Debates of March 9th, 2011

Citizenship and Immigration

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the minister should defend himself.

Not only has he politicized the minister's awards, he politicized ministerial missions by including Parm Gill, the Conservative candidate in Brampton--Springdale, in his 2009 official trip to India. This conduct undermines the very values and fairness of Canada's just society, the one my father fought for, the one the charter upholds, the one people around the world look to as an inspiration, the one we Canadians believe in to our bones.

How dare the minister show such wanton disrespect for all Canadians?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Mr. Speaker, let me tell members what his father did with immigration when we hit a recession, led by the Liberals, in the early 1980s. He slashed immigration to 80,000. Our government has maintained historically high immigration levels during the recession.

In terms of social justice, his father's government refused to apologize to Chinese Canadians for the head tax, to the Ukrainian Canadians for their internment, to Japanese Canadians for their internment, or for the shame of the Indian residential schools, unlike our Prime Minister.

He still has not answered the question. Did he take a paid speaking gig during parliamentary duties on February 9? I would like to know.

Political Financing

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative Party can deny the facts, invent figures and make excuses all it wants, but it is the only party that misused public funds and is the only party that was accused by Elections Canada, which recently ruled that the party had violated the financing rules during the 2005-06 election. And now we have learned that the Prime Minister's current chief of staff, Nigel Wright, knew about the in and out scheme.

Does that not prove that the Prime Minister authorized this misuse of public funds for partisan purposes, thus violating the Canada Elections Act?

[Stephen Harper, Conservative, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, that individual has not been charged. We have a dispute with Elections Canada regarding the definition of local and national expenses. This dispute is before the courts and we are defending our position.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Elections Canada has ruled: the money that the Conservative Party obtained through the in and out scheme is illegal.

Will the Prime Minister—who accused the Liberals of campaigning with dirty money, I should point out—ask the Conservative Party to reimburse the money that it illegally obtained?

[Stephen Harper, Conservative, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, it is clear that Elections Canada has ruled differently on this issue in different ridings. This case is before the courts and we will obviously respect the final decision of these courts.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the immigration minister is doing nothing to clarify the difference between his role as a minister and his role as a political organizer. The minister is going out of his way to the blur the lines between the two, to the point where it is becoming impossible to tell the difference between a citizenship certificate and a Conservative Party membership card. That is how hard he has worked to confuse the two. It smells phishy to me, phishy with a “ph”.

Since the Minister of Immigration is unable to make the distinction between his role as a minister and the partisan interests of the Conservative Party, will the Prime Minister relieve him of his duties?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Mr. Speaker, of course I see the difference.

He brought up the issue of Canadian citizenship. Like all members of the Conservative Party, including those from Quebec, I believe in the value of Canadian citizenship. We are proud to be Canadian.

This member and the rest of the Bloc want to put an end to Canadian citizenship for Quebeckers. Shame! New Canadians in Quebec are proud of their Canadian citizenship, and we will defend it.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if anyone is bringing shame on being Canadian, it is the Minister of Immigration. He does not seem to understand how questionable it is to target voter groups based on their ethnicity. Apparently the minister does not understand that his racial profiling is sending a terrible message to new ethnocultural groups that the Conservative Party sees them as less desirable.

Do the Minister of Immigration and the Prime Minister recognize that it is inappropriate for the Minister of Immigration to be separating new immigrants into two classes of citizens?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Mr. Speaker, let us be clear. This party, this government is proud to reflect the values and aspirations of new Canadians, and it is proud of the diversity of our cultural communities. We are also proud that the vast majority of newcomers to Quebec believe in Canada. They want their place in Canada. They want to keep their Canadian citizenship, and we will work with them, in Quebec and across Canada, to strengthen this country and this unity.

Political Financing

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Conservatives are again using their book of dirty tricks to deflect Canadians from the truth. They are trotting the tired old “everybody does it” defence. This is not true.

Only Conservatives use local ridings to circumvent spending rules. Only Conservatives scheme to break the law. Only Conservatives were raided by the RCMP. Only Conservatives are potentially facing jail time.

When will they stop making a mockery of the rule of law?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member will have occasion to stand and explain why on March 31, 2006, months after the election was over, the national NDP transferred $2,612 to her riding association. On March 31, 2006, the exact same day, her riding association transferred back $2,600 for the national NDP.

That was $2,600 in and $2,600 out. I invite her now to explain that transaction.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is ridiculous. The Conservatives do not have a single piece of evidence to back up their wild claims.

This is about a government that does not know the difference between right and wrong. What we did was legal. What the Conservatives did was illegal. We respected the spending limits and they exceeded the spending limits.

