Debates of Nov. 21st, 2013

Ethics

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, there has never been such an event in Canada's history: crimes were committed in the office of a governing prime minister by his staff and on his behalf. Corruption, fraud and breach of trust: we are talking about criminal activities organized and carried out by people who are under the sole responsibility of the Prime Minister.

Why does the Prime Minister refuse to rise in the House and take responsibility?

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

Mr. Speaker, of course, what we saw yesterday is the fact that the Prime Minister took extraordinary leadership on this matter. It is quoted right in the documents:

Rob Staley, legal representative for the PMO, advised my office that he had clear orders from the Prime Minister to provide complete cooperation with the investigation, and to provide any assistance or documentation the RCMP requested.

That is real leadership. That is the leadership this Prime Minister has been showing. Also, it says in there quite clearly that the Prime Minister did not know, and as the Prime MInister has said, had he known, he would have in no way endorsed such a scheme.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, on May 28, I asked the Prime Minister what instructions he gave his staff on the Mike Duffy scandal. What did he say? I will quote him word for word: “I did not give any such instructions”, a Clintonian answer.

Yesterday's court documents proved that those words are the opposite of the truth. Not only did Nigel Wright get instructions from the Prime Minister, he even got approval: “We are good to go...”.

Based on that alone, the Prime Minister has engaged in a cover-up of crimes in his own office. Why the cover-up if he did not do anything wrong?

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

Mr. Speaker, the documentation says no such thing. What it says is that the Prime Minister, the moment he found out about this, went into his office and instructed his office to co-operate fully with the RCMP.

As I have said on a number of occasions in this House, on February 13, when Senator Duffy approached the Prime Ministerto justify his inappropriate expenses, the Prime Minister told him he had to repay those expenses. That is something that has been very clear. The documentation also shows that the Prime Minister did not know about this, and as the Prime Minister has said, had he known about this scheme, he would have in no way endorsed such a scheme.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, actually, yesterday the Prime Minister admitted that he said to Nigel Wright that he was good to go. When confronted with that, the Prime Minister told another nose-stretcher. He claimed that he meant “good to go with [Mike] Duffy paying his own expenses”. That is what he meant.

In that case, there is really only one question. Since when does the Prime Minister of Canada have to approve a senator repaying his own expenses?

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

Mr. Speaker, as I have said on a number of occasions, and as the Prime Minister has said, the standard we expect on this side of the House is that if people had some expenses they did not incur, they should not be accepting those expenses.

When he talks about things not really shaping up, how about him? He was offered a bribe 17 years ago. Did he reach out to the police? No, he did not reach out to the police. He did not think it was important. He did not look in the envelope that was offered him across the table. Why did he not tell the police 17 years ago, and spare the people of Quebec—

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, it is completely absurd to claim that a senator needs the approval of the Prime Minister to reimburse expenses. No one in Canada believes that nonsense.

Page 71 of the RCMP document says, “the Prime Minister was informed by his staff that they were working on a plan”. Yesterday, the Prime Minister's so-called spokesman over there said that the Prime Minister expected more from his staff, not just from Nigel Wright but from his whole staff, so why is only Nigel Wright the one to have lost his job?

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

Mr. Speaker, the documents clearly show that it is Senator Duffy and Nigel Wright who are the subject of this investigation.

I will tell members what is awkward and obscure. The Leader of the Opposition said he never reached out to the police himself, because he had no proof that what he was actually being offered was a bribe, and then he did not look in the envelope to see what was there. One would have thought, when this started happening in Quebec, he would have reached out proactively to the police, but no. Once the investigation started, he was contacted by the police. He did not think it was important enough to call them.

That is not the standard—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, it is a concept: true/false, good/bad, legal/illegal, saying no to the envelope/handing out the envelope.

Senators Tkachuk, LeBreton, and Stewart Olsen publicly denied that they had ever been told by the Prime Minister's Office to change the report on Duffy. All three denied; according to the RCMP, all three lied. In court documents, the RCMP, through dozens of emails, show how the report was doctored on orders of the Prime Minister's Office—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The Leader of the Opposition should know that we do not use a word like that in parliamentary language in the chamber.

