughter is working part time for Sears as she finishes university. There is no such thing as full time employment.

While the Secretary of State for Amateur Sport was on his feet, I would have welcomed his comments on what the government did to junior hockey in Saskatchewan. We have written him letters about how these junior teams have been taxed as though they were employees. There is no such provision in the tax code to do this. The government made a horrendous example--

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

Order, please. The hon. member will have nine minutes remaining at the next sitting of the House.

It being 1.30 p.m. the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's Order Paper.

Ethics Counsellor

[Joe Clark, Progressive Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

moved:

That an Order of the House do issue for the production of copies of all reports of the Ethics Counsellor concerning the former Solicitor General.

Madam Speaker, you have read the order to which I am addressing my remarks. The solicitor general and cabinet minister in question who was required to resign is now the member for Cardigan.

First, I want to deal with some questions of procedure and then I want to deal with questions of substance. It is important to understand that on issues with regard to the presentation of documents, the only limits upon Parliament are the limits that Parliament imposes itself. Parliament has imposed no limits on the papers or the documents which we are entitled to see and receive. Beauchesne's citation 447 states this in a rather negative way but makes the principle clear. It states:

The House itself has not laid down any criteria for Notices of Motion for the Production of Papers. Any determination of what constitutes “confidential documents” is not a matter for the Speaker to determine. It is up to the government to determine whether any “letters, papers, and studies” are of a confidential nature...

The government has the power to hide documents from Parliament, but the government has no right to hide those documents, and no right to decide what Parliament and the public will see.

The government has set out its own version of the so-called general principles it follows in trying to keep things secret. They are recorded in Beauchesne's citation 446 and I will review those so-called principles. But let it be clear, those are the government's rules for Parliament. They do not bind Parliament. We have the authority to decide by a vote here.

On October 22, 2002, the member for Cardigan, the then solicitor general, submitted his resignation from cabinet. In his letter to the Prime Minister, he said, among other things:

I met with the ethics counsellor and I have learned that he has found me in breach of some obligations.

It is important to remember and to underline that the member for Cardigan, the former solicitor general, disagreed with the finding of the ethics counsellor, at least so he said, but apparently the Prime Minister forced his resignation in any event.

If the member for Cardigan believed that he was wrongly judged, then it would be in his interest to have these documents published and to have the facts known, and certainly it would be in the public interest.

If we are to have rules, we need to know what they are. We need to know why a minister has been found in breach in a particular case and we need to know whether a resignation was triggered by a breach of the rules or by something else. In other words, was the member for Cardigan fired for a real breach of the rules? And, for that matter, was the member for York Centre, the former minister of defence, fired for a real breach of the rules? Or was it for something else, something unknown, and something the public should know?

The only way to know is for Parliament to see the actual documents. Documents that, I remind the House and the public, were prepared by a public official, the ethics counsellor, who is paid and maintained at public expense and whose clear duty is to investigate potential breaches of the code of conduct for ministers and secretaries of state.

What makes this matter so important, more important than simply the documents I am seeking today, is that we are not speaking here of just isolated individual behaviour. There is a pattern of abuse with the government. The tip of the iceberg that we see is the number of resignations or changes in portfolio. The present ambassador to Denmark was chased out of the House and out of the country. The current House leader was forced to change his portfolio. The members for Cardigan and York Centre were forced to resign. There was probably a breach with respect to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, but we have not seen the files. Certainly the Prime Minister was in breach in Shawinigate and it would be interesting to see those files. And we do not know what other ministers were involved because we do not know what the government has not told us.

But we do know that the government on its way to office in 1993 promised a much more independent watchdog than it delivered. Instead of the independent official it proposed, it created a mere illusion of independence by breaking its promise to have that officer report to Parliament and by making that officer subject instead to the Prime Minister. That can only feed the impression that the government seeks systematically to keep secret behaviour and information that should be public.

There is a related issue. Since the government relies regularly on the reports of the ethics counsellor, this Parliament has the right to know what that counsellor reports and we have the right to know what the Prime Minister does with those reports. Does he read them? Does he pay any attention to them? That is not just a question in the air, because the Prime Minister of Canada has a clear obligation, spelled out in his own guide for ministers and secretaries of state; he is the person, the Prime Minister is the officer who is obliged by his own guidelines to ensure that his own ministers follow the rules.

That means that he needs to know what they are doing. The ethics counsellor has the duty to tell the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister has the duty to read and to heed the evidence the counsellor provides. Why is that germane? Because, and I will come to it in a moment, of the blind management trust arrangement that this government introduced despite the fact that it has never been part of any conflict of interest regime before. We have always before had absolutely blind trusts until this government, accommodating some of its richer ministers, decided it would change the rules for this regime. But even under these rules, the Prime Minister is required to come to his own decision about the conduct of his ministers. That is the clear responsibility of the Prime Minister of Canada.

