Debates of Nov. 18th, 2013

Typhoon Haiyan

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the Philippines were devastated by Typhoon Haiyan. Each day, the extent of the destruction becomes clearer. Thousands of lives have been lost, many more have been hurt and hundreds of thousands have lost everything.

Over 700,000 people of Filipino heritage call Canada home, and thousands more are here from the Philippines working, studying and visiting in Canada.

The tragedy in the Philippines has touched us all. Canadians care. In a meeting that I hosted with the leader of the Liberal Party and members of the Filipino community, it was made clear that Canada should continue to look at the ways beyond just donating money and providing military support to the Philippines. Speeding up immigration along with assisting the current and expiring working, visiting and student visas is important too.

We must continue to support the community after the international media moves away. I think I can speak for all of us when I say we are thankful for the tireless work of aid and emergency workers who are there around the clock.

On behalf of the Liberal Party, I extend our condolences and prayers to those who have been personally affected by Typhoon Haiyan.

Adoption Expense Tax Credit

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, our government believes strong families are the backbone of a strong Canada. That is why since 2006 our tax cuts have left more than $3,200 in the pockets of the average Canadian family. However, we know families come in many different forms, including those who start, or like us, grow through adoption. That is why families who choose to adopt are eligible for the adoption expense tax credit.

However, parents have recently told us that while this credit was helpful, it was not always enough to cover all of their expenses. We heard their concerns. That is why economic action plan 2013 enhanced the adoption tax credit, to better recognize the unique costs associated with adopting a child.

The Adoption Council of Canada praised this move, calling it “an important step in supporting adoptive families”. Despite this, we recognize more can be done. That is why, as highlighted in the recent Speech from the Throne, our government will continue to look at ways to help families defray the costs of adopting a child.

Toronto

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the world has been hearing a lot about Toronto, but not the “Toronto the Good” that we know and love.

While the mayor, the Prime Minister's fishing buddy, has become an international embarrassment, I want people to know that Toronto is so much more than Rob Ford.

Toronto is a safe, vibrant, and welcoming city, one of the world's most multicultural cities. Toronto is key to our country's finance, telecom, aerospace, and arts and culture sector, and so many other industries.

Toronto has spectacular beaches, Rouge Park, the Humber River, an excellent public school system, universities, museums, and theatres.

It is home to the Argonauts, the Blue Jays, the Raptors, the Rock, and Toronto FC. Heck, even the Leafs are having a good year.

Toronto is more than a mayor who has lost the moral authority to govern. We are one of the world's most livable cities, and I am so proud to call Toronto my home.

Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, judgment is something every Prime Minister needs, but does the Liberal leader really have it? Do we remember when he said, “Quebeckers are better than the rest of Canada because, you know, we're Quebeckers or whatever.” Westerners have heard talk like that from Liberals before.

How can someone who believes one region of Canada is better than another treat all Canadians equally? He cannot.

The Liberal leader also went to a Brandon school where, in front of a room full of younger children, he pitched his plan to make marijuana more accessible to kids by legalizing it and regulating it like alcohol and cigarettes.

That is why the Liberal leader is in way over his head.

International Co-operation

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, Typhoon Haiyan has caused catastrophic destruction and created a massive humanitarian crisis. The human tragedy unfolding in the Philippines has touched all Canadians.

New Democrats support efforts from the government to help.

Would the Prime Minister please update the House about what assistance the Canadian government will provide for this unprecedented humanitarian crisis?

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Minister of International Development and Minister for La Francophonie]

Mr. Speaker, we offer our condolences to all of those who have been affected. They are in our thoughts and prayers.

Right from the beginning, we committed $5 million in terms of immediate assistance. After that, we announced we would match all funds donated by Canadians to charities. We announced, also, that we have deployed DART on site.

I want to tell the House also that the Prime Minister has announced that we will commit an additional $15 million toward emergency relief activities. That should bring further comfort to the victims of this catastrophe.

This brings Canada's commitment to nearly $40 million so far.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Nycole Turmel, NDP, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are pleased that Canada quickly deployed the DART to provide immediate assistance. It is also important that we give priority to immigration applications from the regions most affected by Typhoon Haiyan. What is more, we should do everything in our power to support family reunification. The government will have the full co-operation of the NDP.

Can the government inform us of the measures implemented to reduce processing times for these applications?

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, Canada is concerned by the unfolding situation in the Philippines and its impact upon the people of the region. We are taking action.

Our government has committed an additional $15 million toward emergency relief activities. This brings the Government of Canada's commitment to date to more than $20 million.

We are also carrying out a number of immigration measures, including expediting passport processing for affected Canadians and providing priority processing for family members of Canadians and permanent residents who self-identify as being from areas that are significantly affected by Typhoon Haiyan.

Ethics

[Nycole Turmel, NDP, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would now like to move on to another matter.

Last June, the Prime Minister said that no one in his office except Nigel Wright knew about the scheme to repay Mike Duffy's illegal expense claims. In October, he changed his version of the facts and said that just a few people knew about it. Then, in November, he said that Mr. Wright acted alone. Only one of these versions can be true. Which one is it?

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

Mr. Speaker, I believe that Nigel Wright, in the affidavits that have been supplied to the court, identified the individuals who were involved in this plan.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, let us try that again.

On June 5, the Prime Minister said that no one else in his office knew about Nigel Wright's $90,000 payment to Mike Duffy.

On October 24, the Prime Minister told the House that very few people in his office knew about the cheque.

However, there is more. On November 5, just two weeks ago, the Prime Minister said that Mr. Wright has acknowledged that these were his actions and that he took them himself.

Which of these three statements by the Prime Minister is the correct one?

