House of Commons Hansard #14 of the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was senate.

Topics

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

12:40 p.m.

Liberal

Stéphane Dion Liberal Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC

Mr. Speaker, I think my colleague is completely right.

I would like to ask him what he thinks the attitude and behaviour of our colleagues on the government side should be. Why would they be part of the cover-up of the cover-up? Why would they continue to dodge questions in debates with us instead of trying to discover the truth themselves?

Why would our Conservatives colleagues not answer very basic questions, such as who was aware? Did they speak to these people to understand what happened exactly, or are they happy to not ask questions because they are afraid of the answers?

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

12:40 p.m.

Liberal

John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON

Mr. Speaker, let me start out on a positive note. I know Senator Plett, a real true-blue Conservative, former president of the Conservative Party, great loyalist to the Prime Minister. He was honest. He said that he wanted to see due process. He is voting against the government's motion in the Senate. He is one Conservative parliamentarian who has stood up to the boss and who has expressed his feelings honestly. This coming from a person who could not be more Conservative.

I know that the Conservative members of Parliament are feeling uncomfortable about this. They were particularly uncomfortable when the Prime Minister accused Nigel Wright of deception, because people across this country have been standing up for Nigel Wright and are embarrassed by the Prime Minister's statement.

I basically agree with my colleague that with a few exceptions, and I could name a few more, by and large the Conservative members of Parliament are not standing up for what is right for Canadians. They appear, at least in public, not to be pushing their leadership to come clean. I doubt very much they will support our motion that the Prime Minister should testify.

However, if the Prime Minister is telling the truth and he has nothing to hide, then why should the Conservative members of Parliament not support the Liberal motion?

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

12:40 p.m.

Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

Mr. Speaker, before I begin to speak to this motion, I would like to read the text.

This motion is not about what is going on in the Senate in terms of the Senate committee and due process. This motion is not about abolition of the Senate or reform of the Senate. This motion is very simple. It states:

That the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics be instructed to examine the conduct of the Prime Minister’s Office regarding the repayment of Senator Mike Duffy's expenses; that the Prime Minister be ordered to appear under oath as a witness before the Committee for a period of 3 hours, before December 10, 2013; and that the proceedings be televised.

Why is this motion being brought to the floor? The motion is being brought to the floor because ever since the story began in May of this year, the story has changed. The Prime Minister stands up in the House, answers questions in Parliament, and his story continues to change. He says that nobody knew, and then we find out that all kinds of people knew, except the Prime Minister.

This motion pursues precisely what the Prime Minister said when he first ran for prime minister of this country. It is precisely what he said when he became leader of his political party. We are following through on what the Prime Minister promised when he came here, which was openness, ethics, and transparency.

This motion should never have had to come before the House. The Prime Minister should have done exactly what he always promised he would do. He should have said, “Here is the truth. Here is exactly what happened. I am going to go over this, I am going to be open, and I am going to produce whatever documents I have. I am going to let the people of Canada, Parliament, and everybody else decide, based on everything I have tabled in the House, because I am open, I am transparent, and I am committed to ethics.” If he had done that, he would not have had to see this motion come forward now.

Let us look at what led to this whole thing and how we got here.

We are asking some important questions: What did the Prime Minister know, how much did he know, when did he know about the $90,000 payment from former chief of staff Nigel Wright, who else knew, and how did it come about? Why did this whole issue of the payment of Mr. Duffy's expenses come about? How did this happen? That is what we want to find out. It is very simple stuff. The Prime Minister should answer the questions and let Parliament and the public decide.

As a result of all the changes to the story and digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole every time he stands to speak, only two out of 10 Canadians now believe the Prime Minister. It is not a very good thing for the Prime Minister of a “majority” government in the House that only two out of 10 Canadians believe him. That is just 20% of the public. That is pretty serious stuff.

Let us go down the road with this thing. On May 15 to May 19, the story broke. The issue is not about whether the senators tried to defraud or put in wrongful expense claims; that is not the issue. I do not think there is anybody in the House who does not believe that if somebody did something that was illegal, wrong, or fraudulent, that person should pay it back, come clean, and take the consequences. I do not think I have ever heard anybody say anything else on either side of the House on this issue. That is not the issue; the issue is how the Prime Minister got involved in the first place.

On May 15 when the story broke about the $90,000 for Mr. Duffy and that the Prime Minister's chief of staff wrote the $90,000 cheque to help Mr. Duffy pay off his expenses, the Prime Minister said he had full confidence in Nigel Wright as chief of staff. He lauded him for acting in the public interest. That was between May 15 and May 19. For five full days the Prime Minister stood in the House and said that same thing over and over.

After the five days, the Prime Minister changed his tune. We would like to know what caused the Prime Minister to suddenly change his tune. It is a simple question. Did he get information he never had before? Did he suddenly decide that perhaps this was something he did not intend it to be? I do not know. We need to get the answers from the Prime Minister, not the sort of rhetoric that just tries to beat up on everybody else in the House without answering the question.