I want to speak a little bit about the blind management trust. What we know about the blind management trust is that the member for LaSalle—Émard, the former minister of finance, was briefed 12 times on his private business affairs while he served as minister of finance. The Prime Minister refuses to answer, whether he, the Prime Minister, with a clear obligation under his own guidelines, has carried out his personal responsibility to find out whether his then minister of finance was acting improperly. One way to ensure that the Prime Minister reads the documents prepared by the ethics counsellor, one way to ensure that the Prime Minister acts on these documents, is to make them public in Parliament, because if we can read them, he will be required to read them.

If I may, I want to go through the arguments that may be used from Beauchesne's to defend secrecy on the part of the government. I want to go through point by point the elements in citation 446. Let me read those elements:

To enable Members of Parliament to secure factual information about the operations of Government to carry out their parliamentary duties and to make public as much factual information as possible--

Here are the “criteria to be applied in determining if the government papers or documents should be exempt from production”: first, “legal opinions or [legal] advice provided for the use of the government” would render a document secret. That is not the case with the matters here. There is no legal advice. There is no legal opinion. Second are papers “which would be detrimental to the security of the state”. There is no challenge to the security of the state to tell people what went on with the member for Cardigan when he was solicitor general. The third prohibition deals with “papers dealing with international relations”. That clearly does not apply in this case. The fourth relates to papers “received from the provinces”. That clearly does not apply in this case. The next item, (e), relates to “papers containing information, the release of which could allow or result in direct personal financial gain or loss by a person or a group of persons”.

All I can say is that I hope that is not the case. I hope the government is not keeping these documents secret to protect the financial position of some person unknown. If it is, it has an obligation to tell us who it is protecting by this secrecy. If it is going to cite that defence, it must make that information known.

The next exemption relates to “papers reflecting on the personal competence or character” of individuals. I think it is important to deal with that precise language. The word “reflecting”, I assume, was chosen with care. The language does not say “reporting facts which might lead third parties to conclusions about competence or character”. The only reasonable interpretation of the word “reflecting” would be that the documents contained a commentary that was a reflection on competence or character. What is intended here is a limitation upon publishing characterizations in documents, not a limitation upon publishing facts in a document.

The exception (g) is “papers of a voluminous character”. If there were such papers, that might be one reason why the Prime Minister had not read them, but there is no reason to believe that the documents prepared by the ethics counsellor were of voluminous character. The next exception is related to documents “relating to the business of the Senate”. There is no reason to believe that exemption applies.

The next exemption says that nothing can be released “which would be personally embarrassing to Her Majesty or the Royal Family”. I doubt strongly that there is anything in these documents that would be embarrassing to Her Majesty or to the royal family.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh.

[Joe Clark, Progressive Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

A member opposite from the Liberal Party is casting doubts about Her Majesty the Queen, but I will let that pass.

The next exemption relates to “papers relating to negotiations leading up to a contract until the contract has been executed or the negotiations have been concluded”. The contracts in this case with Holland College were executed and have been concluded, so that exception does not apply in this case.

Again there is an exception for “papers that are excluded from disclosure by statute”. These papers are not so excluded by statute.

But then there is item (l): “Cabinet documents and those documents which include a Privy Council confidence”. All we can say is, there must be the reason. A privy council confidence is what the Prime Minister determines it is. If he wants to keep something secret under this rule, that is the loophole through which he can drive his Mack truck. I would hope that the government, if it is going to claim that there is a legitimate privy council secret here, spells out precisely what that is and what damage would be done to the Canadian public interest if there were to be a release or an exemption under this rule.

The next exception relates to “any proceedings before a court of justice or a judicial inquiry of any sort”. That is not the case and no one could argue that the ethics counsellor is comparable in any way to either a court of justice or a judicial inquiry.

The next exception relates to “papers that are private or confidential and not of a public or official character”. These papers are of an official character. They relate to public business; they are of a public character.

There is then a prohibition against the release of “internal departmental memoranda”. Surely no one would say that the report of the ethics counsellor to the Prime Minister relating to whether or not the conflict of interest guidelines are respected is merely a memorandum. Of course it is not.

Finally, there are “papers requested, submitted or received in confidence by the Government from sources outside the Government”. That also does not apply in this case.

There is then a large exemption here, and I note that I have but a minute left, which has to do with consultant studies. That does not apply in this case.

The reason I went through this in detail is that the only possible grounds that the government could use to defend keeping this secret is that long list of exemptions that I have related. None of those exemptions apply. The government's own rules do not justify its keeping these documents secret.

