Debates of April 30th, 2008

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my constituents, I always jump on the opportunity provided by an adjournment debate to reiterate all of my questions because I am asking these questions for them. Clearly, the parliamentary secretary and the departmental team have not looked into this. It is just as obvious that the parliamentary secretary did not hear me as it is that he was simply reading his speech.

I discussed one single industry: producers operating private woodlots and forests. I did not talk about sawmills; I talked about independent workers. We know that the trust completely ignores them. The government should not be trying to sidetrack us. Their trust would remove foresters from the forest for years to come.

What will happen when they are removed? What will happen in five, six or ten years when the crisis is over? What condition will the forest be in then? Why is the government not using the measures I described earlier to help them stay in the forest and take care of that very important natural resource? That is the real question. Why is the government completely ignoring these people? That is my question.

He should put his speech away and give me a straight answer. What will the Conservative government do to help private woodlot operators?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the government is aware that the communities and people facing economic hardship need help without further delay.

That is why we have taken action and introduced Bill C-41 providing for the creation of a $1 billion national community development trust, which was unanimously approved by representatives from all parties in the House of Commons. The trust will be set up as soon as possible, following talks with the provinces and territories about proposed projects consistent with the objectives of the trust.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in February I asked a question in this House about election expenses. The Conservative government has always been quick to brag about its accountability, but we rarely see that rhetoric in action. One only has to watch the proceedings, or the lack thereof, in the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, of which I am a member, to realize that the government really has no interest in opening itself up to public scrutiny.

Those of us in the opposition are anxious to put aside partisan interests and resume the meetings of the procedure and House affairs committee. This committee has not met in over a month because the Conservative government members have refused to hold additional meetings to investigate their party's alleged scheme to subvert election spending in the 2006 federal election and go over the limits that are set for all parties. This was revealed by the Chief Electoral Officer. As a result of the stubbornness of the government, regular committee meetings have ground to a halt, and even government legislation has been left sitting idle.

Members of the procedure and House affairs committee, and this includes whips of all three opposition parties, have urged the government to return to the work on Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (visual identification of voters). This is just one of many important pieces of government legislation that have been left sitting idle and are not being dealt with by the committee because of the Conservative government's stalemate.

The official opposition is determined to make this minority Parliament work and to have the work of the committees be useful. The Conservative government's fear of accountability should not be allowed to paralyze Parliament. Earlier this year, the three opposition parties united to remove the chair of the procedure and House affairs committee because he was using obstructionist tactics to prevent the parliamentary investigation of his party's in and out scandal. Unfortunately, the new chair who was elected subscribes to the same book of dirty tricks compiled by the Conservative Party.

The Conservative Party has been under investigation by the independent elections commissioner since last spring for allegedly funnelling over $1.2 million in national advertising costs down to regional candidates during the 2006 federal election. This was done in order to circumvent federal election spending limits.

In January, Elections Canada filed an affidavit pointing out examples of how Conservative candidates booked widely different amounts to claim expenses for broadcasts of the same national party ad. It indicated its concern that this scheme was designed to make use of unused local campaign limits to book national campaign expenses rather than to actually fund local campaigns for local advertising.

The Conservative government has literally written the book on how to disrupt democratic operations and to grind parliamentary business to a halt.

Canadians want Parliament to work, and we as Liberals are committed to doing the work that we were elected to perform. Liberals even told the committee chairperson that we were willing to temporarily postpone an examination of the in and out election financing in order to enable the procedure and House affairs committee to make progress on other issues, yet this committee continues to be locked out.

Why is the government going to such great lengths to block an investigation by Elections Canada? When will this important committee get back to work on behalf of Canadians?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, the member will be quick to add in her supplementary that her party engages in the same so-called in and out techniques of which she accuses this party on the government side. That is why she put forward a motion at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs meeting on November 13, 2007. It read as follows:

That the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs investigate the actions of the Conservative Party of Canada during the 2006 election, in relation to which Elections Canada has refused to reimburse Conservative candidates for illegitimate election campaign expenses.

She put that motion forward and we were actually quite excited to see that motion. I was very happy and prepared to vote for it, with one small amendment. That amendment asked only that all of the election expenditures and financial transactions of the opposition parties also be subject to the same study, so that we could examine whether in fact the Conservative Party practices were indeed unique.

It turns out that she was very angry about that proposal and she began to filibuster the meeting along with other opposition colleagues. Just before this amendment to study Liberal-New Democratic-Bloc finances came up for a vote, she and her opposition colleagues stormed out of the room, denied quorum to the committee, and shut down the proceedings so that we could not proceed with any investigation of the Liberal Party finances.

There are a number of theories about why the Liberals would be afraid to have their election finances studied. Some would suggest that there will be evidence unearthed of the whereabouts of the $40 million that continues to be missing from the sponsorship scandal. That is money that was not only stolen and defrauded from taxpayers, but it also was transacted in the form of cash in contravention of Elections Canada law and probably led to overexpenditures in ridings where that untraceable cash was not reported.

Interestingly, as a side note, we observe that Elections Canada never bothered to investigate the sponsorship scandal regardless of the enormity of the criminal behaviour that was involved in the electioneering aspects of that scandal.

However, that is not the only reason why the Liberals are afraid to have hearings into their financial practices. They are also worried that we might show that they too engage in the exact same financial transactions of which we in the Conservative Party are now accused. In fact, the Liberal Party in the 2006 campaign transferred $1.5 million to local candidates in the ridings and those same candidates transferred back about $1.3 million. Most of those transactions would have been in one way or another in and out transactions.

We are not accusing the Liberals and certainly not that member, who is a hard-working and decent individual, of having committed any crime, but we are merely pointing out that the practices in which we engaged are identical to the ones to which her and her party have become accustomed. Those practices are perfectly legal.

I will give one example. After the 2004 election, the director general of the Liberal Party of Canada in Alberta wrote to local campaigns saying, “During the past election campaign the Liberal Party of Canada in Alberta transferred funds and/or paid for services in kind directly to the candidate”. It continues, but the payment it is referring to in this case--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, I am sorry but the four minutes are up.

The hon. member for Kitchener Centre.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would just point out to my friend that in the 11 years that I have been here in Parliament, it has been an absolute rarity to see government members filibustering. It has not been the opposition parties that have filibustered at procedure and House affairs, but indeed the government members.

The Elections Commissioner identified the Conservative Party alone as a party that had used a practice that it felt was inconsistent with the current application of the law. It is not whether or not money is transferred from the central party to individual ridings, it is the fact that there was no benefit and no bill incurred at that local level.

That has been the contravention. It has been the overexpenditure by $1.2 million by the Conservative Party that is under investigation. The RCMP raided the Conservative Party headquarters. No other party has been under investigation. All hon. members and candidates know in this House, there is a regime by which candidates sign off on any kind of election expenses as do official agents--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if that is the case then I do not know why the member would vote against a motion to have an investigation into the books of the Liberal Party. Perhaps it is because of a letter that the Conservative Party has been able to get from Elections Canada, in which the director general of the Liberal Party of Canada in Alberta wrote local campaigns saying, “During the past election campaign, the Liberal Party of Canada in Alberta transferred funds and/or paid for services in kind directly to the candidate...”. These transfers included an ad in the Edmonton Journal.

The only invoicing that was done for this advertisement was to the national Liberal Party. The media outlet did not deal with the local campaigns. There is not even any evidence that the local campaigns approved those ads before they ran. They were then asked to pay the Liberal Party in order to compensate the party for the purchase of ads that that party had done. This is precisely--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 6:49 p.m.)