On May 16, the Prime Minister said, “Mr. Wright will not be resigning. Mr. Wright has the full support of the Prime Minister.”

On May 19, three days later, the Prime Minister put out a statement from the PMO, which said:

It is with great regret that I have accepted the resignation of Nigel Wright as my Chief of Staff. I accept that Nigel believed he was acting in the public interest, but I understand the decision he has taken to resign. I want to thank him for his tremendous contribution to our Government over the past two and a half years.

All of the other people who stood up and answered questions over the course of that time lauded Mr. Wright as a man of integrity, et cetera.

I am not finding fault with anybody; I am laying out what went on.

On June 5, the Prime Minister stated the following in the House of Commons:

...it was Mr. Wright who made the decision to take his personal funds and give those to Mr. Duffy so that Mr. Duffy could reimburse the taxpayers. Those were his decisions. They were not communicated to me or to members of my office.

Since then, of course, we have heard that there was a list of people in the Prime Minister's Office who knew what went on, so the Prime Minister on that day was not telling the truth at all.

We saw that he had Nigel Wright. We heard that he had Benjamin Perrin, formerly the Prime Minister's lawyer in the PMO. We heard that Chris Woodcock, director of issues management in the Prime Minister's Office, also was in on this. David van Hemmen, formerly Nigel Wright's assistant, was in on it. We had Benjamin Perrin, formerly the Prime Minister's personal lawyer in the PMO, who knew all about it. Patrick Rogers, legislative assistant to the Prime Minister at the time, knew about it. Jenni Byrne, former director of political operations for the Conservative Party and former deputy chief of staff to the Prime Minister, obviously knew about it. The late Senator Doug Finley, former campaign director for the Conservative Party, seemed to know about it. Then, this weekend at the Conservative convention, we found out that Senator Gerstein, who heads up the Conservative fund, also was in on this.

I am not asking anyone to impugn anyone else. I am just asking how everybody around the Prime Minister—his personal lawyer and everybody who worked for him—knew about it, but the Prime Minister did not know.

I mean, everybody on that list was, what, trying to trick the Prime Minister? Did they not tell their boss what they knew and not watch his back to say, “Gee whiz, boss, this is going on. I know how you feel about these things, and I know that once you know, you will put an end to it.”

Is that what I am being told of the Prime Minister, who insists that every word that comes out of his cabinet ministers' and backbenchers' mouths is vetted?

Inky Mark, a former member of Parliament with the Conservative Party, said that he was not allowed to put out a press release as a backbencher unless the Prime Minister okayed it.

Here is a Prime Minister who wants to keep his finger on everything, takes the pulse of everything, knows everything, and does not let anything go by him, yet there are 13 or 14 people, and tomorrow it may be 20 people, in his inner office, his inner circle, who knew, but the Prime Minister did not know.

I ask members to think about that. I think Canadians are thinking about it. Two out of 10 are saying that this does not ring true. It does not make sense. It does not compute at all when we look at it.

These are the questions that we want to get to the front. We want the Prime Minister, under oath, to tell us exactly what happened, because this is becoming more and more unbelievable. This is a fable. Most people think, “Good grief, I do not understand where this thing came from.” We want to know what the Prime Minister knew and when he knew it.

Mr. Duffy, at his press conference—and his lawyer was there—said that he had every piece of paper, had a paper trail, had everything right there in front of him, and that he would disclose what he wanted to do and would tell us what he knew. His story is different.

Mr. Duffy says that he has paper to back up his story. The Prime Minister should also be saying that he has paper to back up his story and that he will give it to us if Mr. Duffy is saying all these things. He should say that he will disclose because he has nothing to hide.

If he has nothing to hide, then he should disclose. What is the problem here, especially for someone who talks about openness, transparency, and ethics?

Now today we stand here debating a motion in Parliament, where we have three political parties. The members of one political party have decided they will not even speak. They will not even defend themselves. They will not even stand up to say anything at all about the issue.

How does that work? How do the members of the Conservative Party not have one word to say? How is it that the Conservatives feel that they are going to blackball this motion, blackball the debate in the House? That is not only proving they have been muzzled and that they have something to hide, but it is also disrespectful to Parliament itself and to what is going on in Parliament.

They are parliamentarians. They were elected by their constituents to come here and participate in Parliament and in the debates, and they are not doing it. The Conservatives are sitting there mute, blackballing a debate. This is something to be noted, and Canadians will note it, because now this issue is at the front of every Canadian's mind. Canadians want to know.

