Debates of April 19th, 2016

Opposition Motion — Political Fundraising

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague on his natural, well-documented speech. We can immediately sense his passion for democracy and for an election campaign marked by a series of themes that the Liberal Party harped on, saying how different, pure, pristine and idyllic things were going to be. However, we suddenly encounter an obstacle. What is maddening here is that while the work of the Official Opposition and the third party opposition is to get this kind of story out, we are being criticized as if that were a horrible thing to do. It is awful to question this fine government. That brings to mind the old concept of the natural governing party.

Does my colleague not think that the government is wholly convinced it is sacrosanct?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the question and the well-made point within the question. I would agree with him on the summoning of the kind of indignation we have seen from the government benches on this issue when the facts are quite clear. We are not here to say that what is being done is illegal. That is a red herring according to the very criteria that the Prime Minister set out not more than six months ago. At issue is not whether the law was broken, but whether this is conduct becoming of a minister under the code of conduct implemented by the new Prime Minister.

Unless the member for Vancouver Granville was wrapped in an insulating blanket of self-righteousness, she could not be blind to the fact that this does not meet that bar. There is clearly something getting in the way of Liberal members having an heretical appreciation of the facts. I do not know what that is, whether it is rose-coloured glasses, that blanket of self-righteousness, or what, but this merits an apology. It merits giving the money back, and then it merits moving on and getting down to knowing how to behave.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bécancour—Nicolet—Saurel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened carefully to the very interesting speech by my fellow member. Beyond today’s debate, should the real debate not be about funding for political parties, here in the House?

Let us remember that prime minister Chrétien established two principles. First, following the sponsorship scandal, he said that in the future, only those who have the right to vote could contribute to political parties. The second principle is that the state has a duty to contribute to each political party an amount of money proportional to the number of votes it has received.

Now, the Conservatives erred in eliminating the principle of the state contribution, and I think they realize that today. By reinstating the principles established by prime minister Chrétien and the Liberal Party of the time, one requiring that the state contribute $2 per vote and the other allowing only persons who have the right to vote to contribute to political parties, we would ensure that they are not besieged by lobbyists and forced to organize $500-a-plate cocktail parties to raise funds for their campaigns.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question.

I agree with the principle that we should support political parties with public funds up to a certain point. However, we should not use that argument to excuse actions that are inexcusable.

Accordingly, we should indeed reopen the debate on funding from the public purse, but that does not excuse what the Minister of Justice did.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the member for Edmonton Riverbend.

Quite a few members have risen here today to talk about new facts related to the motion. Of course I would like to debate any subject pertaining to the federal government, such as how this government is managing its finances. I would also like to have the opportunity to debate its lack of respect for workers in the province of Alberta, workers in the oil industry who are looking for work and for whom this government is doing nothing. This Parliament can debate any topic at all. This particular topic has to do with the ethics of this government and the ethics and decisions of the Minister of Justice.

I will begin with an excerpt from her mandate letter, which states:

We have also committed to set a higher bar for openness and transparency in government.

That, of course, was written by the Prime Minister. It goes on to say:

It is important that we acknowledge mistakes when we make them. Canadians do not expect us to be perfect—they expect us to be honest, open, and sincere in our efforts to serve the public interest.

I agree. Here on this side of the House, we do not expect the members opposite or cabinet ministers to be perfect; however, we do expect the mandate letters sent to each of the ministers to be respected.

It is also stated:

Moreover, they have an obligation to perform their official duties and arrange their private affairs in a manner that will bear the closest public scrutiny. This obligation is not fully discharged merely by acting within the law.

When we have been debating this issue so far, we have been looking at the law and the expectation. However, that side set the expectation very high. Therefore, we are asking on this side of the House simply that the expectation that the Liberals put forward to the general public and to members of the House is met, regardless of the party they are in. However, they are not doing this. They are not living up to this high expectation that they set. If they want to be treated differently, if they want to get credit for acting to a certain ethical bar, they should meet this new expectation.

In fact, when the previous Conservative government was brought to power by Canadians who voted for them, the very first large piece of legislation they brought in was Bill C-2. This was the Federal Accountability Act. It was the greatest change to how this House works, how public office holders are expected to act, and what they are expected to be doing in their dealings with interest groups, stakeholders, and persons who may want something from the government, who are seeking an advantage of some sort.