And our rules are clear. We decide. Parliament has the power to decide what will be secret and what will be public. We can compel, by a vote in this House, this government to make public the documents named in my request for production of papers. That is our power and I very much urge this House to exercise that power in the name of democracy, in the name of transparency, and in the name of the integrity of our country and our reputation.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister]

Madam Speaker, I thank the House for the chance to speak to this motion, which calls for the government to release any reports by the ethics counsellor concerning the former solicitor general. It is particularly gratifying since it allows me to speak in support of two important principles which are important to all Canadians: first, the need for transparency and openness in government, and second, the need to protect the confidentiality rights of all citizens.

As all members are aware, these two principles can seem contradictory at times. I want to emphasize my own personal commitment to making sure Canadians have access to as much information on the workings of government as possible, for transparency and openness are vital to involving citizens in the important issues of the day and enhancing confidence in the institution of Parliament.

The government's handling of this issue to date underlines its commitment to this principle as well, for a number of documents relating to this motion already have been released. These include letters exchanged by the ethics counsellor and the former solicitor general in 1999 as well as those exchanged by the former solicitor general and the Prime Minister in October 2002. This second set of letters has since been published on the Prime Minister's website, which is about as public as one can get.

Then too, information collected during the ethics counsellor's investigation of the conduct of the former solicitor general has also been released under the Access to Information Act, which means this material is not a secret either.

Also, the ethics counsellor has posted on his website a number of reports concerning other members of the government, material prepared in response to requests by parliamentarians and other interested parties.

But while transparency and openness are important principles, they do not trump all other rights, such as the right to privacy, such as the right to cabinet confidentiality and the discretion required by the Prime Minister to fulfill his responsibility for the conduct of government.

And so over the years, successive generations of parliamentarians have decided, quite rightly, that some documents should not be released, such as confidential advice to a member of Parliament from a parliamentary ethics adviser on a conflict of interest matter, or confidential advice to the Prime Minister on the conduct of ministers, secretaries of state and parliamentary secretaries who serve in his government.

Of course this makes eminent good sense. Parliamentarians should be able to request confidential advice on conflict of interest issues so they can properly arrange their affairs.

And the Prime Minister should be able to request confidential advice on ministerial ethics since the Prime Minister bears ultimate responsibility to Parliament and to Canadians for the conduct of ministers.

It is the Prime Minister who establishes the standards of conduct they must follow and acts to remove them if they are in serious breach of these principles. It is the Prime Minister who is accountable to the House, and indeed to all Canadians, for their conduct. This means that the Prime Minister must be certain that the advice he receives in confidence today does not become tomorrow's front page news. Because of this, reports concerning the conduct of senior members of government prepared as advice to the Prime Minister are released only at his discretion. This is also the practice in other mature democracies like the United Kingdom and Australia.

Of course, such documents may be released occasionally with the Prime Minister's approval, as in the case of the report on the former minister of finance in relation to the Canadian Development Corporation and the tainted blood scandal after a commitment by the Prime Minister to make this information public. But in general, this is not a common practice. As the sponsor of this motion, a former prime minister must surely know this.

So it is not surprising that the government should oppose this motion which seeks release of the ethics counsellor's confidential advice to the Prime Minister, particularly since the code of conduct for MPs developed by the Milliken-Oliver committee, currently under study by the procedure and House affairs committee, also proposes to keep some information confidential when it involves MPs' enquires to the proposed ethics commissioner.

This being said, the government nevertheless is committed to greater transparency and higher ethical standards in the conduct of public affairs, as shown by the Prime Minister's eight point plan on ethics in government announced last June, and by the introduction of Bill C-34, which seeks to strengthen ethical conduct in government and enhance public confidence in our system of government through the appointment of an ethics commissioner reporting to the House of Commons, and a Senate ethics officer reporting to Senate.

The ethics commissioner and the Senate ethics officer would administer conflict of interest provisions for members and senators and would assist in the administration of the Prime Minister's code of ethics for ministers and other senior public officials. Even here there would be respect for the right of the Prime Minister to receive confidential information, for while the ethics commissioner would table an annual report on his administration of the Prime Minister's code in both the House and the Senate, it would not include confidential information.

In conclusion, the information requested in the motion clearly falls into the category of confidential advice provided to the Prime Minister which can only be made public at his discretion. Releasing such information would fly in the face of established parliamentary traditions not only in Canada but also in many other mature parliamentary democracies. It would also set a very bad precedent and would undermine the ability of this and subsequent prime ministers to successfully perform their duties, all of which would cause long term damage to our system of parliamentary democracy.

For this reason, I will be voting against this motion. I would urge all other members to do likewise.

