Mr. Speaker, if only there were an NDP member for Toronto Centre right now.
I will start by saying that I will be sharing my time with my hon. friend from Hochelaga.
I would like to very briefly address one small point in the motion from the Liberal Party, which is the whole question of requiring the Prime Minister to speak under oath. I will be supporting this motion, but I want to suggest that this is a bit superfluous. Any MP in the House, including the Prime Minister, must tell the truth. It is a matter of our parliamentary privilege. Every time the Prime Minister stands in the House, he is duty bound to tell the truth. Therefore, he actually already is, in the best sense of the words, under oath every time he is in the House. We need a little more information from the Liberals on exactly what kind of process would perfect what the Prime Minister already has a duty to do.
I rose in the House on May 21 to ask the very first series of questions on the criminality involved in what we now know to be a criminal scheme. I referenced section 16 of the Parliament of Canada Act and then section 119 of the Criminal Code. This is almost a symbolic point I want to make. The Parliament of Canada Act, subsection 16(1), states:
No member of the Senate shall receive or agree to receive any compensation, directly or indirectly, for services rendered or to be rendered to any person, either by the member or another person,(a) in relation to any...controversy, charge, accusation, arrest or other matter before the Senate or the House of Commons or a committee of either House;
It fits perfectly and actually applies only to the Senate and senators. Interestingly, and this is the symbolic point, any senator guilty of this provision is liable to a fine of not less than $1,000 and not more than $4,000. There is no jail time in this provision, but every person who gives the bribe and is not the senator, according to section 16 of the Parliament of Canada Act, is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year. The symbolic difference between how the Parliament of Canada Act is drafted so that senators can actually be bribed and avoid jail while somebody else involved in the same process goes to jail—an average citizen, for example—is an absolutely symbolic statement of the state of privilege and, indeed, institutional corruption in that body.
Many of us have read in detail the affidavit from RCMP officer Horton, 80-some pages, where he not only mentions section 119 of the Criminal Code and bribery but also mentions breach of public trust in section 122 and fraud on the government in section 121. All three of these provisions seem very clearly to be made out given what we know about the quid pro quo arrangement involving at least Mr. Duffy and Mr. Wright, where Mr. Duffy's side of the deal would be to be silent both in the Senate and in public, and the side of the deal for at least Mr. Wright—and others in the PMO quite likely—was that there would be money paid back to Mr. Duffy so that he would not have to bear the cost of the expenses he owed and also that there would be some kind of rigging of a report coming out of the Senate so it would go easy on Mr. Duffy. That was a key part of the quid pro quo as well.
What I would like to focus the remainder of my remarks on is the fact that we cannot be blinded by the Wright-Duffy relationship as the direct participatory side, two parties clearly involved. This whole thing is most clearly a scheme. Others are involved. We know of different aspects, thanks to this very historically unusual insight provided by the affidavit from the RCMP. Assistance and participation, other than being the directly involved party, is part of our Criminal Code, and with section 22 of the Criminal Code, frankly, depending on what the evidence reveals, I would suggest that we can start with the Prime Minister.
With respect to a person counselling an offence, subsection 22(1) states:
Where a person counsels another person to be a party to an offence and that other person is afterwards a party to that offence, the person who counselled is a party to that offence, notwithstanding that the offence was committed in a way different from that which was counselled.
It does not matter that somebody says “Please go out and do a hit job by kneecapping somebody with a hammer” and the person uses an iron bar instead. It does not matter if the source of illegal funds in a transaction was originally the Conservative Party's funds but turned out to be Mr. Wright's own funds, because either source is equally criminal. If that was to be the case, anybody counselling that initial payment from the Conservative Party fund would be equally guilty if it turned out that another fund was used.
Also, section 21 deals with parties to an offence, that being all criminal offences in the House, including the ones I have already read out on bribery, fraud against the government and breach of public trust. Every one of them has an analogue or accessory life, which is that other people can be involved as aiders or abettors.
As well, section 465 of the Criminal Code speaks to conspiracy wherein a number of people could agree to be part of a scheme.
I would like to suggest that we move on to another character in this quite tawdry and sordid drama, Senator Gerstein. Let us look at the whole idea of aiding what we know to have occurred between Mr. Wright and Mr. Duffy. We know that being part of a common intention to fulfill the purpose of a scheme such as this is in itself criminal. Senator Gerstein tried to interfere with Deloitte by going to a contact within Deloitte to see whether or not its report could be stopped on the shady basis that Mr. Duffy was paying back the expenses and that somehow or another the matter would be moot. However, Deloitte said it would be going ahead but told him that it would not come up with a firm finding on the question of residency. That gave the PMO an advantage with respect to the rest of its scheme; that is, it told them how to go about obstructing the rest without pushing Deloitte any further. It is very clear that this was interference with respect to Deloitte in a way that assisted the broader scheme. If it turns out that what is said in the affidavit is true, I think there is more than enough evidence in that 80-page affidavit for Senator Gerstein to be charged with being part of the scheme.
I would also like to mention something else that is separate. Members should keep in mind that some things may have only gone so far and did not quite get completed. That might also include Senator Gerstein. Members should also keep in mind that attempting an offence is itself a crime under section 24 of the Criminal Code.
I will now turn to what happened after the scheme initially occurred. There was then evidence beginning to emerge and there was what one would call a cover-up. There is a whole section in the Criminal Code called Misleading Justice. Section 131 of the Criminal Code speaks to perjury. Perjury is not only something that happens when people tell an untruth in a court of law. Section 131(1) states:
Subject to subsection (3), every one commits perjury who, with intent to mislead, makes before a person who is authorized by law to permit it to be made before him a false statement under oath or solemn affirmation, by affidavit...
Therefore, the statements taken by the RCMP and revealed in this affidavit fall exactly within the scope of this provision. I would draw everyone's attention to how the RCMP has placed square-bracketed comments throughout that document, explaining in a number of cases that it clearly feels that somebody providing testimony did not tell the truth. I have to say that one of the highlights in the affidavit, from the RCMP's perspective, was that Senator LeBreton was not telling the truth. That was specifically in the affidavit. Perjury is also a crime, as is obstruction of justice. I will not go into the details.
Finally, I will get to the lawyers. It is an unethical practice for any lawyer to knowingly be involved in assisting a criminal offence such as may have happened in this case. I hope that there are members of the legal profession who will be drawing this to the attention of the respective law societies of the lawyers involved.