Debates of Nov. 26th, 2013

Opposition Motion--Prime Minister's Office

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate being recognized in the House today in support of this Liberal motion.

I would like to, at this point, start my speech by talking about the narrative that is talked about not only here but when it comes to public discourse, public discussions. I speak of politics, of course, but I speak about politics in the general sense of what we do here, which is to enable the discussion to be centred right here, at this focal point, because this is what Canadians are talking about.

A lot of people would say the issue we are debating today is not germane to everyday goings-on, the machinations of how we live and how we operate as a society. The economy, yes, jobs, yes, as we have talked about, and crime are all important products of this place.

However, I will say this. We also compel our politicians to strive to be the utmost in ethical behaviour.

We have heard it. Many people in this House have either been accused or have been brought to a court and found guilty over the years. Many have admitted their guilt. Many of them have been found guilty. Some of them have been found innocent of all accusations.

However, this is the type of discourse we have here. This is the type of conversation we need to have to get to the bottom of the matter as to what behaviour took place in the office, funded by taxpayers, the office we put trust in every four years, via a ballot box, being the democracy that we are—the greatest democracy, I might add, in the whole world.

Let me go back to the narrative. The narrative of the story is that we expect public officials to strive to be the most ethical individuals and, also, to be the caretakers of our finances, of our taxes, to exercise authority in this office to ensure they are doing it at the utmost level of the ethical standards and, of course, to do it as any reasonable person in this country would expect them to.

Let me go back. Let me flash back for a just moment to when I first arrived here in the House of Commons. It was 2004 when I arrived here in the fall, for the first time. I sat on the other side of the House, in the Liberal Party, which was government at the time.

What I faced was an absolute barrage of angst, hatred and accusations, some true, some not, but the hatred and the vitriol that was in this House was palpable and was incredibly thick.

Flash forward a few years and we found ourselves overturned in an election. We then, at that time, sat in the opposition.

I heard it on the doorstep during that 2004 period, but a lot of this vitriol and a lot of this hatred was put forward by the opposition parties of the day, including, I might add, the current government. Many of those people are in this House today.

However, a lot of the people who are in this House today, I would even say the majority of the people in the government in this House today, were not here at that time.

I hear the argument, every time we lay out what has happened and we say to Canadians and we say in this House, in public discourse, “Look. Here is the situation that happened within the Prime Minister's Office. It is something that is substandard. It is something that does not measure up to the ethical expectations of this country”, and we get back, “Well, the Liberals did this back then” and “But back then, you did this”, without answering the question.

My response to this is always that if the government can only say to us what was done in the past, as opposed to what we are dealing with in the present, then it proves that the government has become everything it said it would not be.

There we have it, the narrative that goes from then to now.

The problem with many politicians today, sometimes me included, is that we need to own up to what was done wrong. We need to tell ourselves that there has to be a time when we reflect upon what we say, what we do and the actions we take, and ask if they are up to the standard of what a reasonable taxpayer and citizen of this country would expect. I would say that in many cases we do not and turn a blind eye.

What bothers me the most is that when we turn the blind eye by avoiding the topic and talking about something else, we have to make one base assumption, which is that the citizens watching this today did not notice or that the citizens watching today do not care enough to listen to the specific questions. What a sad mistake that is when we campaign, do television commercials, tweet the nasty stuff and simply say, “If you think what we did is bad, look at what you did”, and the argument goes back and forth—to use the vernacular, “I know you are, but what am I”, as said by many four and five year olds. We pretend Canadians do not even notice, but they do. We do not give the average citizen in this country enough credit for being intelligent enough to read between the lines.

Yes, by the way, before the question comes, I will follow my own advice and try to measure up to a standard that was given to us to be sitting here in the House of Commons. Can anyone imagine how many citizens in this country would dream some day of standing or sitting in this place where we are today, my friends? Let us make this debate about an ethical standard that we feel is not up to par. Let us make this debate about an ethical standard that we strive to be. However, in doing that, we have to point out that there are people among us—and I am including all parties—who do not measure up to this, given the trust of the public. There are people who are given the trust of the public who need to be looked at. We need to shine a spotlight on their actions and come up with answers. We talk about judicial inquiries. They are expensive and they take time. Sometimes they are necessary. The problem is that many times we have to realize that this is a forum that taxpayers pay for and their voices need to be heard.