People who voted for the Prime Minister, people who like him and believe in him, are all wondering what is going on here. The Prime Minister owes it to them, even if he does not think he owes it to any other Canadian or could not care less about other Canadians. However, he does owe it to his own people, who supported him, believed in him, and trusted him, to say, “Look, I am going to tell people what went on. I have nothing to hide. I said I would run on ethics and transparency, so here I am. I am going to be ethical, I am going to be transparent, I am going to be open. I'm going to disclose because I have nothing to hide.”

Even if the Prime Minister did not want to stand up and speak, he could have some of his own backbenchers or people from his cabinet stand up and speak for him. Table staff could say they have a list and get it out in the open. It is about getting it out in the open, but that is not happening.

We hear some people speaking out, muttering in corridors. We hear people saying certain things. We hear past members of the Conservative Party, such as Inky Mark, speaking out and saying how controlling everything was, and that was why he left. We have heard this from other people across the House who are now independent members. They left because they could not stand what was going on anymore, could not stand the control, the rigidity, yet amid all of that control and rigidity that caused people to walk away from the party, we have a Prime Minister who did not know what went on in his inner circle.

If I were writing a plot for a television show, that would never get off the ground unless I were writing science fiction. It would be unbelievable.

What we are asking for here in this House is simple. We are not saying Senator Duffy or any senator or MP who has defrauded should be able to stand up. We are not supporting that. I do not think I ever heard anybody in this House supporting that. We are saying to let the chips fall where they may, to let the RCMP investigate them, and if they have defrauded, let the consequences be heaped onto them and let them accept those consequences.

The Prime Minister is not immune from this issue. At the end of the day the Prime Minister, as the chief executive officer of this country, has to take responsibility for what went on around him.

First, the Prime Minister nominated these same senators.

Second—and I could be corrected—I do not believe that in the history of the Senate there have ever been senators appointed by any party to represent a province that everyone knew, because of their public celebrity status, they had not lived in for about 25 to 30 years. Is that an accident waiting to happen? Is that something that is going to make people suddenly rush off to find a way to prove that they lived somewhere else? Hence everything starts happening faster and faster, and suddenly all of the expenses have to be accounted for.

The Prime Minister therefore perhaps knew what he was doing with this little subterfuge of saying that although they did not live in that province and had never lived there, he was going to appoint them as senators for that province that they did not live in.

That was the first thing that the Prime Minister did. We could call it an error in judgment or call it what we want. We could be kind, or we could say it was a calculated thing that the Prime Minister did. I am not saying. I do not know, because the Prime Minister will not tell, and there is a problem when one does not talk or speak out or tell: people form rumours. People suppose and people presume, because the truth is not coming out and the facts are not coming out.

That is the first thing. First and foremost, we have a Prime Minister who showed very poor judgment in the very instance. He, as the CEO of a country, has to take responsibility for his lack of judgment.

The second piece is that all the people around him, the 13 or 14 people in his trusted inner circle, went ahead and created this great big plot and the Prime Minister, in the middle of it, did not know. Come on. A CEO does not know what is going on around him. What kind of CEO is that, who does not know what is happening, who has 15 or 16 people around him deceiving him, not telling him, keeping him in the dark? That is not a good CEO. In corporate Canada that is not going to pass muster either.

Even if the Prime Minister did not know, and he continues to say he did not, the question then is what kind of CEO he is, who did not know what is going on. Then when he did know and he found out that all of the people around him in his trusted circle were deceiving him, what would he do? Would he not fire them all? No, many of them have gone on to be chiefs of staff to his cabinet ministers. This is the third strike against the CEO who does not know how to take the right steps to deal with whatever is going on around him. These are the questions we are asking and that Canadians are asking.

First the Prime Minister said he thought Mr. Wright was great. Then he said he accepted his resignation very reluctantly. Then all of a sudden about a week ago, the Prime Minister said this man had two horns and 12 tails and he was the worst possible thing and so on. How do we get from “I trust this man, he is a good guy, he made a mistake, I am reluctantly accepting his resignation”, to where he said this guy was obviously the devil in disguise? None of these things make sense.

I am trying to talk common sense here. I have been trying to answer questions I get asked in my constituency: how come, why, why not? Canadians are asking it of their CEO who owes them an explanation. Even if he believes that Parliament does not count and he does not owe us any explanation, he owes it to them, if only for one reason: he promised them openness, transparency and ethics, and that has not happened.

We are just telling him to be as good as his word, to tell us he has ethics, to tell us he is transparent. CEOs in corporate Canada today suddenly get kicked out because of this kind of stuff going on, with a less onerous burden of proof than the current Prime Minister has, and yet they get moved out. No one in corporate Canada would allow for this. The buck stops with the CEO. The CEO is responsible for what goes on in the company, the management and the staff.

Even if the Prime Minister were absolutely blameless, really did not know, he has to answer for that incompetence. If the Prime Minister did know, he has to answer for the deception and subterfuge.

At the end of the day we see him refusing to be open, refusing to be transparent, refusing to table and having had Parliament force him to come and do so under oath. That is not pretty to have to force someone to come and fess up under oath because we do not believe he would fess up if he were not under oath.

