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.