The motion today was brought forward by my hon. colleague from Beauséjour, in New Brunswick. We talk about the recent sworn statements by the RCMP, Corporal Greg Horton. They reveal that in many cases the ethical standard was not reached, which is putting it mildly, and some cases that ethical standard appears to have been subverted.

On February 21, the Prime Minister's Office had agreed, with regard to Mike Duffy's controversial expenses, that the Conservative Party of Canada would keep him whole on the repayment. This is the type of conversation that took place. What exactly does that mean? We try to pontificate as to what exactly that means, and I am sure the average Canadian does. In other words, how do we protect an individual who has—pardon the vernacular again—fallen off the rails when it comes to ethical standards?

On February 22, the Prime Minister's chief of staff wanted “to speak to the PM before everything is considered final”. Later the same day, February 22, the Prime Minister's chief of staff confirmed, “We are good to go from the PM once Ben has his confirmation from Payne”.

My hon. colleagues have already discussed the details, names and faces, colleagues like the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville. What I want to focus on again is the narrative, and the narrative is about how these actions do not measure up to the ethical standard, which was not met.

Agreement was reached between Benjamin Perrin and Janice Payne, counsels for the Prime Minister and Mike Duffy. The amount to keep Mike Duffy whole was calculated to be higher than first determined, requiring a changed source of funds from Conservative Party funds to Nigel Wright's personal funds, after which the arrangement proceeded and Duffy's expenses were repaid.

Let us go back for a moment. As citizens, we have the right, thank goodness, because we are the best democracy in the world, to not only vote for a particular party, its beliefs, ideals, ideology, but we also have the right to donate money to help them communicate that message to the masses.

As a Conservative Party fundraiser, certainly as a donor, if I were, imagine my dismay and shock to realize that my money went to Mike Duffy to say this is something for him to walk out and look good while doing it. It is particularly galling, to say the least. It got to a certain level where even Senator Gerstein could not handle it anymore. That threshold was gone. He had a certain threshold and a certain amount of money, but he just could not go any further.

Certainly when it climbed close to $100,000 and the personal cheque was written, I ask the people watching this at home or in the gallery to imagine that someone we barely know has done something wrong so we are going to reimburse them with a cheque close to $100,000 and by the way, that is from our account. Imagine that. We might do it for our children, but certainly not for someone we barely know. The narrative goes to the fact that there is not just one person in on this. There is a network of people involved in keeping this from the spotlight. That is the narrative that fails Canadians.

I know the Conservatives are going to talk about the past and about certain things that happened in my party in the past, but the point is that we go through the process of getting to the answers, which is what in 2004 we did to find the answers to make sure it did not happen again.

This morning I attended a briefing with the Auditor General, a fantastic exercise, highlighting the inefficiencies of government, even though it had the best of intentions. For example, we talked about issues of meat inspection. We talked about examples of border guards. We talked about the example of online services that need to be centralized and more accessible to people of all walks of life from everywhere in the country, whether it is urban, rural, east, west or north. However, these are inefficiencies in the system that start out with the best of intentions.

We want to engage citizens across this country by using online resources. Yes, it saves money and allows people to do it any time of the day. We know people are busy travelling back and forth to work, not just from a small geographical area, but many people in my riding travel from Newfoundland and Labrador to Alberta on a bi-weekly basis, or around the world to Russia, to Africa. They want their services to be online.

I bring this up by way of example because the inefficiencies that we have right now started out with the best of intentions. Is that germane to this debate? Yes, it is because this situation we are dealing with today did not start with the best of intentions and it got worse and worse. It pulled more and more people in. It became a situation of not just inefficiencies but of some substandard ethical actions taking place.

I certainly believe that the motion today not only highlights that, but also looks at ways that we can fix it.

Let us have a look at some of the other details in this. The Prime Minister has given contradictory responses to the House of Commons, that we know. To the people out there watching today, we know exactly what it is we are talking about. Did he quit? Was he fired? Originally he quit. He is a nice guy, a good guy, means well. A few months later it was, he was fired.

There is a word we use in Newfoundland, called “sleveen”. It is someone of sub-ethical standards, and I am being kind. They are usually described in a much harsher way. They basically sleeveened the guy. If nothing, I hope we have learned a new word today from the Newfoundland dictionary: sleveen, someone of substandard ethical values.

Basically they have pointed out that this man is the sleveen of the most sleveen nature. I do not even know if that makes sense. I am trying to illustrate the point by saying that everybody in this country is talking about it. Everybody wants to know what is happened here, because they do not want to see it happen again.