[Jim Gouk, Canadian Alliance, Kootenay—Boundary—Okanagan, BC]

Madam Speaker, the Canadian Alliance supports this motion for the production of copies of all reports of the ethics counsellor concerning the former solicitor general. It is important that details of this conflict of interest be open and transparent, as well as many others that have been raised in the House today. The Government of Canada has a duty to tell the people why the former solicitor general was forced to resign. They have the right to know.

Over and over we see the government's complete lack of will to provide openness and transparency. The promise by the government to establish new standards of ethics has taken over a decade to surface and even then it is only just barely popping its head up. We have seen scandal after scandal with the government and each time the government promises to be open and more transparent. Yet each time that a scandal erupts, the government does damage control and then tries to cover up the wrongdoing of the minister.

This is not just limited to the former solicitor general. We are also talking about the former minister of public works, Alfonso Gagliano; the former minister of national defence; the House leader of the Liberal Party in his role as minister of public works; the minister of industry; and even now there is one that is still ongoing where medical studies on aboriginal health were done by an auto restoration firm; and of course, the Prime Minister himself. The government has existed on excuses and when it cannot come up with excuses in the existing conflict of interest guidelines, it manipulates the guidelines to encompass a whole set of brand new excuses.

The Liberal standard has fallen to a new all-time low. The government need only review the words of former Prime Minister John Turner who said in Parliament on May 12, 1986:

In public administration a minister has the burden of proof, the duty to show that what he is doing is beyond reproach. The burden of proof is not on Parliament. It is not on the opposition, nor the media. The burden of proof is on the minister.

If the minister failed this test put forward by the Prime Minister through the ethics counsellor, then Parliament and Canadians have a right to know what was so compelling as to require his resignation.

In October 1993 the Liberal Party of Canada published its election promises book known as red book I. One of the promises in it stated:

A Liberal Government will 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 parties in the House of Commons and will report directly to Parliament.

An ethics counsellor was indeed appointed, but without any consultation and reporting directly to the Prime Minister.

Let us fast forward to February 2001. The Canadian Alliance brought forward a supply day motion quoting word for word from the 1993 Liberal red book promise. The motion asked the House of Commons to adopt a policy to appoint an ethics counsellor who would report directly to Parliament and asked the government to implement that policy. It was defeated by a vote of 145 to 122 with all opposition members voting in favour. Once again the Liberal government failed to live up to its promises.

In Bill C-34 it is proposed that the new ethics counsellor will report to the House. If that is good enough now, then why not table the reports regarding the solicitor general today? Why wait and why create a double standard?

There were many unanswered questions surrounding the dealings of the former solicitor general. The government parades itself as being responsible and ethical. If this is so, then the government has a responsibility to table the ethics counsellor report in the House of Commons.

The government has taken 10 years and has made many attempts at striving for ethical standards. It should prove to the people that it is serious in making sure that parliamentarians work under ethical standards. A step in that direction would be to table the documents and show by action what, in essence, the Liberal government says it really means. If this is not done, the government will have let Canadians know that its decade old attempt at coming up with an ethical standard is just another empty promise.

Canadians need the government to be candid, something it has not been. The government has continually attempted to set rules for its members to follow. When they cannot follow the rules, it simply sets up new rules.

We need to assure Canadians that rules have been followed and can be followed and when they are not, that the government will be forthright with Canadians as to what went wrong.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will start by saying that the Bloc Quebecois will support the motion of the hon. member for Calgary Centre, which reads as follows:

That an Order of the House do issue for the production of copies of all reports of the Ethics Counsellor concerning the former Solicitor General.

In order to fully appreciate the motion before us, I think it is important to give a little background.

We will recall that the former Solicitor General had to resign on October 23, 2002, after a report by the government's ethic counsellor, Mr. Wilson, concluded that the Solicitor General should not have intervened with the RCMP commissioner with respect to a grant for Holland College, on Prince Edward Island, a college that was run by his brother.

Mr. Wilson began his investigation on October 4, 2002, after allegations of patronage were made against the former Solicitor General in connection with a $100,000 contract awarded to a firm in which his official agent, Everett Roche, had a financial interest.

The Prime Minister explained that Mr. Wilson had cleared the former Solicitor General of any breach of ethics in the matter I just referred to. The Prime Minister added, and I quote, “In the case of a public institution owned by the provincial government, the ethics counsellor said that he should not have intervened”.

In his letter of resignation to the Prime Minister, the former Solicitor General railed against Mr. Wilson's conclusions regarding lobbying he purportedly did for Holland College, and said that he believed that the ethics commissioner made an outright mistake in his advice on this whole issue.

Members will recall that Mr. Wilson had written to the Solicitor General in 1999 to tell him that he could not have anything to do with Holland College. The former Solicitor General maintains that his work on behalf of the project did not constitute “preferential treatment”, because the project had been recommended by the Atlantic innovation fund, a fund that did not come under his responsibilities.

