Debates of Oct. 29th, 2013

Ethics

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. I do not know if the member got to his question or not.

The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, in an email released yesterday, Nigel Wright wrote that there were “several Senators with similar arrangements” to Mike Duffy. How many is “several”? Is it more than a few? Who are all these other senators who are ripping off taxpayers?

[Stephen Harper, Conservative, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, if the leader looks at that, he will find that the issue in question concerns the fact that many senators and many members of Parliament have more than one residence. The fact of the matter is that having more than one residence does not entitle one to claim expenses one did not actually incur. That is the issue.

That is why this was unacceptable. It is why Mr. Wright should not have repaid Mr. Duffy's expenses, but Mr. Duffy should have repaid them himself. He did not do so, and he told falsehoods about doing so. Mr. Wright has been punished. Mr. Duffy should also be punished appropriately.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, Mike Duffy says that he was threatened by PMO staffer Ray Novak and by Senator Marjory LeBreton to resign from caucus or be kicked out of the Senate. He was told, “Mike, this is the only option that can ensure your future livelihood”. Is that quote accurate?

[Stephen Harper, Conservative, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to see the leader of the NDP now taking the position that Mr. Duffy and these senators are somehow victims.

The truth of the matter is that Mr. Duffy is in difficulty here because he took expenditures for which we all know he should never have been reimbursed. That was pointed out to him, and Mr. Duffy committed to repaying them. He did not repay them, in fact, as we all know. He worked out a secret arrangement with Mr. Wright, where Mr. Wright repaid them for him. That is obviously completely unacceptable. It is why Mr. Wright is out of the job and why Mr. Duffy should also be off the payroll.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, it was so secret that 13 people in his office were in on it. I remind the Prime Minister that it is not the NDP that reimbursed the expenses for those totally inappropriate and illegal things Mr. Duffy had done. It is the Conservative Party that reimbursed him.

The quote I read before was from Senator LeBreton in the Senate. She was threatening the senator and she is confirming it. She said, “Mike, this is the only option that can ensure your future livelihood”. If Mr. Duffy went quietly from caucus, they were going to have a better deal for him. He would have his job until age 75 or be gone. That is where the cover-up began.

Is this why Marjory LeBreton stepped down as his House leader in the Senate?

[Stephen Harper, Conservative, Prime Minister]

Once again, Mr. Speaker, the leader of the NDP is trying to argue that Mr. Duffy was being threatened with some kind of inappropriate sanctions. Mr. Duffy was being threatened with sanctions because he collected expenses he should not have collected. He should have repaid those and he did not.

At the heart of this is the reality that Mr. Duffy continues to believe he did absolutely nothing wrong in collecting expenses he never actually should have collected, and absolutely nothing wrong in telling the Canadian public he repaid them when he did not repay them. That is why Mr. Duffy faces the sanctions he faces today.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Leader of the Opposition]

Actually, Mr. Speaker, Mike Duffy was being bought off by the Prime Minister's own office to shut him up. That is what has happened.

Ms. LeBreton has said publicly that she took detailed notes of her conversation with Mike Duffy. Has she turned over those notes to the RCMP, because that is a document?

[Stephen Harper, Conservative, Prime Minister]

Once again, Mr. Speaker, the senator in question has been accused of absolutely nothing.

The perpetrators here are absolutely clear in this particular affair. Mr. Duffy took expenses he should never have taken and then he falsely claimed to have repaid them. Mr. Wright repaid those on his behalf and did not properly inform me and others that that is what happened. That is why Mr. Wright has faced the sanction that he has. Mr. Duffy should also be removed from the public payroll.

International Trade

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, this past weekend many farmers in my riding told me they were excited about the European trade agreement and market access to 500 million new customers, yet there was a concern that products such as oats and wheat currently possess tariffs of $119 per tonne and $190 per tonne.

Could the government please inform my farmers as to when they will be able to deliver their products to Europe tariff-free?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, this trade agreement is truly historic and will deliver tremendous long-term benefits to Canadians in every region of our country and across all sectors of our country.

Fishermen in Atlantic Canada, forestry workers in Quebec, auto workers in Ontario, farmers on the Prairies and engineers from the west coast, along with millions of other Canadians, will benefit from our effort to open up the largest consumer market in the world.

Ethics

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, how many people were involved in the original plan, which was to ask the Conservative Party to repay Mike Duffy's expenses? How many people were involved in the initial plan?

[Stephen Harper, Conservative, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, our position is that Mr. Duffy should repay his inappropriate Senate expense claims.

