Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Niagara West.
Today we are debating a Conservative Party motion which reads:
That this House call on the Government to amend section (k) of the Gomery Commission's terms of reference to allow the Commissioner to name names and assign responsibility.
This motion comes out of remarks made by the Prime Minister on television to Canadians on April 21. The Prime Minister said in that televised message, “Only he”--Gomery--“can tell us what happened and who was responsible”. That is what the Prime Minister told Canadians, that only Gomery can tell us who was responsible for all the problems and the mismanagement, the corruption and the improper use of tax dollars in the sponsorship program.
Section (k) of Gomery's mandate reads as follows:
the Commissioner be directed to perform his duties without expressing any conclusion or recommendation regarding the civil or criminal liability of any person or organization--
That is the clear reading of Gomery's mandate. He cannot express any conclusion or recommendation regarding who is liable, whether it is a person or whether it is an organization. I would like to make it clear that Justice Gomery himself understands that he is not able to name names or assign responsibility. In fact in his opening statement he read section (k) which I have just read and then said:
--the Commission may not establish either criminal culpability or civil responsibility for sums of money lost or misspent...it does not have the capacity nor does it intend to do so.
That is what he said. It is very clear that although the Prime Minister told Canadians that only Gomery can tell us who is responsible for the organized activity that defrauded Canadian taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars, both a clear reading of his mandate and his own words of interpretation of his mandate make it very clear that Gomery is not able to tell us who is liable, who is responsible for what happened with the sponsorship program. I read again:
--without expressing any conclusion or recommendation regarding the civil or criminal liability of any person or organization--
If only Gomery can tell us who is responsible but his mandate precludes him from telling us who is responsible, we have a problem. We are trying with this motion to fix the problem to in fact ensure that Mr. Justice Gomery, who has spent many months and a lot of money hearing a range of witnesses, can in fact at the end of the day tell us what the Prime Minister has said only Gomery can tell us: who is responsible.
In order for him to do that, we have to change the mandate. We have to get rid of the prohibition in section (k) that says he cannot express any conclusion or recommendation about who is responsible. Otherwise, what is the whole point of this? The Liberals and our friends in the NDP are saying that the rules cannot be changed in the middle of the game.
This is the Parliament of Canada. This is the highest authority in the land about laws, about procedure and about process. Of course Parliament can redirect Mr. Justice Gomery. The Liberals are so worried about the shaky ground they are on with this argument that they themselves have proposed to bring forward another motion tomorrow. They tried to do it today. They want to bring forward a motion which says that the House confirms that the commissioner has the authority to name names and assign responsibility.
I am not sure how the House could affirm that, given that the mandate says “without expressing any conclusion or recommendation regarding liability”, but somehow the Liberals want us to pass a motion tomorrow saying that he does have this. That is exactly what we are trying to say today, so I am not quite sure why there is the gamesmanship. Either Gomery has the right to name names and to assign responsibility, or as he himself says, he does not. Mr. Justice Gomery says that the commission may not establish either criminal culpability or civil responsibility. It does not have the capacity, nor does it intend to do so.
Something is far wrong here and we need to fix it. We have a very unusual situation where, for the very first time, it is the governing party itself that is being investigated, that is being accused of an organized plan and activities to defraud the taxpayer.
The suggestion by the government that somehow the Supreme Court says we cannot do this is nonsense. The Prime Minister of Canada has said that only Gomery can get to the bottom of this. In fact, the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Public Works have said over and over, “We will leave no stone unturned to get to the bottom of this. We will get to the bottom of this. Gomery will get to the bottom of this”. Then we find out that Gomery cannot. He cannot, at the bottom of this, tell us who is responsible, not only who is responsible in a criminal sense, but who is responsible even in a civil sense. Gomery cannot do that. His mandate says he cannot do that and he says he cannot do that.
We are trying to fix it and keep the Prime Minister's promise to Canadians that Gomery will tell us what happened and who is responsible. All of a sudden there is a great outcry from the government and its friends in the NDP. We cannot tell Canadians who is responsible. Gomery cannot do that. We cannot have a motion that would allow him to do that. This is completely untenable.
We know that the Liberals are worried, because they are trying to bring forward another motion which is completely at odds with the mandate of Gomery, clause (k) and Gomery's own interpretation of his mandate. What is the motion that the Liberals are trying to put forward? Will it change the mandate or will it say that the mandate says something that it clearly does not? Why not just make it clear, as we have done in our motion today, that clause (k) of Gomery's mandate will be amended to allow him to name names and assign responsibility? Either it does or it does not and Parliament can either say it does or it does not.
There is a suggestion that somehow Mr. Justice Gomery would have a problem with this. That again is complete and utter nonsense. Mr. Justice Gomery has heard the evidence. Judge Gomery has looked at the tapes of the bank robbery. He knows the money is missing. He knows who took it and he knows who drove the getaway car, but his mandate says he cannot tell who grabbed the cash and who drove the getaway car. What we are saying is that is information he has and which he should be giving to Parliament.
I urge the House to support this motion. Let us give Canadians the full truth as they deserve.