The former Solicitor General therefore claimed his innocence by stating that he was resigning to defend his honour. In his letter to the Prime Minister he said that, in this age of political correctness, if he were to stay in cabinet, he would give the impression that he was fighting for my job, instead of his honour.

To the surprise of many, the Prime Minister accepted his former minister and faithful supporter's defence, saying that he had done nothing wrong.

The Prime Minister mentioned that all the minister did was defend the interests of the people of his small province.

The Prime Minister added that he had been an excellent minister and that he was proud that he had served in his cabinet.

Obviously, after the new Solicitor General was sworn in at Rideau Hall, the Prime Minister once again explained that the former Solicitor General had left the cabinet gracefully in order to allow the government to concentrate solely on government business.

The Prime Minister explained that he had accepted his resignation, even though the former Solicitor General had done nothing wrong. The Prime Minister added that if he had not resigned, he would have continued to defend him.

Clearly we are dealing here with a great number of indirect assessments, from the former Solicitor General, from the Ethics Counsellor and from the Prime Minister himself.

We know that the commissioner's report to the Prime Minister has remained confidential. The Prime Minister said that it contained privileged information that was no business of the public's. We do not agree with him on that.

According to the Prime Minister's summary, Mr. Wilson concluded that the former Solicitor General had respected the code of conduct in the case of a contract awarded to the accounting office of his official agent. I have already mentioned that. On the other hand, he may have contravened the rules of ethics by intervening with the RCMP and the Correctional Service in favour of a project led by the community college—Holland College— headed by his brother.

A number of questions remain unanswered. On what grounds did the ethics counsellor, Mr. Wilson, absolve the former Solicitor General in the case of the contract with his official agent? Another question would be about the discoveries made by the ethics counsellor in the second case, which might mean that the counsellor's report should be passed on to the RCMP so that the rules of proper public management are followed.

It will be remembered that the ethics counsellor's only mandate was to examine whether the former Solicitor General's actions were in accordance with the code of ethics.

We support Motion P-15 in principle, because it seems to us that more transparency is needed in order to bring this entire situation out into the open.

We must remember that in the last 10 years there have been many scandals that have not yet seen the light of day. It has been a recurring theme of the Liberal reign ever since they came back into government. To mention only the most important ones, there was the Auberge Grand-Mère, the HRDC scandal, and the sponsorship program.

We know that, in the end, after many years of promises, the Liberals have finally tabled a certain number of documents in this House. The measures taken for the future will not cleanse the past and it is clear that, over the past 10 years, the government's ethics counsellor, Mr. Wilson, has acted more as a political adviser to the government than as a guarantor of ethics in government.

At the time of the events I referred to at the beginning of my speech, the Bloc Quebecois was demanding not only the publication of the ethics counsellor's report, but also a more thorough investigation. The leader of the Bloc Quebecois—you will remember him—said that he found it very odd that someone would resign if he had nothing to be ashamed of. His remark is still relevant.

Improving the system requires some good will but sometimes this good will needs a hand, especially when we see that some ministers continued to support the former Solicitor General after the ethics commissioner produced a damning report.

I can, for example, mention the case of the new Solicitor General, who condemned the witch hunt by opposition members that forced his predecessor out. The Minister of Canadian Heritage—currently a Liberal leadership candidate—described her colleague as probably one of the most honest people in Parliament, adding that he was only doing his job, that all the parties on the island support him, that he did not seek profit for himself or his family, that his brother works in a public institution, not in private enterprise.

Even after the former Solicitor General stepped down, the Prime Minister said that he had done absolutely nothing wrong and that he had defended the interests of people on Prince Edward Island. So, there he is, among the Liberal members, and they had to agree to this rather surprising resignation if, in fact, the former Solicitor General is beyond all reproach.

In this regard, it is in everyone's interests for the ethics commissioner, Mr. Wilson, to table his reports in their entirety, so that the public can really see what the truth is.

It would be difficult to understand why the government would be scared of the truth if, in fact, the former Solicitor General is beyond all reproach. If, as the Prime Minister says, he was only doing his job, it seems that it is in the Liberals' interests for the ethics commissioner to table all the documents in this House.

I therefore invite all the members of this House, including the Liberals, to support the motion by the hon. member for Calgary Centre.

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Madam Speaker, I will be very brief in the debate today and indicate I want to support the motion put forth by the leader of the Conservative Party.

I believe it is very important to have transparency in politics. I believe that the reports of the ethics commissioner, Mr. Wilson, should be made public and to their fullest extent possible. It is not a reflection on the former solicitor general. It is just a comment on the process.

