Debates of April 18th, 2008

Elections Canada

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, the first thing I would have to wait for in order to table it would be to actually have it, so I am in no position to table it. Elections Canada would be the one to do that, and the member can go talk to it.

In terms of the question of our having to produce documents, we have produced every document sought.

Members should remember that we were the ones who initiated this case against Elections Canada. We have put the evidence on the table. We have been open every step of the way. The issue is one of interpretation. There has never been a question of availability of documents.

The issue is a legal interpretation of the law, where it says that our candidates cannot talk about their leader and their policy. It does not make sense to us. It does not make sense why the other parties are different.

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, he should stop playing games. When the law states that the content of a warrant cannot be disclosed, it is to be fair to the party named in the search warrant. Nothing is stopping the Conservatives from simply telling us what the warrant said. They must know, since the police would have had to show it to the party officials before entering the building.

Why are they not telling us what the search warrant said if they have nothing to hide?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, as I said, we do not have the warrant. We have never seen the affidavit and insofar as the warrant is concerned, we understand it is about the issue that we have with Elections Canada, over which we have taken it to court. I will review for the benefit of the hon. member what that is.

Elections Canada takes the position that Conservative Party candidates at the local level cannot advertise or promote their national leader, their national campaign policies and their national issues. We think that is absurd. We know that in the case of the Bloc Québécois, it had posters and banners all across the province in its local campaigns promoting its leader.

I can understand why perhaps the Liberal Party does not want to promote its leader in the next election. I can understand why it might not have any policies to put in its brochures, but we do and we are ready to do that in the next election, too.

Conservative Party of Canada

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are fed up and appalled at the litany of scandals plaguing the Conservative government. None of them have been resolved. The Quebec adviser is under investigation. The Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. is under investigation. The chief of staff to the Prime Minister is under investigation. The Conservative election campaign is under investigation, complete with search warrants.

When is the government going to release the results of the five ongoing investigations into Conservative misdeeds? When is it going to release those results?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, we have been quite clear on this issue. I thought it was only the Liberal Party that liked to pursue the imaginary scandals because it does not have a leader or any policies. The NDP actually has some policies. We think they are very misguided but we actually thought it had them.

I can say quite clearly, as we have in the past, that in the case of all these imaginary scandals, there really is nothing there other than a Liberal Party desperate to dredge up stuff to hide its own leadership problems and its own policy problems.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the government House leader seems to have forgotten that in the last election the Conservatives falsely promised that the years of Liberal style corruption in government would end. They promised clean, accountable government where nothing would be hidden. Well, nothing has changed. There are insulting answers in the House, obstinate ministers, RCMP raids, investigations by Elections Canada, and now we get stonewalling.

I ask again. When can we expect the release of any of the five ongoing investigations into the Conservative misdeeds? When are we going to get to the truth? When will Canadians get the truth on these investigations?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, what has happened in every case so far is that we have gotten to the point where we put the results on the table and we find out, for example, that after allegations that a cabinet minister did something inappropriate, no less than the OPP says absolutely nothing wrong was done and he is totally clear. That is what happens every single time on every single issue.

I could go through them all, but it turns out that, guess what, there is nothing there because this is a government that is cleaner than any government before and certainly cleaner than the government that right now has the legacy of having its executive director for Quebec arrested on charges of all that money that was taken from taxpayers for the sponsorship scandal.

Elections Canada

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the government House leader continues to mislead the House. The Conservative overspending scandal was not initiated by the civil court case. The Chief Electoral Officer has determined that Conservatives blew the election spending cap, tried to hide it, and then tried to hide national party advertising expenses through 66 local campaigns.

Elections Canada has confirmed that the raid was not related to the civil lawsuit. Why does the Prime Minister insist on ordering his people to mislead Canadians? What did the search warrant say?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, it relates to the exact same question. The question is how to interpret the Elections Act and whether it is appropriate and permissible for local candidates to talk about their national leader and their national policies in their campaigns.

Apparently, it is all right for the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, and so many other Liberals, to take that kind of approach. It is all right for all the candidates for the Liberal Party, for example, in New Brunswick to do group regional advertising, pool funds and get rebates, but it is only the Conservative Party that cannot do that. That is the unfair treatment that led us to bring this matter to court.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, they are not answering. We can only conclude that they have something to hide. And it starts with the Prime Minister.

What is in this search warrant that they are trying to hide from Canadians?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, we have the same curiosity that the hon. member has. We have not seen the affidavit in support of the search warrant and it is indeed a puzzle because we have produced every document, in this interpretation dispute, that Elections Canada has sought.

