Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte.
What we have just heard is basically an excuse for unethical behaviour. The excuse that we have heard all morning from the speeches that members are reading from the PMO is that no laws have been broken. That is the standard the Liberals are setting. Of course, what they are not talking about is the ethical guidelines that the Prime Minister handed out to the public office holders over there, the best practices for ministers and parliamentary secretaries. I want to read from those guidelines, under general principles:
Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries must ensure that political fundraising activities or considerations do not affect, or appear to affect, the exercise of their official duties or the access of individuals or organizations to government.
There should be no preferential access to government, or appearance of preferential access, accorded to individuals or organizations because they have made financial contributions to politicians and political parties. There should be no singling out, or appearance of singling out, of individuals or organizations as targets of political fundraising because they have official dealings with Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries, or their staff or departments.
What the Liberal Party wants us to believe is that when the Minister of Justice holds a fundraiser attended by a bunch of lawyers who pay $1,500 for the privilege, it is just a coincidence that they are lawyers who are regulated by the Justice Department.
When the Minister of Natural Resources holds a $1,500 per person fundraiser at a law firm that specializes in natural resource sectors, that is just a coincidence. How are they supposed to know that it was going to be the minister who regulates their department and may decide whether their projects proceed or not? How could they know? What a happy coincidence.
When the Minister of Finance holds dozens of these things across the country, at $1,500 per person and filled with Bay Street bankers, how are the latter supposed to know that the minister who is responsible for regulating the financial services sector would be there and take that $1,500?
It is beyond belief that the Liberal Party is justifying this clear cash for access scheme and trying to drag in other members of Parliament who all fundraise. The difference is that when we were in government, our ministers were very clear. We set up the ethical standard so that our ministers were not taking cash from people they regulated, from the people who lobbied their departments. That is the clear differentiation between the Conservative government and the Liberal Party. They do not even try to hide it; they justify it as not being illegal.
It is the same behaviour we have seen from Kathleen Wynne and the Ontario Liberal Party, in which people who are under a cloud of investigation are kept in their posts because they have not been officially charged yet. They have not officially gone to jail yet.
That is the standard the government is emulating. It is not a surprise, because this is the same party that has another member, Jacques Corriveau, who was found guilty on three counts of fraud just this week in the sponsorship scandal. Canadians remember it well, that system of coordinated kick-backs for government contracts. There are still people going to jail because of that Liberal culture of corruption.
We see it continuing. It is the proud legacy that the Liberals have brought forward into this new iteration, which is basically more of the same. This is how they do business. As David Dingwall famously said, “I'm entitled to my entitlements.” The Liberal Party of Canada seems to think it is entitled to raise money from the very people who should not be at fundraisers with the people who regulate them, with the ministers who often hold the very future of whether a project proceeds, and whether a regulation changes to the benefit of an industry. That is what we are talking about. It is the cash for that access. We are not talking about eliminating fundraising.
I heard another member say in another speech written by the PMO and read into the record here today that in B.C. one could give $30,000 and in other jurisdictions $20,000, as if the amount of the donation were the ethical breach. However, the breach occurs when any amount is given to get access to a minister who has control over files that are important to the minister and the minister's personal interests. That is what this party is doing, and its members are not even hiding it. It is coordinated corruption.
The Liberals have had nearly 90 of these events that we know about, and 20 with high-profile ministers who have been implicated. Now we have the Minister of Natural Resources saying that he was not there, but, of course, the record shows that he was. I would be embarrassed if I were him too. I would be telling people that I do not do anything like that. However, the record shows that he was there at the event with a law firm that lobbies in regard to natural resources.
We have other events taking place with the Minister of International Trade, such as the following event, described as the Liberal Party of Canada and an evening with the hon. Minister of International Trade in Toronto. However, when we go to the web page now, we cannot find out about that event because it is password protected. The Liberals are trying to cover their tracks, but Canadians will not let them get away with it.
The Prime Minister's bureaucrats are deciding whether the Prime Minister is breaking ethical guidelines. That is the system he has conveniently set up so that the Privy Council oversees it. The Privy Council, which is the bureaucracy for the Prime Minister's Office, is the one that oversees whether the Prime Minister is keeping his own ethical guidelines, and, surprise, he is batting 1000%. He is always on the level, and they do not seem to find a problem with it, even though the Lobbying Commissioner and Ethics Commissioner have said it is very unsavoury and believe it is something that should come under their purview. We agree. Therefore, this is what the motion says today:
That, in the opinion of the House, the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner should be granted the authority to oversee and enforce the directives to Ministers listed in Open and Accountable Government in order to end the current practice of “cash-for-access” by ensuring there is no preferential access to government, or appearance of preferential access, accorded to individuals or organizations because they have made financial contributions to politicians or political parties.
That is taken directly from the Prime Minister's directives to his minsters. However, we hear today a defence. It is hard to believe that every one of the Liberal Party members gets up to say that they have not broken the law. The laws have not been broken, but it is about ethics, which is why this decision by ministers to purposely seek out funds from the people they regulate is corruption.
As I said before, the Liberals have held 89 of these fundraisers so far, and have another 10 scheduled for the fall. They all include fundraisers with ministers and parliamentary secretaries, as well as one with the Prime Minister's senior adviser, Gerald Butts.
They are defending the indefensible. They are bringing up the Elections Act, or the fact that members have fundraised. We all fundraise. It is part of the political process in Canada. What is not a part of the political process is using the office that one has been entrusted with by the Prime Minister to act on behalf of all Canadians, to instead act on behalf of people who can afford a $1,500 donation to bend the ear of the Prime Minister or his ministers.
In the natural resource sector, 100,000 workers have lost their jobs since the current government took office. They cannot afford the entry fee to get face time with the Minister of Natural Resources to ask why he is not doing anything to get them back to work. This is a return to the culture of corruption.
The Liberals should support this motion, support the words of their Prime Minister, and get the Ethics Commission, not their bureaucrats, to evaluate whether or not these clear conflicts of interest violate ethical rules.