The Canadian people expect total and complete transparency and openness by the parliamentarians whom they elect. There is a great deal of cynicism by a lot of people about our political process. If they do not divulge all the information when there is an investigation by the ethics commissioner, it hurts the whole process.

I wanted to make that brief comment and to say that I support the motion before the House today.

I hope that members across the way on the Liberal side will vote freely and independently on this as well. Too often we have votes in the House that do not reflect on how an individual member really feels. We have too many confidence votes and too few free votes. We are probably one of the most handcuffed parliaments in the world in terms of the power of the whips.

In the British Parliament at the height of her popularity Margaret Thatcher, and at the height of his popularity Tony Blair, both lost many votes in the House of Commons but their governments continued. They did not lose a confidence vote and they were re-elected in both cases.

In this House we almost always deem it a party line vote. This is one case where it does not have to apply. There is no reason a member of the government or the opposition cannot freely vote in accordance with his or her own wishes in terms of the substance of the motion by the member for Calgary Centre.

I just wanted to say that and hope that the House will agree with the motion and that the ethics commissioner's report will be fully, absolutely and totally available, that there will be total and complete transparency. That is what is needed in this case.

If I were the former solicitor general, I would be the first person in the House to get up and vote in favour of total and complete transparency in making public all the documentation.

[John O'Reilly, Liberal, Haliburton—Victoria—Brock, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate on Motion No. P-15 proposed by the member for Calgary Centre.

The member for Calgary Centre seems to have a way to get so low in the way he presents things, the old Conservative let us see how low we can go routine: if we get low enough we could probably crawl under a rattlesnake with a high hat on.

[An hon. member]

Tell the truth.

[John O'Reilly, Liberal, Haliburton—Victoria—Brock, ON]

I know it is lonely in the gutter, but I am sure you must enjoy it there.

The Prime Minister has already released this information. It is something that I had hoped would never enter Parliament, but I know that the member, being a former prime minister, had ministers who could not count and he lost an election. He called an election because one of his ministers forgot to count the House: “Oh, golly, I guess I am not the Prime Minister anymore”, and then he lost the government. The Conservatives were so bad they were down to two people, one of which was not him, one of which I thought maybe even became bright enough to become a Liberal and now is a premier of a province. There is a certain amount of this that goes a long way.

I went to the riding of the member for Cardigan, to the Tea Hill Park social , a great strawberry social. I never met so many people who felt that the member had been so slighted by the Tories, by the people trying to drag him down and make him something that he is not. He is a fine upstanding gentleman. He has a lovely family. He works hard for the people of his riding. And for that he has to be dragged through the mud by a former prime minister who had a minister who could not count.

It is with regret that the Prime Minister had to accept the honourable resignation of his minister. He made public the letter of resignation that was sent to him by the former solicitor general and his reply to him. In addition, the text of the letters exchanged between the ethics counsellor and the former solicitor general have also been made public. That is not good enough for the ex-prime minister who could not count. He wants to drag someone through the mud. Personal denigration seems to be the order of the day for a dying party sitting on the other side, lost in the corner.

I should not really talk about that because I am kind of lost in this corner.

The ethics counsellor's report requested by the member for Calgary Centre was provided to the Prime Minister as confidential advice from his counsellor. When the ethics counsellor provides advice to the Prime Minister, these communications are privileged between the ethics counsellor and the Prime Minister. Not having been a prime minister for very long, I guess the member did not learn the rules back then before he became the member for Calgary Centre.

The particular report contains information and advice to the Prime Minister that I do not feel should be released. It is based on client privilege. Is it not something that due process of the law has been served and that the case is over? Oh no, let us drag people through the mud; let us see how low we can go, the old Tory thing: let us tear someone apart and boy, will we feel good when we get someone down there in the mud with us tearing them apart.

On the standards for the conduct of ministers, all considerable breaches of standards, when the need arises appropriate action is taken. The hon. member resigned. He felt that his honour was at stake. He did not want to take his family through the muck raking that would happen which is happening now anyway. I guess maybe he should have stayed.

The Prime Minister is accountable to the House and to all Canadians for the conduct of ministers. Members of course can question the government on its decisions and its actions. The Prime Minister provided very good answers when questions were asked in the House on this issue. That is the way Parliament works.

The government is committed to open transparency and is actively engaged in initiatives in this area. It is on the record. The members hate to hear it over there. Listen to them heckling like a little bunch of hens.

Last June the Prime Minister announced an eight point plan of action on ethics in government and included a commitment to the new appointment procedure for the ethics counsellor. That is not good enough for the former prime minister who could not count.

The government introduced Bill C-34 which implements the recommendations of a procedure and House affairs committee report regarding the creation of an independent ethics commissioner reporting to Parliament.