The RCMP court filing also paints a disturbing picture of the entire PMO senior staff. The “fraud squad” engaged in the whitewash of a Senate report. Now we are going back to the other side with the whitewashing of a report that looks at this and says that there are people involved here, calls made from people on the board of the internal economy to the senator involved in the actions.

The conversation went like this, and this is why everybody is talking about it, because everybody understands this part. I am not a lawyer and when we look at some of this stuff, the vernacular of what is written down in legalize, sometimes it is hard to understand. Here is what is easy to understand. They wanted to get rid of the part or fix the part that shows that Senator Mike Duffy claimed per diems, claiming money because he was working in Ottawa on the very same day he was in Florida.

Now that I get, any Canadian can get that, anybody watching today can get that. Someone claimed money for doing their job in Canada while finding themselves in Florida. I doubt if anyone would even consider Florida the 11th province.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Or Mexico...

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Sure, let us use Mexico. It is the same sort of difference; the person dealt with is gone. That is how malfeasance works, but that is admitted to.

To my hon. colleague who intends to interrupt my speech, I did not mean to interrupt her interruptions of my speech. I apologize.

However, that was the case. The light was shone on that and actions were taken. For this one, where is the spotlight?

Here we have a situation where it is not just one person anymore, it is several. The story unravels, the details come out and the documents come out. Let us just have a look at it for what it is. It is people behaving badly. People not behaving in the way in which Canadians expect them to behave.

I would leave with this thought. In 2006 I was in government. The Conservative candidate at the time put a flyer in the mail to every person in my riding. They said the worst thing one can do is not keep promises. Well, that is a good point.

However, here is a worse one. Since then we have seen this many times by the government. Not only did the Conservatives break the promise they made, but they continue to try to convince Canadians that they kept it when they know that they did not. When will the Conservatives practice what they used to preach?

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's speech. He started off talking about how upset he was, how when he was in government he did not like the course of debate, and he thought we could elevate the debate. Then he goes on in his speech. He talked about four individuals and coins them, in his attempt to elevate the debate, the “fraud squad”. These are people, of course, who have not been accused of anything and who are not the subject of any investigation.

He talked earlier on in his speech about how we should be more respectful of each other. The Prime Minister has said that he did not know. The RCMP documents on page 72 outlined that the RCMP do not have any evidence that the Prime Minister knew anything about this. The member does not accept this at face value. The Prime Minister said he expected more from his staff. The Liberals do not accept that at face value. Nigel Wright has said that he did not bring the Prime Minister into his confidence on this. They do not accept that at face value.

As we go on and on in the report, every time there is something that shows that this Prime Minister worked with, co-operated with and assisted the RCMP, the Liberals never accept it at face value.

My question, ultimately, to the member is this. If it is such a priority for the Liberals, why is it that day in and day out their leader sits on his hands and does not make this a priority? Why is he not in the House? Why is he sitting in his place in the House not directly making the case for this?

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order, please. Before I go to the member, I would remind all hon. members that it is not acceptable to reference who is or is not in the chamber at any time.

The hon. member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, the member wanted proof of the leader of the Liberal Party doing his job and asking about this. We offered to table it earlier but he said no. Therefore, I am not sure what he wants.

I will say this. At the beginning, the member said “elevate the debate” and I used a term with the word “fraud” in it. My apologies. He is absolutely right. Sometimes what can happen in the course of debate is that we get carried away. However, we have to be a measure above what people expect so that we can say that it is probably not the right terminology to use. If the member was offended, I apologize.

What he did talk about was the lone person involved in that situation, in that office. The recent documents that were tabled were talking about what the RCMP discovered. How can we look at this now and say that only one person was involved? That is just not possible. It is to the extent now where I am flabbergasted to think that somebody was the lone individual in all of this, the fall guy. Nigel Wright started out as the saviour of the Conservative Party. Now he is the biggest sleveen we know within this area.

Does the member who asked the question still believe there is only one person involved in all of this despite all of the evidence we have?

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with some interest to the comments by the member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor. As one might expect, I was a bit surprised and interested in his comments about the Newfoundland dictionary. I want to ask him about that dictionary because there are some words that have been used in the House where the meaning is not entirely clear to me.