In fact, we find the whole investigation kind of suspicious, where it came from. But Liberal Senator Campbell said yesterday in the Senate that he knew where the investigation came from. The Liberal senator said, “We initiated the investigation; you initiated the lawsuit”. That seems awfully clear to me what he thinks about where it came from.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative spending scandal is about one thing: national party spending limits. The Conservative Party of Canada broke the law. That is what Elections Canada is investigating with police raids and search warrants. The law puts a limit on how much any party can spend in total at the national level. The Conservatives broke that law and had to find somewhere to hide the illegal spending.

Will the minister now consent to any court proceeding today or next week on unsealing the affidavit supporting the search warrant?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, we share the same curiosity because, as we said, we provided every document that Elections Canada has sought with regard to our dispute on how the election spending should be interpreted, and you know what, Mr. Speaker, Elections Canada does make unduly rigid interpretations.

I know that because the guy that the member for Wascana supported for the leadership, the member for Toronto Centre now, actually took Elections Canada to court too on an interpretation. Guess what? He won and he is $50,000 richer as a result, so is his party leader, and so is the deputy leader from Etobicoke—Lakeshore.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has a personal vendetta against Elections Canada. Back in 2001, he called Elections Canada officials “jackasses”, his words, not mine. Time and again Elections Canada has blown the whistle on his right-wing schemes to violate the rules that guarantee fair and honest elections in Canada. So when he came into office, he changed the people at Elections Canada. But guess what? Those new officials believe in the law. They are the ones who raided the Prime Minister's party office.

Why is the government trying to reduce Canadian election laws to tin pot standards?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, apparently, that member should look to his left, look to his right, because every single one of those frontbenchers who ran for the leadership of his party, other than him who never ran for the leadership of his party in the end, every single one of them benefited from the fact that they said Elections Canada does not know how to interpret the law. They took Elections Canada to court. I guess they do not respect that institution either. But you know what, Mr. Speaker, they won because Elections Canada makes mistakes sometimes.

Justice

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the National Assembly of Quebec unanimously passed the following motion:

That the National Assembly indicate to the Parliament of Canada that Bill C-484 should not be passed since it could give rise to significant uncertainty as regards the criminalization of abortion and the legal status of the fetus.

Will the government join with Quebec and defeat this completely unacceptable bill?

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, as we have stated many times in this House and as the Minister of Justice has stated, the government has no plan to reopen the debate on abortion.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when will the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages have the courage to stand up and defend women? The free vote argument is not good enough. We clearly see the Conservative Party's reform agenda: to criminalize abortion through the back door, as was the case in more than 30 states in the United States. The religious right is thrilled, and so are pro-life groups.

Unless it is intending to criminalize abortion, will the government ask its members to vote against this bill, yes or no?

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, as I just said, the government has no plan to reopen the debate on abortion.

While I am on my feet, I would like to ask the hon. member: When is her party going to start standing up for justice in Canada? When is her party going to stand in favour of our bill to reduce drug offences and crack down on crime, people who sell drugs to kids in schoolyards, crack down on identity theft, and crack down on auto theft? That is what Canadians are wondering.

Public Safety

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we have learned that not only was Quebec opposed to police intervention in January 2004 on Kanesatake Mohawk lands, but so was the RCMP. We now know that this federal government decision was strictly political—just one more reason for it to reimburse its share of the costs incurred as a result of this operation.

Will the federal government assume its responsibilities and reimburse the Quebec government for that operation?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, our government will not tolerate mismanagement of Canadian taxpayers' money. Unlike the previous Liberal government, any allegation of mismanagement is a matter that our government takes seriously. That is why we launched a forensic audit and the Minister of Public Safety expects to receive the final report in the upcoming weeks.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives can hide behind an operation undertaken by the Liberals all they want, but by refusing to reimburse the Quebec government, they are in league with the Liberals and endorsing a bad decision.

Now that they have an opportunity to act, will they correct the situation and reimburse the Quebec government?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, unlike the government under which the alleged mismanagement occurred, we will shed light on these allegations. The Minister of Public Safety does expect to receive a final report in the upcoming weeks and the minister will take an appropriate course of action once he has reviewed the independent report.

Minister of Foreign Affairs

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Foreign Affairs is an embarrassment to Canadians. The minister has done nothing to help Brenda Martin, who is still in a Mexican prison. The minister has done nothing to ban cluster bombs. In the only matter in which the minister has decided to take action, Afghanistan, he created an international incident last week.

How can the Prime Minister still have confidence in this minister? When will he ask the minister to step down?

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and to the Minister of International Cooperation]

Mr. Speaker, the government has full confidence in the Minister of Foreign Affairs. However, what I would like to ask the hon. member is: When will he ask his leader to resign because his leader is the one who said that he would invade Pakistan.