The ethics commissioner would have two functions: to administer conflict of interest provisions for members of the House; and to administer any principles, rules or obligations established in the Prime Minister's code for his ministers and other public office holders.

It is very important that the Prime Minister be able to request confidential advice on the conduct of his ministers. The Prime Minister has the responsibility for deciding who will serve in his cabinet and be questioned by Parliament and by Canadians on those decisions. The Prime Minister always makes that very clear. This approach is shared. We talk about the Westminster model. It is the same approach that the United Kingdom has. It is the same approach that Australia has.

The principle that the Prime Minister can request confidential advice is reflected in Bill C-34, but at the same time, parliamentarians would be able to request the ethics commissioner to examine the actions of a minister as they relate to the provisions of the Prime Minister's code of conduct. Under Bill C-34 the ethics commissioner would be required to examine such requests and then provide a report to parliamentarians who made the request to the Prime Minister, to the person who was the subject of the complaint, and to the public, all at the same time.

In addition, under Bill C-34 the ethics commissioner would be required to table an annual report on his administration of the Prime Minister's code in both the House and the Senate. Bill C-34 also requires that the ethics commissioner not include in the report any information that he or she requires to keep confidential.

With respect to the former solicitor general, the report sought by the member for Calgary Centre contains confidential information and was provided by the ethics counsellor to the Prime Minister as confidential advice.

I ask that the House not sink to the level of the former prime minister for a short time because his ministers could not count, to rely on the good honour of the ethics counsellor, to vote for Bill C-34 and to turn down this dilatory motion by the member for Calgary Centre.

[Paddy Torsney, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I think all members in the House are very concerned about ethics. Members are working so that all members of Parliament are respected. The Prime Minister's ethics package will go a long way to ensuring that does occur.

Bill C-34, which is presently before a committee, is an important piece of legislation. I would urge the hon. member opposite to support the bill.

Obviously, we need ensure that confidentiality is respected when these reports are drawn up. The current ethics counsellor writes reports as an advisor to the Prime Minister that include confidential and other information. The people who give that information have every right and expectation of privacy.

In the new bill the reports will be quite a bit different. There will be an opportunity for all those reports to be made public. That is an important aspect to ensuring that people do understand how ethics work and what the process is for members of Parliament. It will be an important opportunity for people to clear their names very convincingly with the public.

One of the problems we have now is people are accused of things. There is a report and people do not always get to be fully convinced that the person was in fact in the right. The improvements are something that the member opposite should be supporting. I would encourage him and his party to support those.

The issue of confidentiality and giving of advice to the Prime Minister is important. I know that on occasion, when I was unsure about how to act on an issue, I was able to contact the ethics counsellor as a backbench MP and receive some advice. It was important to know that before I acted there was a way to check and balance with someone, especially as a new member. I see there are some new members opposite over there who may want to avail themselves of that opportunity. This is something that we can all do.

As well, the reports that the ethics counsellor has put on the website, which describe what a certain situation was and what his findings were, are very instructive to the general public. They are very instructive to other members of Parliament and ministers so they are ensuring that they are conducting themselves in the most appropriate way possible.

I cannot support the motion by the right hon. member for Calgary Centre. I encourage him to look at Bill C-34 and to put his full support behind it. I encourage him to ensure that we enhance with the general public its expectations from members of Parliament and its confidence in members of Parliament from all parties.

One thing that is very stressful for me is seeing members denigrated and hearing accusations made against people in an irresponsible manner. The front page is always the place for accusations. Unfortunately, the back page sometimes is where the clarifications are issued. I know other people of high public standing are faced with that affliction as well.

Bill C-34 will ensure that there is a better process and that there is clarity. It is an important piece of legislation, and the motion from the member opposite does not enhance the process at this time. We need to ensure that we move forward in a very progressive way. The Prime Minister has demonstrated great leadership on moving forward.

I encourage all members of Parliament from all parties to support the Prime Minister's initiative going forward. I have always had every reason to have confidence in the government and many times in other members of Parliament from other parties. I am sure the member opposite can remember when members of Parliament were not held in very high repute. Certainly some of those years were very difficult prior to the present government coming into office.

There is a need for people to have confidence. The ethics package that the Prime Minister is moving forward with, and that the Liberal Party will be moving forward with, is an important part of that process because people need to have confidence. People have a right to have confidence in their members of Parliament. We can do everything to ensure that they have that respect.

I will not be supporting the motion of the member opposite. I encourage him to support the government's bill, Bill C-34.

[Claude Duplain, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Mr. Speaker, I will endeavour to touch on the topic of discussion this afternoon, but I think that everything that has been said needs to be repeated over and over.