On this side of the House, we have been asking the Prime Minister about the investigation into the Prime Minister's Office around the Wright-Duffy scandal. Clearly, we know that the RCMP is involved. We know that questions are being asked of a number of staff members in the Prime Minister's Office. We do not know who else is being questioned by the RCMP but we do know that the PMO is involved. However, when we rise in the House to ask the Prime Minister a question about the investigation to get some clarity so that the Canadian public can understand what the breadth and scope of this investigation is, which I would argue every Canadian is entitled to as we are talking about the money of Canadian taxpayers being at stake here, he responds by saying that there is no investigation. Therefore, people are being questioned, the RCMP is doing the questioning, but apparently there is no investigation.

I wonder whether the member could turn to his Newfoundland dictionary and tell us what the definition of an investigation might be. Perhaps that would help us answer a question that the Prime Minister refuses to answer.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I have to rise to that occasion and see how this goes. There is a word in the Newfoundland dictionary called mauzy, M-A-U-Z-Y. It describes a weather phenomenon. I used to be a TV weatherman so I kind of know what I am talking about.

Anyway, mauzy usually occurs in the morning. It is like a thick grey fog with a bit of rain in the air so it is very obscured and very hard to see. Visibility is reduced dramatically. What I am getting at is that within the Prime Minister's Office it is very mauzy. The visibility has been reduced dramatically. We cannot see a hand in front of our eyes. That is the word mauzy. It is a bit rainy and a bit wet. It is very uncomfortable in the PMO. Therefore, to say that the greyness that surrounds the PMO is mauzy is an understatement.

I enjoy what the member said. I also appreciate the fact that there are so many contradictions involved here.

Let us take a look at Mr. Hamilton, another lawyer. The PM has defended the actions of his party and its lawyer. If he has no problem with what Hamilton has done, he should have no problem testifying before a court where real answers can be given rather than 15-second talking points. That is pretty mauzy as well, if we think about it. There is a greyness around that area. There are so many lawyers involved here who are doing what are considered substandard ethical things, one gets a little awry upstairs. We start to understand exactly what is going on.

There is the mauzy that takes place within the PMO. I want to thank my colleague for bringing that up. Any more words? I am kind of running out of a dictionary.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do have a legal background and I cannot see through the mauzy to which my colleague refers.

Members have probably noticed, I know I have, but I would ask my colleague whether he has noticed the complete absence of participation in this debate by the governing party. From day to day in question period, only one person gets up to answer the questions that are asked of many ministers. They are in the House and they should be answering on their own behalf.

Today's debate is a very serious one about allegations of fraud and deceit within the Prime Minister's office. One would think that one would take every opportunity to stand and defend oneself by participating actively in this debate and explain what really happened.

There is another word for “mauzy” and it is called “obfuscation”. Obfuscation is exactly what is going on here by the non-participation in this debate.

Could my friend give us his opinion on why the governing party is not participating in this debate?

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, to do so would be hazardous to one's career I guess, which is probably the most logical.

I will give the parliamentary secretary credit though, he has stood quite a bit. He is a lone person in all of this, and that is the problem. It seems like every time we try to explore answers within the House there is that one person, the vanguard, who stands out there and does that with every talking point down to a precise measurement. The parliamentary secretary has certainly done that.

However, I would like to hear from others as to punching holes into every argument that is out there to get through this obfuscation that my hon. colleague from Guelph talks about. How does one get to the nuts and bolts of this issue without making reasonable sense in defence? It is a difficult thing to do and perhaps why there are not many volunteers.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor for enlightening us on the Newfoundland dictionary around meteorological terms.

I would like to ask the member for his opinion, as a weather man, if it would not make a lot of sense when we have “mauzy” to allow bright sunlight to occur.

On this file, we need the sunlight of an inquiry to bring to light what we all want to know, which is what on earth was going on within the Prime Minister's Office. What did the Prime Minister know? What does Mr. Duffy have in his particular skill set or other bits of knowledge that required the vast machinations of the PMO, working in concert with Conservative senators, to pull off a massive “deception”, in the words of the Prime Minister? The question that remains is this. Who was in knowledge of it and who orchestrated it?

Surely we need the sunlight of a full inquiry to get there. Why does the Prime Minister himself not demand this?

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, sunlight is the best disinfectant out there. I credit the member for the things she did earlier, the same thing we did, on proactive disclosure and that sort of thing which is buried meteorologically.

Again, I am not a real meteorologist but I played one on television.