The hon. member for Wascana.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the RCMP says it has reasonable cause to believe that the Prime Minister's senior entourage was engaged in a scheme of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. It is Wright, and it is Duffy, and it is at least a dozen more—the fraud squad in the PMO. They first plotted to have the Conservative Party pay Duffy, and for that, the police say, they did consult the Prime Minister and got a “good to go”, but such a payment would have been just as wrong as the payment by Nigel Wright.

Why did the Prime Minister say “good to go” for a payment from the Conservative Party?

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

The Prime Minister said no such thing, Mr. Speaker. The Prime Minister was very clear on February 13. When he was approached by Senator Duffy to justify these expenses, he was very clear, and he said he had to repay those expenses.

What we are hearing now from the angry Leader of the Opposition is hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. It is okay to deny something for 17 years. It is okay not to address the police when clearly, corruption is happening in Quebec. That is all right.

That is not the type of leadership Canadians want. The type of leadership they want is the leadership shown by this Prime Minister, who immediately, when he found out, took immediate action, unlike that member, who waited 17 years.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, they have just contradicted the police over there.

It does not matter whether the amount was $32,000 or $90,000. It does not matter whether it was paid by the Conservative Party or by Nigel Wright. Either way, it is bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. The RCMP says it has reasonable cause to believe those crimes were committed by that fraud squad in the PMO, and now that same gang is out in Brandon running the Conservative by-election.

Why has the Prime Minister not fired the fraud squad instead of empowering it to do more damage to Brandon and to Canada?

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

Mr. Speaker, go figure that the Liberals would ask a question about Brandon. It is like Veterans' Week. In the week leading up to Veterans' Week, they are concerned. As soon as it is done, there is not a question.

I will tell everyone what the people of Brandon are like. They are like the people of Oak Ridges—Markham. They do not agree with the Liberal leader, who wants to take away marketing freedom from the farmers. They do not agree with the Liberal leader, who thinks that a dictatorship is a form of government that he is most proud of. They do not agree with the Liberal leader, who thinks that minimum mandatory sentences for heinous crimes should be removed. They do not agree with the Liberal leader, who thinks that families should pay more taxes. What they want is a government and a member of Parliament who will stand up for them before, during, and after an election, and that is what—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Wascana.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

That is why they will vote Liberal, Mr. Speaker.

Police records show that Senator Gerstein tried to hamper the Deloitte audit. That is obstruction of justice. They show that LeBreton, Tkachuk, and Stewart Olsen whitewashed a Senate report on Duffy. That is corruption of a parliamentary process, all ordered by the fraud squad in the PMO and all part of the crimes police believe were committed by the Prime Minister's most inner circle. Most of those people still work for the Prime Minister.

How could the CEO of such an operation be so negligent and so incompetent to engender such behaviour?

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

Mr. Speaker, when he talks about the CEO of an organization, I can only assume that he is talking about the former prime minister he worked under. Of course, as we know, we still have some $40 million outstanding—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order. The hon. member for Hamilton Mountain.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives claim that the Prime Minister was not aware of the $90,000 payoff. However, the RCMP alleges that the Prime Minister was broadly aware and that he signed off on something. We just do not know what. We do know the Prime Minister's senior staff were devoting large amounts of time and effort to this cover-up.

Will the member confirm that the Prime Minister was briefed in broad terms on his staff's efforts to solve the problem with Mike Duffy's expenses?

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

Mr. Speaker, I have said that on a number of occasions in the House. I will go to the timeline once again for the hon. member.

On February 13, Senator Duffy approached the Prime Minister to try to justify his inappropriate expenses, and the Prime Minister told him that he had to repay those inappropriate expenses.

Senator Duffy then went on television and told Canadians that he had done that. We know that statement obviously was not true.

Members can follow the leadership of this Prime Minister, because as soon as he found out that was not the case, he went back to his office and ordered his staff to work with the RCMP and assist them. We can contrast that to the Leader of the Opposition, who waited 17 years and still does not know whether it was important or not to inform the people of Quebec and Laval of the bribe that he had been offered.