House of Commons Hansard #85 of the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was c-30.

Topics

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:20 p.m.

NDP

Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB

Mr. Speaker, we are submitting new evidence to Elections Canada daily. The belt is tightening and somebody is going to go to jail.

The integrity of our Canadian electoral system has been compromised by American dirty tricks imported across the border by the Conservative Party and its operatives. Someone on those front benches knows who did what and when, and some young kid cannot be scapegoated for a scandal of this magnitude.

Who signed off on this widespread abuse? Will the government call a full public inquiry for the sake of the integrity of our electoral system?

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:20 p.m.

Peterborough Ontario

Conservative

Dean Del Mastro ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs

Mr. Speaker, once again, if the NDP has any information, any evidence at all to substantiate the smears that it is levelling in the House, then I call on it to provide that information to Elections Canada. It is not enough to stand in the House and level these types of smears. They actually need to have evidence, and we do not believe the evidence exists because we did not do it.

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:20 p.m.

Liberal

Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, the only way of finding out whether there is evidence is if the people who have the evidence actually come forward—

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:20 p.m.

Some hon. members

Oh, oh!

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

Order. The hon. member for Toronto Centre has the floor.

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:20 p.m.

Liberal

Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, it is the Conservative Party that is the holder of the evidence. This is the point that has to be made so clearly. It is the Conservative Party that has the access to the contracts. It is the Conservative Party that has the access to whomever was making the calls and when they were making the calls. I can assure the Prime Minister that all parties are providing evidence to Elections Canada, but the majority of the evidence is in the control of the Prime Minister.

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:20 p.m.

Calgary Southwest Alberta

Conservative

Stephen Harper ConservativePrime Minister

Mr. Speaker, it is the leader of the Liberal Party who is making these allegations. Surely, he has the evidence for the allegations he is making.

Yesterday, the leader of the Liberal Party had to take responsibility for smears by Liberal operatives against the Minister of Public Safety. Now he has made smears originating from Liberal operatives against dozens of Conservative MPs. He can get up and take responsibility for those, too.

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:20 p.m.

Liberal

Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, at least I—

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:20 p.m.

Some hon. members

Oh, oh!

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

Order, order. The hon. member for Toronto Centre has the floor.

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:20 p.m.

Liberal

Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has refused to take responsibility for this and for any number of other things. At least I have had the wherewithal to apologize to the House for something that I felt was mistaken. I would like to ask the Prime Minister, when was the last time he ever uttered the words “remorse”, “sorry” or “apologize”? I do not recall ever having heard them.

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:20 p.m.

Calgary Southwest Alberta

Conservative

Stephen Harper ConservativePrime Minister

Mr. Speaker, of course, the leader of the Liberal Party took responsibility after others caught someone in his own office doing this.

The leader of the Liberal Party is the one making smears against dozens of Conservative MPs. He has not provided any evidence that constitutes any sort of investigation. If he cannot do that, he should take responsibility and apologize.

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:20 p.m.

Liberal

Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, we simply followed the Prime Minister's advice. All of the information we received came from members of the public. The people are the ones making allegations. Workers are the ones making allegations. The Liberal Party is not making allegations. Responsibility for and control over this information is in the Conservative Party's hands.

The Prime Minister should turn over all contracts and all available information to Elections Canada. Then there can be a real independent investigation.

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:25 p.m.

Calgary Southwest Alberta

Conservative

Stephen Harper ConservativePrime Minister

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Liberal Party leader apologized for a smear campaign against the Minister of Public Safety. The Liberal Party is still making smears against dozens of Conservative members.

If there is any evidence, the Liberals should turn it over to Elections Canada. If there is not, they should apologize.

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:25 p.m.

NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

Mr. Speaker, speaking of misleading calls, yesterday, the parliamentary secretary tried to deflect the debate by saying that there was a higher voter turnout.

That is an intellectually dishonest answer that borders on the hypocritical and vacuous responses that the Prime Minister is treating us to today. We are not talking about a simple mistake or a complaint. We are talking about electoral fraud. People with ties to the Conservative Party could end up in jail.

We know that RackNine is involved. We also know that the Government of Canada paid money to RackNine. I have a very simple question: which departments of this government deal with RackNine?

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:25 p.m.

Nepean—Carleton Ontario

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is trying to make noise to compensate for the lack of evidence. If he ever comes up with any evidence, he should hand it over to Elections Canada.

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:25 p.m.

NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for that repeated answer.

The NDP has provided everything it knows about this electoral fraud. It is the Conservatives who have the missing pieces of the puzzle. The Conservatives should hand over all their documents and all their contracts, instead of hiding them. We know that local Conservative campaigns paid $1.3 million to RMG during the last election campaign. We want to know how much money the national Conservative campaign paid to RMG and how much money it paid to RackNine.

Can we finally have a bit of transparency and honesty from the Conservatives?

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:25 p.m.

Nepean—Carleton Ontario

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is talking about robocalls and is making robo-accusations without any evidence. I say to him: if he has any evidence, he should press 1; if not, he should press 2 to apologize. If he has the wrong number, he should hang up and try again.

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:25 p.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

Mr. Speaker, there we have it, a party that thinks that electoral fraud is a joke. That is the sense we get from them.

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:25 p.m.

Some hon. members

Oh, oh!

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

Order. The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay has the floor.

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:25 p.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

As I said, Mr. Speaker, we can see their attitude, their contempt for the Canadian people.

Let us talk about evidence that we have already brought forward to Elections Canada. We will show them ours if they will show us theirs: 780-665-2272. That is the number that called into Edmonton East, used by people pretending to be from Elections Canada and who gave misleading messages and pro-Conservative messages. That is a crime. That is electoral fraud.

Do the Conservatives not want to know who did it? We brought forward our evidence. Who over there knows who was involved in this electoral fraud in Edmonton East?

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:25 p.m.

Peterborough Ontario

Conservative

Dean Del Mastro ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs

Mr. Speaker, during the recent election, Elections Canada has confirmed that at least 127 polling stations were changed, affecting as many as 1,000 polls. This impacted hundreds of thousands of Canadians.

Like any other party, we called our supporters to ensure that they were aware of these changes. That is the evidence. That is what we know for sure. This party has no such evidence.

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:25 p.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

Mr. Speaker, we see the arrogant attitude that “Catch us if you can”. That might be okay for Earl Jones or Bernie Madoff, but that is not acceptable for the Prime Minister of Canada.

We are talking about electoral fraud. We gave them the numbers. They were saying they were just making the calls, so they admitted it.

Let us talk about what they did in Thunder Bay where we have given evidence, and now we have witnesses who said they were told to mislead voters on behalf of the Conservative Party.

Who was involved in the Thunder Bay shenanigans? Who is going to step forward, because it is time those people went to jail?

41st General ElectionOral Questions

2:30 p.m.

Peterborough Ontario

Conservative

Dean Del Mastro ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs

Mr. Speaker, that is very interesting.

I was actually on CBC Radio this morning when the lady indicated that she was actually making those calls on behalf of the Conservative Party of Canada, providing information as to the polls that had changed. In fact there were 127 polling locations that changed across the country, involving more than 1,000 polls and hundreds of thousands of Canadians.

She was making these announcements on behalf of the Conservative Party, calling Conservative Party supporters. We had an interest in making sure they got to the polls correctly. That is what we did. Every party should have done the same.