This is not good. There is something rotten in the state of Denmark and we just want to get to the bottom of it.

Finally, we are seeing how true it all was when Sir Walter Scott said, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive”.

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

Kenora Ontario

Conservative

Greg Rickford ConservativeMinister of State (Science and Technology

Mr. Speaker, let us focus this discussion after that aimless intervention. Here is what we know. We have a Liberal senator in a penitentiary. We have another one maybe headed there and we have this motion, which is a small, rather petty exercise in addressing the big issues. Addressing the transparency and accountability of the Senate itself, something we have been championing now for seven years is asking for elected senators and the appointment of those senators, making sure they would run if they had the opportunity to, and asking our opposition colleagues if they would join in that exercise to make the Senate more democratic in that reform.

Coming from that diminished party, what we find out through the motion is that over the course of decades Liberals failed to deliver on the reforms. The question is simple. Is the member prepared to back the reforms that this government is proposing for meaningful change to the Senate? Liberals had decades and decades to do it, unfortunately. I think that is something on which the NDP can agree with me. I would like to hear the member's answer to that question.

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

1:05 p.m.

Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

Mr. Speaker, I began focusing on the motion. Now I am getting a question from the hon. member across the way—

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

1:05 p.m.

Mr. Rickford

Focus on the senator in prison.

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

1:05 p.m.

Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

If he would allow me to answer it, I would be delighted. When he finishes muttering in the corner, I will answer the question.

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

1:05 p.m.

NDP

Jamie Nicholls NDP Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC

I have got it now, Mr. Speaker. The misspending and abuse of taxpayers dollars is not an issue for the Liberals. That is clear from the member's speech. The Liberals want Canadians to skip to the end of the book, to the last chapter. They should just read the last chapter. They should not read all the chapters before that about the story. I finally understand.

I also finally understand the Liberal slogan of hope and hard work. Let the NDP do all the hard work and hope that Canadians do not notice the complete absence of the Liberal leader on many files; so I thank the member for enlightening me about that.

The member speaks about a mute party. I know a mute leader in this House. I know a couple of mute leaders in this House, and they are not our leader.

Does the member actually think Canadians will buy this weak motion after months, nay years, of the Liberals burying their heads in the sand on the issue of the Senate?

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

1:05 p.m.

Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives have been in government since 2006. Seven years later they have made no changes to the Senate, which they ran on and said they would do. Why? It is because there is a constitution that governs reform to the Senate. They tried to make an end run with some of those reforms.

I was on the committee that was looking at the Senate bill from the government earlier on when it took office, and the constitutional expert said, “You cannot do this”.

Second, the new member of the New Democratic Party in the House asked a question about the last 20 years, obviously not aware of the history of Charlottetown and of Meech Lake where a referendum went to Canadians about a triple-E Senate, and Canadians said no; so now we move on.

We heard Canadians say no. We did not move on this. The Prime Minister said he would do it. He did not go to the provinces to discuss it. He did not try to get the seven provinces with 50% of the population to agree to reforms. In fact, most of the provinces, with the exception of a Conservative province, said, “That is not on our front burner, people; we have all kinds of other things we want to talk about”.

Now, let us talk about Senate reform. This is not about Senate reform. This is a motion to say we would like to hear from the Prime Minister what really happened. I would like to hear questions on that.

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

1:05 p.m.

Conservative

Joy Smith Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the member opposite would like to hear questions designed for what she wants to be asked, but we need to hear from the member whether she supports Senate reform and whether her party supports Senate reform and whether it will support the government's initiative to help that Senate reform happen.

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

1:05 p.m.

Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

I have a simple answer, Mr. Speaker: yes.

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

1:05 p.m.

NDP

Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB

Mr. Speaker, it makes me laugh to hear the Conservatives and the Liberals defending the Senate, because their argument does not stand up. We also moved a motion about that in the House. They are saying that we need Senate reform whereas we think that we should get rid of the Senate.

We believe that, at the very least, senators should not participate in their party caucus. That is the bare minimum. They should not participate in fundraising campaigns for their political parties. We are talking about expense scandals.

Senators are supposed to be studying legislation in the Senate, which is known as the house of second thought. They are supposed to study legislation. At the same time, they are supposed to represent the regions and minorities. However, governments have senators fundraising for their political parties. Both the Liberals and the Conservatives are guilty of that.

Why did the Liberals vote against our motion, which perhaps could have brought about a small change in the Senate? The leaders of these political parties would have told senators that they must stop fundraising for their political parties and do their job in the Senate.

I would like an answer from the member. It is not enough to say that they have a motion. We need to hear from them on this. The Senate is a problem and it should be abolished.

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

1:10 p.m.

Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

Mr. Speaker, I think I also answered that question twice in my little question segment here.