The mauzy conditions due to the weather of Newfoundland and Labrador always cleared up to be sunny due to one thing: the passage of time. With the passage of time, we, too, will get better answers, or at least we hope to, which is what this debate is all about.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his introduction of a very useful term, “mauzy” in his speech. He sells himself short as a former weatherman. I have heard weathermen apologize for their weather forecast, saying “Well, I was wrong yesterday, the weather actually wasn't the way I said it was going to be”. That is something I wish the government would do. It could simply say that this was the mistake it made, these are all the facts, this is the truth, it made a mistake and it would take the punishment and move on. If the government had done that early on, it would have contained the effects of the scandal in the Prime Minister's Office.

This scandal has consumed a lot of time and resources in Ottawa. The government claims it wants to work on the economy, but the necessity of having clean government, of ferreting out all the misdeeds of the Conservatives in the Prime Minister's circle, has consumed a lot of time. We have to consume a lot of resources to do the proper investigation, and it is unfortunate that we have had to take this time.

My constituency work and my work on the Liberal Party team as a critic for science and technology, post-secondary education and economic development has meant that I cannot be consumed by all the details of the scandal in the Prime Minister's Office. That is probably true for most Canadians. They have their daily lives, family members to take care of, jobs to go to and communities to be part of. They do not have time to immerse themselves in all the details. I am in the same boat.

I hear all these names and it is very hard to keep track of many of them in the Prime Minister's Office, in the leadership of the Conservatives in the Senate and in the Conservative Party. It seems like all the Prime Minister's men and women have been involved in this cover-up. My question for the Prime Minister would be this. If he is really running the country, or managing the country's economy for Canadians, as the Conservatives would like to claim, how could he be so cut off from his own people and do a good job as Prime Minister? It does not seem reasonable to me that this could be true.

My guess is that the Prime Minister must have known because so many people in his inner circle in his office were involved in the cover-up. Cover-up was a word recently used by a spokesperson for the Prime Minister's Office. That is not consistent with a well-functioning team that is responsible for managing the entire country and the economy for Canadians. Either the Prime Minister was involved or he was not managing the country's economy just hoping natural resources prices would stay high.

A lot of Conservative members of Parliament are aware of the facts put forward by the RCMP. They understand how damning the evidence is. They do not want to stand and defend the Prime Minister or try to explain what went on, or to try to put in their own words what they think really happened. From what I understand, there may not be any Conservative MPs standing today to make a speech or to ask questions. So far it has only been the parliamentary secretary who has been up to speak and we know that in question period, it is only the parliamentary secretary who has stood to answer questions when the Prime Minister has not answered them.

I forgot to mention at the beginning, Mr. Speaker, that I would like to share my time with the member for Malpeque.

It is clear that Conservative MPs, having looked at the evidence that the RCMP investigators have brought forth and thought about it by themselves, know it would be very damaging to their prospects in the 2015 election if they were to stand and try to defend the Prime Minister. They can see, from the election results yesterday, that Canadians are very upset by the behaviour and the poor ethical standards of the Prime Minister's Office. They are voting with their feet, by not getting up, and we can see it will be pretty clear

I need to also comment about some of the things I have heard in the debate today. I had not prepared to talk about this, but I have been hearing the remarks from some of the members in this chamber. It seems to me that, for example, the parliamentary secretary has been trying to say, incorrectly I would add, that the leader of the Liberal Party has not been asking questions about the scandal in the Prime Minister's Office. In fact, that is untrue and I stood earlier during this debate to read out a whole list of questions the leader of the Liberal Party had asked in the last few days. Whenever the leader of the Liberal Party is here, he always gets up.

I know the Liberal Party only has 34 seats right now, although 36 seats in a few days, and so we get a limited number of questions in question period. Out of the first 17 questions in question period, this smaller Liberal caucus only gets 3, so I know it is hard for the leader of the Liberal Party to get up and ask a lot of questions, but every time he is here he asks questions. He gets to ask the three questions and he does ask them to keep the government to account. I read out a number of them just a short while ago. Therefore, the parliamentary secretary is making up some things that are totally untrue because there is nothing left to resort to.

The Conservatives will not answer the questions that have been posed to them in question period and during today's debate, so all they can do is resort to personal attacks on the Liberal leader, especially since the by-election results yesterday. All they can do is resort to talking about unproven accusations from the past.