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

Mr. Speaker, as I have said on a number of occasions in the House, when Senator Duffy approached the Prime Minister to try to justify his inappropriate expenses, the Prime Minister told Senator Duffy that he needed to repay those expenses.

Moreover, Senator Duffy went on TV and told Canadians, and all of us, that he had actually taken a mortgage out on his home and repaid those expenses. We know that not to be true. We also know that it was Nigel Wright who repaid those expenses. We know that if the Prime Minister had known about this scheme, he would in no way have approved of such a plan.

Mr. Wright is prepared to accept the consequences of those actions, and we are assisting in any way that we can.

41st General Election

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the mayor of Toronto has admitted to some very troubling crimes and misdemeanours, but we have not forgotten the fact that the police are actually investigating the Prime Minister's Office here in Ottawa.

However, let us turn to yet another criminal investigation of the Conservatives.

It turns out that Michael Sona was in Aruba at the same time Conservative officials claimed that he was bragging about voter suppression in Guelph.

Does the justice minister still believe that Michael Sona is the sole culprit behind this voter fraud, as he said on February 26, 2012?

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

Mr. Speaker, as we have said, we will continue to assist with the investigation on this matter. We are working closely with Elections Canada and providing any assistance we can.

At the same time, we believe that those who are found responsible should be held and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. That is what we believe on this side of the House, and we are going to continue to assist Elections Canada in this effort.

Ethics

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's ethics scandal involved all of his senior advisers: Wright, Gerstein, Perrin, Hamilton, Woodcock, Byrne, Rogers, Novak, van Hemmen, LeBreton, Tkachuk, Stewart Olsen, and the list goes on, but it is not these underlings who are responsible; it is the boss.

To get to the bottom of the conspiracy in his office, did the Prime Minister ask these people what they knew and what they did? As the CEO with ultimate accountability for any corruption on his watch, from February until today, did he ever ask?

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

Mr. Speaker, what is very clear is that Nigel Wright has taken full and sole responsibility for this matter. He acted on his own. He used his own resources to pay.

What is also important is that Senator Duffy went in front of Canadians and told them that he actually had taken a mortgage out on his home to repay those expenses. It was inappropriate for Senator Duffy to accept expenses that he did not incur; it was also inappropriate for Nigel Wright to repay those expenses. That is why the Senate, thankfully, passed a motion that suspended these three senators and that is why the courts, I suspect, will be taking further action not only with these senators but with others.

It is only the Liberals who protect the status quo in the Senate.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the cover-up involved the payment of $90,000 in hush money and another $13,000 in legal fees, the sabotage of Deloitte's forensic audit, the whitewashing of a Senate report, and there was someone in the PMO counselling Mike Duffy to lie to Canadians about his mortgage.

The Prime Minister claims that the lie in fact misled even him. Surely he wants to know who counselled Mike Duffy to lie. Was it Chris Woodcock, or Patrick Rogers? Why is that person still employed by the government?

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

Mr. Speaker, here is another parliamentary tough guy who, in the confines of this room, will make all kinds of allegations knowing that he is covered by immunity, but when he comes outside of the chamber is afraid to say anything.

Let us be very clear. These three senators and the disgraced former Liberal senator are not the victims here. The victims are the Canadian taxpayers who footed the bill for expenses that these senators did not incur.

The other victims, of course, are those who want to see an accountable Senate and know that it was the Liberals who stood in the way of accountability in the Senate by fighting so hard for the status quo in the Senate.

We will fight for change and we will always respect taxpayers on this side of the House.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, after months of saying that there were no documents on the Wright-Duffy agreement, the Prime Minister's Office hands over a pile of documents to the RCMP.

Does that include the email of February 20 in which the Prime Minister's Office allegedly instructed Mr. Duffy to work with Chris Woodcock and Patrick Rogers to come up with certain communication strategies?

In the meantime, Mr. Woodcock and Mr. Rogers have been promoted to ministers' offices. Why are they still employed by the government now that their role in this affair has been made public?

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

Mr. Speaker, we have said right from the beginning that we would assist investigators in any way that we could. At the same time, this is an affair between Senator Duffy and Nigel Wright. Senator Duffy tried to justify expenses that he did not incur, which he should not have, and Nigel Wright repaid expenses without telling the Canadian people that was the way this transaction occurred.

The Prime Minister has been very clear: had he known that this took place, he would have in no way accepted such an arrangement. It is only the Liberals right now in the House who are standing up for these three disgraced senators. We will stand up for the taxpayer.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on November 7, the Prime Minister told the House that his office was not being investigated by the RCMP. However, literally one minute later he said, “the Prime Minister's Office has, at all times and in all manner, provided all and any information that the RCMP is requesting”.

Is the RCMP investigating his office or not?

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

Mr. Speaker, no. As the Prime Minister said, it is not, but we are continuing to assist authorities. We do believe it is very important that we assist authorities, as we have said right from the beginning.

What this is really about is accountability in the Senate. Senator Mike Duffy and three other senators accepted expenses that they did not incur. Canadian people wanted accountability, and that is why the senators brought forward a motion that suspended these three senators.

We will continue to assist and move forward with other plans to reform the Senate and give Canadians an accountable Senate that they can be proud of.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, do the Conservatives think that exchanging information with a police force is a way of taking part in a police investigation?

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

Mr. Speaker, again, the Prime Minister's Office is not under any investigation. We are continuing to assist the authorities on this matter.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister rested up last week because the next four weeks promise to be quite long.

I have a simple question. Could the Prime Minister, or his parliamentary secretary, tell us whether a member of the Prime Minister's staff has been questioned by the RCMP since November 7?