I said I believe we cannot reform or do away with the Senate unless we have the agreement of 50% of Canadians from seven provinces. That is clear. That is in the Constitution. The NDP in the House may wish to chuck the Constitution and ignore it, but that is the truth.

Also, the triple-E Senate and changes in the Senate came about in two major accords, the Meech Lake accord and the Charlottetown accord. It was taken to Canadians. Canadians voted against it.

Therefore, let us talk about what we do now. Do we just say that Canadians do not know what they are talking about and that the Constitution is full of it, so let us just do our own thing? That is what the NDP would have us believe in the House. That is not so. There are rules, and senators who break the rules should have to pay for it.

There is a Constitution. Instead of casting aspersions on each other and playing political games, let us look at the Constitution and together find a way, in the House, to reform the Senate under its constitutional mandate for reform. Those are the questions we need to talk about if we really want change, not the cheap little partisan tricks that go on.

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

1:10 p.m.

Liberal

Sean Casey Liberal Charlottetown, PE

Mr. Speaker, it seems that, should this motion pass, there are multiple possible outcomes of having the Prime Minister testify under oath. One of those outcomes is that what the Prime Minister has been saying in the House was true with respect to what he knew. If that is the case, then what we have is a culture within the Prime Minister's Office where it is apparently okay to give the Prime Minister plausible deniability while committing potentially criminal acts to buy the silence of a sitting parliamentarian. If that is the outcome of this inquiry, is it still worth doing that? Is that a message Canadians are entitled to know?

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

1:10 p.m.

Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

Mr. Speaker, absolutely, Canadians are entitled to know. If it turns out that none of this is true and that the Prime Minister indeed did not know, was blind and deaf, and had everybody around him deceiving him and plotting around him, then the Prime Minister should ask himself what sort of PMO he runs. His own competence comes into question here.

At the end of the day, either way, regardless of where the chips fall when we hear the information, Canadians need to know the truth, Parliament needs to know the truth and the Prime Minister needs to be accountable for whatever that truth is.

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

1:10 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Barry Devolin

Order. Before we resume debate, I would like to share a couple of cautions with members.

First is the issue of relevance. It has come up a couple of times this morning whether the questions have been relevant to the matter that is before the House. I would ask all hon. members to co-operate in this regard.

Second, as all hon. members know, there are certain things that are not acceptable parliamentary language in this place. In today's debate, over the past hour or so, several times members have drifted very close to the line of saying that someone is not telling the truth or that someone has said something that is untrue. I appreciate that this is a fine line to tread today, but I would again ask the co-operation of all members in that regard, that they only use language that is acceptable in this place.

The final piece of this is to also remind all hon. members that they cannot do indirectly what they cannot do directly. Therefore, if there is a statement you cannot make directly you cannot say “People are saying” and then make the statement as though it is not your words but someone else's.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Scarborough—Rouge River.

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

1:10 p.m.

NDP

Rathika Sitsabaiesan NDP Scarborough—Rouge River, ON

Mr. Speaker, at the outset, I want to let you know that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Pierrefonds—Dollard.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in favour of the motion. It is encouraging to see the Liberals finally taking some action. I was disappointed when my friends refused to support the NDP motion we put before the House to limit Senate partisan activity. The NDP motion would have limited Senate partisan activity funded by Canadians, which would have held the Senate accountable today, not next week or next month or after a hearing or at some point in the future. However, our friends in the House did not deem that topic important enough to support.

Moving on to the motion before us today put forward by our Liberal colleagues, it is interesting that they have put the motion in front of the House now. We know that last week alone, the leader of the official opposition, the leader of the New Democratic Party, and our Prime Minister had 43 interactions, 43 exchanges of questions, on this PMO scandal, while the leader of the Liberal Party used only three of his party's 45 possible questions.

We all know that it is the NDP that will continue to use all means possible, all means available to us, to ensure that we are keeping the government accountable and are doing the work that needs to be done on behalf of Canadians to ensure transparency and accountability in this House.

Whatever the Minister of Foreign Affairs said, I could not hear, because his microphone was not on. However, I will assure him, once again, that it will be the NDP that holds the government to account.

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

1:10 p.m.

John Baird

I was heckling a Liberal, by the way, because he was calling you nuts.

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

1:10 p.m.

NDP

Rathika Sitsabaiesan NDP Scarborough—Rouge River, ON

I appreciate the Minister of Foreign Affairs for not supporting the Liberals who are heckling me, apparently. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for that clarification that was provided to me.

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister and the current Conservative government need to stop changing their story. That is what we are asking for, and that is what Canadians are asking for. They want them to come clean to Canadians by answering all the questions to the Prime Minister's Office and the Prime Minister himself about his involvement with the Senate scandal, Senator Duffy, Senator Wallin, and any of the senators.