When will they stop making up these stories about in and out, acknowledge their mistakes and show that they understand the difference between what is right and what is wrong?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member will not explain her in and out transaction, maybe this email will. It comes from Lucy Ladouceur, who is the bookkeeper for the New Democratic Party of Canada. She said:

“—we are told by the communication folks in B.C. that these radio ads, with the candidate's personal tag at the end, therefore a local expense to be reported under the candidate's expense ceiling...For rebate purposes, we were asked to bill each campaign—in the case of Vancouver East, $2,612.”

“The good news is that the federal [MP]...will transfer $2,600 to the federal riding association, as we agreed to pay for the ads.”

That is exactly what happened: $2,600 in and $2,600 out.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism cannot tell the difference between right and wrong. He cannot be trusted to tell the difference between his partisan interests and the interests of ordinary Canadians.

The minister has the power to determine the life or death of refugees. He has the power over those who want to curry favour from the government.

When will he stop abusing his power and shaking down immigrants?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Mr. Speaker, this is all completely ridiculous. What the member appears to be referring to is the fact that the Conservative Party of Canada is planning an advertising campaign in cultural community media about the great things we have done for new Canadians.

That is called democracy. Those people can then choose whom to vote for whenever the next election happens, and a lot more of them will be choosing to vote Conservative than New Democrat.

Political Financing

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Mr. Speaker, last night the House, the Canadian people's House, voted to have the Conservative government repay money it illegally obtained from election fraud. Nine Conservative MPs, including two cabinet ministers, got money back in their bank accounts.

This is a fraud based on 67 forged invoices, where $200,000 of taxpayer money went into and is still sitting in Conservative bank accounts.

Why has the Prime Minister not ordered that these illegal moneys be returned to Canadian taxpayers?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is quite right to point out that Elections Canada did give rebates to Conservatives in transactions that we believed, and have argued successfully, were completely in line with the rules of ethics and the laws. We would only ask that Elections Canada be consistent.

Indeed, I think the hon. member will rise and explain why on July 9, 2004, the national Liberal Party transferred $5,000 in to the Don Valley West Liberal Association and then on July 15, one week later, that association transferred exactly $5,000 back. She should explain.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Mr. Speaker, this is not an accounting dispute. This is not a disagreement over legal fine print. Senior Conservatives decided they would forge documents, lie to Elections Canada and they could now face jail time. They did it in 67 ridings. The former Conservative member for Simcoe-Grey refused to do it because she knew it was wrong.

Will the Prime Minister stop disparaging Elections Canada, stop attacking his own public prosecutor and get his MPs to return the money they owe to Canadians?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, on July 21, 2004, the Liberal Party of Canada transferred exactly $5,000 to the Liberal riding association of Oak Ridges—Markham. On August 16, 2004, not even a month later, that same riding association transferred back $5,000 to the national Liberal Party.

In all of these instances, where Liberal, New Democrat and Bloc Québécois members engaged in the in and out transfers, Elections Canada provided rebates and legitimized them. We are asking only that it do the exact same thing for Conservative members.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs received tens of thousands of dollars in rebates from taxpayers thanks to the Conservatives' election fraud. The same is true of the members for Beauce, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, Lévis—Bellechasse and Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière. They must have thought that it paid to forge invoices. We shall see whether their Conservative colleagues in the Senate find that it pays.

Why have the ministers kept their portfolios after they were caught with their hands in taxpayers' pockets?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is quite right that Elections Canada correctly honoured the rebates of the candidates in question and, in so doing, only legitimized the approach that we and all parties had undertaken in the past.

I give yet another example. Speaking of Simcoe—Grey, on July 19, 2004, the national Liberal Party transferred $5,000 in. One week later that riding association transferred $4,500 back to the Liberal Party. That was another in and out transfer that Elections Canada accepted as a local expense. We ask only that it apply the same rules to all parties.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary falsely claims that everybody did it. He is missing a few key differences here. The RCMP raided the offices of the Conservatives, not ours. They forged documents, we did not. Their senior officials and senators are facing election fraud charges that could land them in jail and we are not. We followed the rules.

The Prime Minister's chief of staff, Nigel Wright, a senior adviser in the campaign, was one of the key people controlling money in that election. What did Nigel Wright know about this electoral fraud and why did he not try to stop it?

[John Baird, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal leader was very brave and made all kinds of accusations against someone who has never been charged with anything. However, when he stepped outside this place and was asked to repeat exactly what he said in here, he lacked the courage of his convictions. He did not have the guts. He scurried out of the press scrum faster than he could.

Let him show the courage of his convictions, let him stand outside this place and repeat that outrageous accusation.

Transportation of Nuclear Waste

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the BAPE has just recommended a strategic environmental assessment and the establishment of strict standards before shale gas development is allowed in Quebec. This should also be the case for the shipping of nuclear waste on the St. Lawrence.

Out of respect for Quebec's territorial sovereignty, will the government take steps to overturn the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission decision and block the shipping of nuclear waste on the river until an organizations such as the BAPE carries out a rigorous environmental assessment?