Once again, my position was that Mr. Duffy should repay expenses himself, the money that he had taken from taxpayers for expenses he had not actually incurred. That money should be repaid to the taxpayers of Canada. That was not done. In fact, a fabrication that it was done was made. For that reason, Mr. Duffy should face the appropriate sanctions in the Senate.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, that fabrication was concocted in the Prime Minister's own office.

Why did the Prime Minister, if it is all so inappropriate, ask the Conservative lawyers to pay his expenses? Why the contradiction?

[Stephen Harper, Conservative, Prime Minister]

Once again, Mr. Speaker, political parties do provide legal assistance to their members from time to time.

The fact of the matter is that we are talking about money that was taken inappropriately from taxpayers. It was the view of everybody on this side that the money should be reimbursed to the taxpayers. We were also assured not only that it would be but that it had been done. That was obviously untrue. The individual in my office who did that has faced the sanction. Mr. Duffy should face an appropriate sanction.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister therefore sees nothing wrong with using the money of the Conservative Party to reimburse the legal expenses of someone he says has broken the law. That is the ethics of the Prime Minister. Duly noted.

If everyone involved in the Senate expense scandal really did knowingly hide the truth from the Prime Minister—as he tried to claim again yesterday—and if he is the one, or so he says, who is the victim of the 13 people who hatched this plot around him, why have those people not been let go?

[Stephen Harper, Conservative, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, once again, on our side there is one person responsible for this deception, and that person is Mr. Wright, by his own admission. For that reason, Mr. Wright no longer works for us. Mr. Duffy should not either.

As I have said repeatedly, the concern of the Prime Minister of Canada in this case is that taxpayer money not be misused. Taxpayer money was misused. It should be repaid. Mr. Duffy has still not repaid it and should face sanction.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's story has changed nearly every day. The Prime Minister has yet to produce a single document. It is true that Mike Duffy has almost zero credibility, but his story is still more believable than that of the Prime Minister, and that is quite a feat.

[Stephen Harper, Conservative, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, this is extraordinary. The leader of the NDP thinks he can believe Mr. Duffy, who said on national television that he took out a loan against his assets to repay money he had taken inappropriately from the taxpayers, and who now turns around and says that, by the way, he never should have repaid any of it, that he was entitled to it all the time, and that it is not his fault that he made up these lies on national television. That is Mr. Duffy's responsibility and the reason why he should be sanctioned.

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

Mr. Speaker, the normal maximum salary for a chief of staff in the Prime Minister's Office is $180,000 annually. I say normal because the treasury minister can grant an exemption if that person is being recruited from the private sector where the salaries may be higher.

Let us end the cover-up and get some straight answers here. Was Nigel Wright paid more than the maximum of $180,000? What did he get in the way of taxpayer-funded benefits when he left in disgrace? How much?

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and for Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I answered this yesterday. Mr. Wright will get what he is legally entitled to and nothing more.

How can we ever expect accountability from the Liberal Party? The Liberals defended a senator whose principal residence was Puerto Vallarta for 30 years, and they did nothing about it. Now we are seeing that at the same time they are obstructing the Senate.

The Liberals need to stand up for Canadians, stand up for taxpayers and help us get rid of these three senators who took money from the Canadian taxpayer that they did not deserve. That is what we need to do. They need to get out of the way and start talking about Canadians.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Mr. Speaker, in addition to the PMO, three Conservative senators are under RCMP investigation related to their expense claims. To cover up the PMO involvement, the government leader in the Senate has moved to suspend them. However, here in the House the member for Peterborough has been charged with very serious offences under the Canada Elections Act and yet the government has made no attempt to suspend him. After all, he is still on the public payroll.

Why the double standard?

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and for Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, what are we talking about here? We are talking about the fact that the Liberals and the NDP do not want to talk about all of the things we are doing with respect to moving the economy forward. They do not want to talk about creating jobs. They do not want to talk about opportunity. They do not want to talk about free trade because they know that on every single issue that matters we are on the right track. They do not want to talk about the fact that we have created over a million jobs.

We are not talking about a billion dollar boondoggle for gas plants; we are not talking about unpaid legal leadership debts; we are talking about the fact that this Prime Minister stands up for taxpayers—

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, not only do we now know that it was the Prime Minister's Office that concocted the story about the Royal Bank and Mike Duffy's loan, but we also know that Pamela Wallin was forbidden by Senator Tkachuk from saying anything more than necessary.

Why is the Prime Minister not telling the whole truth about the role of his office and the Conservative senators in trying to limit the truth in this entire sordid business?