They need to start by releasing all related documents that are available. So far what we have are documents and information leaked by Senator Duffy. To be honest, I prefer the information coming straight from the horse's mouth. That means directly from the source.

The Prime Minister and the Prime Minister's Office have been very busy trying to cover up their own alleged corruption, while the Liberals have appeared totally disinterested until, all of sudden, now.

Meanwhile, both Conservatives and Liberals continue to vote against sensible New Democrat proposals to restrict Senate partisan activity, partisan travel, partisan fundraising, and partisan activity overall. That is what we tried to propose, and our friends across the aisle on both the Conservative team and the Liberal team opposed that proposition.

Canadians are tired of an unelected, unaccountable, and under-investigation Conservative and Liberal Senate. That is why New Democrats advocate that the only real solution to this entire problem, this $90-million or $100-million boondoggle, whatever we are going to call it, is to abolish the Senate. That is the NDP's position. It has been the NDP's position for a very long time, and it will continue to be the NDP's position.

The NDP will continue to use all means available to us to continue to keep the government accountable.

There is one thing I want to add. When the leader of the official opposition asks questions in this House, we do not really get answers.

When I speak to people in my community of Scarborough—Rouge River, they are actually starting to get irritated and annoyed about what is happening in the Senate. They ask me questions, and I do not really have answers for them, because, to be honest, we do not get answers from the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister's Office, his parliamentary secretary, his cabinet ministers, or anybody on the Conservative side. Nobody provides real answers.

The same questions the leader of the official opposition, the leader of the NDP, put forth in the House of Commons to the Prime Minister are the same questions I am being asked in my community in Scarborough.

People want to know the answers to simple questions. Was Nigel Wright dismissed, or did he resign? That is a pretty simple employment question. There must be paperwork to back up either one of those claims. It is a pretty simple question, but we cannot get a straight answer from the Conservatives.

How many cheques are there in total? People are asking me these questions, and I do not have any answers.

How many people in the Prime Minister's Office knew about the Duffy cover-up, and who are they? We have heard that there were a “few”. We have heard several, nine, 13, and 14. We do not know. Once again, we are looking for truth. We are looking for transparency. We are looking for accountability. Canadians really do deserve better.

Another question is why the Prime Minister claimed that only Nigel Wright knew about the cover-up. Now, of course, he has changed his story. Now a few people in the Prime Minister's Office knew about it. How many are a few? Usually, in traditional language usage, a few is more than two, so it could be three, but we do not know, because he also said several. What does that mean?

Another question is whether the Conservative Party was ever going to pay for Mike Duffy's fraudulently claimed expenses. Do the Conservatives consider Duffy's and Wallin's expenses inappropriate? We have heard both sides, whether they think they were appropriate or were not appropriate. Mr. Speaker, you know that in Hansard, both of those comments are available for Canadians to find.

What I am getting at is that Canadians deserve the real story. We, as elected members of Parliament, are the 308 representatives of the millions of Canadians across the country. We deserve to get the truth so that we can take that back to our constituents. We are not getting that. We are getting multiple versions of stories.

All I am asking for, on behalf of my constituents, is one story, the truth, that is the only story we hear. That is all I want: one truth; one story.

Another question constituents in my community are asking is whether I know when and how often the Prime Minister actually spoke with Nigel Wright. I do not have an answer for that, either. I really do not have answers to give my constituents. They are asking me this when I am at the grocery store or at a community event. When I am celebrating Diwali with my constituents, they are talking to me about the Senate scandal.

They are asking me questions about what is happening and about how the government is wasting Canadians' money and not using it for important things, such as ensuring that our young people are getting jobs and access to education. They are saying that average Canadians are not getting access to jobs, because the government is not creating jobs here in Canada. It is a government that supports jobs being shipped out of the country. Yet it is covering up a scandal of a cheque for more than $90,000 or $100,000 and is spending extra money making up different versions of stories.

All Canadians want is that the truth come out and that their own lives and the lives of all Canadians improve. We are not getting that.

There are many questions my constituents are asking me. They want to know how many lawyers were involved in the Prime Minister's Office's cover-up of the Duffy affair. Who were the lawyers?

On Wednesday last week, a cabinet minister defended the Prime Minister's former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, who played a central role in the Senate scandal and the PMO's orchestrated cover-up. He said:

I know Nigel Wright to be a person of good faith, of competence, with high ethical standards.

Yet we saw the Prime Minister say that Nigel Wright acted on his accord and had nothing to do with anything.

Who was that minister? It was the Minister of Employment and Social Development and Multiculturalism.

I believe that in opposition, we need to have true propositions to actually improve the Houses of this Parliament, and that is what the NDP is doing. That is what we will continue to do.

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

1:25 p.m.

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB

Mr. Speaker, there are many things I could say. Suffice it to say that the distortion of reality in terms of the member's comments about the Liberal Party's objection to what is taking place could not be further from the truth.