What we should be doing today, and as is the intent of the motion today, is to talk about the cover-up, the fact that it does not make sense that the Prime Minister was simply asked if it were okay for Mike Duffy to pay back the expense claims he owed. This is something that, from what I have heard in question period, the Prime Minister would have expected from any member of his caucus. Therefore, why would the Prime Minister ever need to approve something as simple as that? The implication is clear in the RCMP document, and we have heard it in debate and in question period in this chamber, that the Prime Minister was asked something more substantial. We do not know what it was, but it does not make sense that the Prime Minister was simply asked to approve the fact that Senator Duffy should repay the expense claims to which he was not entitled.

For somebody who shares, along with the rest of Canadians, a general sense of what the problem is, but not all of the details, and we hear a lot of conflicting statements that change from week to week and month to month from the members of the Conservative Party, we need to clear the air. We need to cut through the mauzy, as my colleague from Newfoundland and Labrador said.

We need to clarify what the story is. That is why it is important for the Prime Minister and his inner circle, who have been involved in this cover-up, according to the RCMP, to testify under oath to say, “This is our statement. This is what we say happened”.

I think it will be clear, if that happens, that there have been serious ethical breaches in the Prime Minister's Office. It will be clear that the members of the Prime Minister's staff who, it is clear from the RCMP's statements, have been involved in this cover-up, who are going to be charged under certain sections of the Criminal Code, and who are still working for the government, should not be working for the government. It will be clear that if the Prime Minister wants to uphold the standards he claims to uphold, these members of the Prime Minister's Office should not be working for the government.

For these reasons, it is very important for us to support this motion and to ask the members of the Conservative government who have been involved in this scandal in the Prime Minister's Office to testify under oath, state very clearly what they believe happened, and clear the air and put some sunlight through the mauzy for the people of Canada.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Before we go to questions and comments, I just want to clarify that the member for Kingston and the Islands actually was mistaken. He has a 20-minute time slot to be followed by 10 minutes of questions and comments. There are eight minutes remaining. I do not know if he wishes to retake the floor or proceed directly to questions and comments.

The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will continue, because I understand that my colleague from Malpeque would like to speak for a full 20 minutes.

Let me talk about some of the other points that have been brought up in debate today. The parliamentary secretary talked about income trusts. This is an old accusation that has not been proven. The member for Markham—Unionville said that very clearly. He was here when those accusations were first made, and they were just accusations.

Members make accusations every day in the House. I wish that when Conservative members answered questions in question period, they would just answer the questions instead of going back years and years to talk about other accusations. This is an example of how members of the government try to deflect questions by bringing up old accusations. This is not a good way of conducting the business of the House. It is not what voters want.

When I walk the streets of Kingston and the Islands, it is not uncommon for people to walk up to me and make some comment about question period. They say that it must be frustrating, because we never get any answers to questions.

The topic of today's debate is a very serious one. It is about whether we can trust our head of government, and for that reason, it is very important that when the Conservatives are answering questions, they answer them. They should grab the bull by the horns, acknowledge the questions, and give their best answers. They should not deflect the questions by talking about old accusations or about old stories about one's family or about the pizza delivery man. We have heard these things in the House, and this is not what we are supposed to be doing here. This is not how we are supposed to be serving the people of Canada.

It is hard for me to go back to my riding of Kingston and the Islands and tell people that this is what happens and that is why it is called question period. We need to get voluntary compliance from members of Parliament on the government side. This place has a purpose, which is to serve the Canadian people. Questions are asked for a purpose, which is to keep the government to account. This used to be done in the chamber many years ago.

We have to call into question why the government wants to be the government and why it should be the government. Right now, the government has a majority, so we cannot win a vote of non-confidence, but if we had a secret ballot among all members of Parliament as to whether they all have confidence in the government, I wonder if that motion would pass, particularly if the backbench members of the Conservative caucus could vote secretly. I suspect that we might not get all government members supporting the government.

That is how serious this scandal in the Prime Minister's Office is. That is why none of the Conservative members are speaking to this motion. It is because it is toxic. They know that there have been ethical breaches in the Prime Minister's Office, and they know that this is very serious. They know from yesterday's by-election results that Canadian voters take this very seriously. They want to get re-elected in 2015, but it is not going to happen with the leadership of the Conservative Party, which is unwilling to admit and fix the mistakes that were made. That is what we have to be talking about today.

I cannot say whether particular Conservative MPs are here or not, but I think Hansard will show, by the end of the day, that only the parliamentary secretary has risen to give a speech. Maybe I will be proven wrong. I hope I am proven wrong. We will see what happens by the end of the day. However, so far, there is no evidence that other Conservative MPs will be getting up to defend the Prime Minister.