In assessing the situation, several documents relating to the ethics counsellor's investigation into the activities of the former Solicitor General have already been made public, including a copy of the correspondence between the former Solicitor General and the ethics counsellor in 1999. The October 2002 correspondence between the Prime Minister and the former Solicitor General can also be found on the Prime Minister's website. This means that anyone can easily have access to all the documents on the website.

Information collected as part of the investigation by the ethics counsellor and released under a request for access to information can also be found there. The final report concerning the former Solicitor General has not been released.

The ethics counsellor is in the process of posting a number of his reports concerning other cabinet ministers on his website. These reports have been produced at the request of parliamentarians or other interested parties. However, reports on the conduct of members of cabinet, prepared to advise the Prime Minister, are only released at his discretion. One of these reports has been released. Indeed, the report of the ethics counsellor on the former Minister of Finance in respect of his involvement with the Canada Development Corporation and the tainted blood scandal was made public to follow up on a commitment made by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons on May 31, 1999.

In his capacity as the leader of the government, the Prime Minister has this discretion in order to fulfill his responsibility for government and ministerial conduct. It is important that the Prime Minister be able to rely on confidential advice on the conduct of his ministers, secretaries of state and parliamentary secretaries.

The Prime Minister himself, and he alone, decides the make-up of his cabinet, and he is accountable for his decisions both to Parliament and to the people of Canada. A similar system is in place in other countries, such as the United Kingdom and Australia.

These are certainly not procedures unique to us or which can be described as irresponsible.

With Bill C-34, which establishes the positions of Ethics Commissioner and Senatorial Ethics Advisor, the Prime Minister, who is ultimately responsible for the conduct of his ministers, will be able to continue to obtain confidential advice from the commissioner. Although the bill does not say so, the Prime Minister will continue to have the discretionary power to make or not to make public the advice obtained in this confidential manner.

Parliamentarians will also be able to request an investigation by the commissioner into the conduct of a minister, a secretary of state or a parliamentary secretary under the Prime Minister's code of ethics. The member who requested the investigation will receive a report setting out the facts, analysis and conclusions, as will the Prime Minister and the individual who has been the subject of the request, and the report will be made public at the same time. The bill stipulates that the ethics commissioner may not include in his report anything he is required to keep confidential.

The report on the former Solicitor General that Mr. Clark wants to obtain contains confidential information and was provided to the Prime Minister—pardon me for having used the member's name instead of his riding—by the ethics counsellor on a confidential basis. The decision to not comply with the hon. member's request is in keeping with the arrangements proposed in Bill C-34.

Since a number of the ethics commissioner's documents relating to the inquiry into the activities of the former Solicitor General have already been made public, they may be consulted on the web site. The site is there to be visited, or application can be made and the required procedure followed.

[David Pratt, Liberal, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is my great pleasure to participate in the debate this afternoon. What some of this relates to, in dealing with the ethics counsellor, is obviously the ethics of the government and the question of ethics in public service in general.

From that standpoint, the debate this afternoon has not really addressed some the broader issues that we in government face in terms of ethics. If we go back, for instance to the beginnings of this government in 1993, what we saw was an honest commitment to correct the errors of the past. God knows, we had a number of errors in the past in terms of ethics in government from the previous Conservative government of Brian Mulroney. Books have been written about the issue of ethics in the previous Mulroney government.

I was around here working as an assistant at the time of the first Mulroney parliament, from 1984 to 1988. What I witnessed, and some of the files that I worked on at that time, was absolutely astounding. I think back for instance to the case of Robert Coates, the former defence minister, who was discovered in a strip club in Germany with secret NATO documents in briefcases with him. Of course he was called upon to resign, and once it was discovered what he was up to, he did in fact resign.

However what bothered some of us at the time was the fact that the Mulroney government just had no idea as to what the concepts of ethics were, what they meant in terms of public confidence and what they meant in terms of the larger issue of the consent of the governed. It is absolutely essential to establish in the public mind some competency, some sensitivity to issues of cleanliness in government , if I can put it that way.

I think back to the case of the former solicitor general Elmer MacKay who by all accounts was an honest individual but who was drawn into a situation with the former premier of New Brunswick, Richard Hatfield, in connection with an investigation relating to marijuana in 1985. I remember that very well, and the result it had on people's confidence in government, the fact that there were these secret meetings between the former solicitor general and the premier of New Brunswick related to an RCMP investigation.

The impact that had, certainly on the people to whom I spoke, was very profound and it resulted eventually in a repudiation of the government of--

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

The hon. member will have six minutes and 30 seconds when we resume debate on this motion.

The time provided for the consideration of private members' business has now expired and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.

It being 2:30 p.m., the House stands adjourned until Monday, May 26, at 11 a.m. pursuant to Standing Orders 28(2) and 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 2:30 p.m.)