This is an issue we have been pursuing quite aggressively since day one. That is the reality. The member knows that.

Having said that, the Liberal Party wants, and I would suggest that Canadians from coast to coast to coast want, this Prime Minister to be sitting in his place making a declaration, under oath, as to the full truth of what he knows. That is the essence of the motion we are talking about today.

I find it strange that we have had only one Conservative speak on this motion. I am wondering if the member might want to provide comment as to why she believes that only one Conservative member has chosen to try to defend the Prime Minister.

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

1:25 p.m.

NDP

Rathika Sitsabaiesan NDP Scarborough—Rouge River, ON

Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned that the Liberal Party has been involved in this Senate scandal discussion and debate since day one. Were they? Where were they?

Maybe they were involved since day one, because they are in the Senate, and they are part of this whole debacle. They are part of everything. They have their own senator who is under investigation. They were part of this since day one. They are part of the scandal itself.

Since the official opposition brought this forward in this House, why has the leader of the Liberal Party used only three of his possible 45 questioning opportunities to talk about this issue in the House of Commons?

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

1:25 p.m.

NDP

Jean Rousseau NDP Compton—Stanstead, QC

Mr. Speaker, something in particular in my colleague's remarks stood out for me. Our constituents are asking serious questions, and "ethics" is the word that comes up most often because they are wondering who is going to pay for this. Once again, there will be no accountability from the Prime Minister or his office. It is absolutely unacceptable that yet another shameful scandal is unfolding, a scandal that calls into question the credibility of every elected official, at every level. However, nothing is being done by the Prime Minister's Office, which is now at the centre of this situation.

I would like my colleague to speak more about that. Our constituents are concerned and want accountability.

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

1:25 p.m.

NDP

Rathika Sitsabaiesan NDP Scarborough—Rouge River, ON

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question and his passion, because just like Canadians, he is very passionate.

He is right when he says that Canadians are smart. I believe that Canadians are smart and that they will not put up with the government pulling the wool over their eyes for much longer. They are smart, and they know what transparency means. They know what accountability means.

The government, and especially the cabinet, which is the government, is there to be accountable to Canadians. The member asked who is going to pay. It is, once again, Canadians who are going to pay. It is everybody in this country who is paying taxes. Those are the people who are paying for this scandal, this cover-up, and everything that is happening. Those Canadians are the ones who are footing the bill for the government to pull the wool over their eyes. Canadians are smarter than that. They know.

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

1:25 p.m.

NDP

Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe NDP Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to the motion before us and to show my support. Although I do not find that it solves all the problems related to the Senate scandal that we have been dealing with in recent days, weeks and even months, it is still a step in the right direction.

Before getting to the heart of the matter and speaking directly to the motion, I would like to go over a few important facts. First, three senators and former members of the Conservative caucus, Patrick Brazeau, Pamela Wallin and Mike Duffy, are currently under investigation by the RCMP in relation to the scandal involving unjustified expenses. These senators claimed expenses and were reimbursed for their unjustified expenses with taxpayers' money.

These three senators now sit as independents and are accusing the Prime Minister's Office of throwing them under the bus to cover up the scandal. In the Duffy affair, the media discovered that the Prime Minister's former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, gave Mr. Duffy a cheque for $90,000 to repay the expenses he owed. According to Mr. Duffy, not only was the Prime Minister aware of this situation but the Conservative Party also gave the senator $13,560 to pay his legal fees. In other words, donations from tax payers were used to pay for the legal fees Mr. Duffy incurred as a result of wrongdoing that the Prime Minister condemns. The Conservative Party therefore allegedly paid the legal fees of someone who is being charged with offences that are, according to the Prime Minister himself, unforgiveable and unjustifiable.

Then, the Prime Minister denied any involvement in the affair and claimed that he was not aware of what was happening, saying that his former chief of staff, Mr. Wright was entirely at fault. Canadians are not stupid. The problem here is that more and more versions of the story are being told and the more versions that are told, the more they contradict each other and contradict what the Prime Minister originally said. On a number of occasions, the Prime Minister had to retract and rephrase his statement, using terms that were more vague or more specific, depending on the context, so that he would not be found guilty of misleading the House.

People are no longer relying solely on what the Prime Minister or Conservative members are saying. They have contradicted themselves far too many times. It reeks of a scandal, not only in the Senate but also in the PMO and within the Conservative Party.

The motion therefore tries to put a positive spin on this scandal by proposing that we try to discover the truth about it, particularly about the Prime Minister's involvement, and that we hear the Prime Minister's version of what happened—perhaps a more official version that would prevent him from going back on what he said from one day to the next.

We believe that this is necessary and that it would be worthwhile to proceed in the manner indicated in the motion because we have tried other ways and they are clearly not working. They are not working for the members in the House who have been asking the Prime Minister and the Conservatives questions day after day, week after week and month after month without ever getting a clear answer. I myself have asked dozens of questions about the Senate scandal and the Prime Minister's involvement in it.