With that, I am ready to answer questions or hear comments.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to put a question to the hon. member about the views he has on the Senate.

The Senate was created, presumably, to provide sober second thought. I think most Canadians are under the illusion that the Senate is an independent body that forms its own opinions. Yet I am sure the member will verify, when he stands to reply, that the Liberal and Conservative members of the Senate, respectively, are part of the caucuses of those two parties, respectively, and receive briefing notes and opinions on how to take positions. The witnesses who come before the reviews are called in either by the Liberals or the Conservatives.

Does he not foresee that, in fact, the kinds of issues we have facing this second body of Parliament were, in some ways, foreseeable? Does he not agree that, in fact, maybe we should go in a direction of an actual body making decisions for the country where the people are duly elected by Canadians?

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am just a bit surprised by the end of my hon. colleague for Edmonton—Strathcona's question. It sounded like she said she was in favour of an elected Senate.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

No.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

No. Okay. We will have to look at the record.

Mr. Speaker, let me tell members about an experience I had, as a newly elected member of Parliament, with a Liberal senator.

One of the things I have learned since I have been elected the member of Parliament for Kingston and the Islands is that I thought I knew a lot about Canada. However, when I came here and started talking to people from across the country, I realized how little I knew about the rest of the country and how much there is to know.

I had the privilege of sitting down with Senator Mitchell, from Alberta, to talk about climate change, pipelines, the oil and gas industry, and the view of the country from Alberta. It was an enormously enriching experience for me to sit down and talk at length with someone from Alberta and to be able to ask a lot of questions and talk in a very frank and open manner, which is sometimes hard to do when two politicians are speaking, or when a politician is speaking with anybody.

However, I benefited enormously from this conversation. I think that is just an example of how having senators, with their experience and regional representation, can help Parliament in its work.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague on an excellent speech. I want to ask him a particular question.

I have noticed, and he has noted, that the Conservatives have now had three slots in which to put forward a speaker. They have not. The only person who seems to stand up to speak or to ask questions or to do anything at all is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister.

It is interesting. The only reason people are so tightly scripted and secretive about everything they are going to do is that they are afraid that someone will make a mistake. Does the hon. member think that is so?

Second, the Prime Minister's Office actually gave to many of its ministers a guide, which, on page 28, said:

Ministers and Ministers of State are personally responsible for the conduct and operation of their offices and the exempt staff in their employ.

The Prime Minister has said that, what, 15 of his staff had deceived him. Should he not be responsible for this? Should the buck not stop with him?

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do think that the Conservative Party is afraid that if it lets members speak, somebody might actually say what they think and get the party in trouble. That is why in question period members are quite often flipping through cards and reading the cards with their heads down while answering questions. It is to make sure they do not accidentally say something wrong. There are a lot of members on the Conservative side who think for themselves and who could speak if they were free to speak, or if they were courageous enough to speak or able to.

Let me address the second question. In any large organization, the manager cannot manage every single thing that every one of his or her employees does. Nevertheless, the manager is responsible for the actions and consequences of what his or her direct reports do. The way that a manager has to deal with this is to set the culture of an organization. Really the only way someone can direct a large group of people to act in a certain way and to uphold certain standards is to establish a culture, because that is what is possible in management.

What is not possible is to micromanage every single thing that employees say or do. The Conservatives try to do that with cards, but what they should be doing is to try to set a culture that would have prevented this scandal in the Prime Minister's Office.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is odd hearing the member for Vancouver Centre talk about reading documents. She must have read the Canada Elections Act before she decided to break the rules with respect to her leadership expense debts, which she has not paid back.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I did not break the rules. Read the ruling.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, wow, she is really vociferous about it right now. I think we have touched a nerve with the Liberal Party with respect to people not talking, because I highlighted the fact that their own leader does not seem to ever want to talk. He seems to have a muzzle. In fact, he is not even allowed to talk about policy until 2015.

The only time he has talked about policy, he talked about legalizing marijuana. He has talked about getting rid of minimum mandatory sentences for the most heinous of crimes. When he was asked which form of government he admires most, what came out of his mouth? It was that he admires a dictatorship. Whoops, he did not mean that one.

It goes on and on. The Liberals are so terrified of their leader that on what they claim to be their most important motion, they do not even let him speak in the House about it.

We have obviously touched a nerve with the Liberals today, because again their leader is terrified to speak—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!