I have several examples. I asked whether the Prime Minister or a member of his staff asked Carolyn Stewart Olsen to step down from the Senate committee responsible for examining expenses. The question was very clear and very precise. A yes or no answer would have been appropriate, perhaps even a sentence or two to explain. However, I got neither a yes nor a no; instead, I got attempts to change the subject and accusations that the NDP was trying to victimize senators. Did that answer the question I asked? Not at all. The only answer I got was that my question had already been answered, that it was time to move on to another subject, that nobody was very interested in the scandal and that we would be better off talking about something else. Naturally, talking about something else would be in the Conservatives' best interest.

Here is another example of a very simple, very direct question that should have received a very simple, very direct answer. With respect to Carolyn Stewart Olsen's expenses related to her residence, expenses that are certainly confusing because we do not know if it was her primary or secondary residence, we asked the Prime Minister whether he considered those expenses inappropriate.

The words are all simple. The numbers are simple. They could have told me that the expenses were inappropriate or appropriate. That could have happened, but it certainly did not. Those are just two examples among hundreds. Those were clear and precise questions that could have been answered with a yes or a no. Unfortunately, they tried to change the subject and avoided answering the questions. That is the attitude they demonstrate in the House as well as toward journalists.

I would like to quote from an article in Le Devoir about the Prime Minister's attitude and his self-professed transparency. The article said:

The Prime Minister did not make himself available to the press at the end of the Calgary convention on Saturday.... [That was the convention that took place last weekend.] Reporters approached Stephen Harper as he was leaving the room and asked him to explain the second cheque written to Mike Duffy. Mr. Harper did not answer. People in his entourage were astounded.

That is just one example, but there are others. Journalists themselves are having a hard time making sense of this and getting clear answers from the Prime Minister.

Once again—I am repeating myself—that is why I think this motion can help shed some light on this Senate scandal and the involvement of the Prime Minister's Office in all of this.

Unfortunately, there are many conflicting versions. When we manage to get answers, they are not always consistent. For example, the Prime Minister said that Nigel Wright resigned. He later said that Nigel Wright was dismissed, so he could avoid controversy and say that he was no longer on his team. It does not really matter whether he was dismissed or he resigned. The fact is, we are still in the dark.

Another example of contradiction is when we hear that no one knew about the cheques. It turns out that maybe four people and then even thirteen people were aware. How can we trust answers like that when day after day new facts and new evidence come to light that force the Prime Minister to change his version of the facts?

Another example not directly related to the scandal itself is the fact that in 2006, the Prime Minister said that he would not be appointing senators and indeed had no intention of doing so. As of today, he has appointed 57 senators. This is just another example that shows how difficult it is to give any credibility to what the Conservatives say in the House about the Senate spending scandal and the involvement of the Prime Minister's Office in that scandal.

People need clear and direct answers. This is what we are trying to give them by asking questions, day after day, in the House of Commons or by moving motions.

The motion from the Liberals, however, has its limits. The NDP proposed a motion a few days ago. This motion sought not only to stop this type of spending, but also to prevent senators from engaging in partisan spending. I have received several emails from people in my riding calling for action on this issue. Obviously, the NDP's position on the Senate is clear. Our preferred option is abolition. Again, I have received hundreds of letters in the mail from my constituents asking me to work on having the Senate abolished—not just because of the Senate spending scandal, but also for several other reasons.

Yes, the NDP is still in favour of abolishing the Senate. However, we do not have to wait for the NDP to be in power to take action and finally bring about real change in the Senate. In the meantime, there are other things we can do. The NDP motion was a very tangible proposal that sought to establish more transparency and accountability. It was intended to ensure that taxpayers' money was not spent for partisan purposes, such as covering the senators' travel expenses.

I think I have clearly explained my position on this issue. I find it unfortunate that we need to move such a motion in the House. One would think that the government would act on its own to give us a clear and credible version of events during the kind of crisis we are going through right now in terms of the Senate spending scandal and the Prime Minister's involvement in the whole affair. However, we now have no choice but to introduce such a motion.

I hope that the Conservatives will now act to ensure credibility and transparency.

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

1:35 p.m.

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB

Mr. Speaker, it was interesting that at the Conservative convention last weekend, we saw individual high-profile ministers like the former minister of immigration, who is now Minister of Employment and Social Development, praising Mr. Wright and just a few days earlier the Prime Minister was driving the bus over Mr. Wright.

Now there is an important matter before the House that will come to a vote, which calls upon the Prime Minister to testify under oath. Liberals are trying to find out if the Prime Minister has any friends on that side who are prepared to stand and say something on the motion.

Would the member want to comment as to why it is important for government members stand and either defend the Prime Minister or give an indication as to what they believe, or are we to take their silence as an admission of guilt that they just want this issue to disappear?