I am worried when certain members get up and begin to pontificate and tell us that we cannot be debating this because it is not an issue. Let us go back to 2006. Let us go back to the 1990s, if you want, and see what happened that eventually led to the introduction of the Federal Accountability Act.

The Accountability Act was directly in response to the sponsorship scandal, and it was members of the Liberal Party who caused the sponsorship scandal. In fact, I recently read La Rébellion tranquille, by Martine Tremblay, which gave us a history of the Bloc, the movement in the province of Quebec. The sponsorship scandal gave fuel to that party. It basically allowed it to continue on for an extra decade. The scandal involved millions of dollars, with Liberal Party organizers funnelling money from government programs into their pockets. It did more damage to our confederation, more damage to federal unity, than I think any other act in the last 50 years that I can remember. Therefore, we should start with that.

It is interesting too, because when we think about this, it was about 10 years ago, on April 11, 2006, when the first reading of that bill was tabled in the House. The third read reading was in June 21, 2006. Therefore, it is almost exactly 10 years since that happened. In that act, the then Conservative government proposed the Conflict of Interest Act, creating for the first time a legislative regime governing the ethical conduct of public office holders, both during and after employment.

We have to imagine that no party is perfect; no individual is perfect. The only expectation we have is that if we set a public expectation, we will rise up and live up to the expectation that has been set with the public.

It is important to remember that, when that bill was reported back, it was after a fulsome debate at committee, and many amendments were made, both by members of the government and members of the opposition at the time. Therefore, the bill that basically reset ethical standards, the expectations that both ministers and members of Parliament have to live by, was given unanimous agreement that this needed to be done, that the content of it was something everybody could agree to.

I want to take this opportunity to do something I have done in every single speech, and I am sure the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount will appreciate this. There is a Yiddish proverb that I think applies here. It is that caution brings speed in the end. If the Minister of Justice had been more cautious in her dealings with stakeholders and in how she approached these types of events, she would not find herself in a situation where members are calling into question her behaviour and actions outside of the House. It is really unfortunate.

I heard, during question period today, the Prime Minister say that he leads the government by cabinet. We do not do any favours for members of cabinet when we do not allow them to speak for themselves. The Minister of Democratic Institutions spoke up today on this matter and she raised a few interesting points—I will give her that—but she also said that the previous Conservative government disrespected Parliament and the House and did not meet her expectations for ethical conduct.

What could be more disrespectful than not allowing the minister to speak up for herself and defend her own actions and, instead, the government House leader often doing it? I would love to hear from the Minister of Justice and get her version, her facts, and her way of thinking when she took those actions. That is an important thing to remember. We should always live up to the expectations we have set, not perfection.

A member previously mentioned prorogation. The Conservative government prorogued Parliament, as I remember, but former prime minister Chrétien also prorogued Parliament to avoid the Auditor General's report on the sponsorship scandal. Therefore, let us remember that, too. We are not all perfect, and not all governments are perfect. Governments make mistakes, and sometimes individuals in governments make mistakes, so let us not call for perfection. Let us call for meeting a new standard.

When I think of these facts, I think that the debate until now has kind of ignored the fact that nobody has called for perfection. People have been calling for common sense, a test of reasonableness. The Minister of Justice is going to be headlining a $1,000-per-head fundraiser later this month, basically copying what the provincial Liberal government has been doing up to now, which is setting fundraising targets for its ministers. It leads us to wonder if that is happening on that side of the House as well, and if members are adopting these practices.

I go back to the budget document. On page 210, in chapter 7, it says, “Better Government for Canadians, Focusing on Outcomes”, and that is what the government and the minister should be doing. Whenever they attend fundraisers, whenever they agree to a meeting with stakeholders where there is an exchange of money, potentially, because people buy tickets to attend, they should look at the outcome: what will the public outcome of this be?

What will the public think if they are meeting with individuals who could potentially be eligible to be appointed to a Governor in Council appointment, either to become judges, heads of crown corporations, or ambassadors? What would the outcome be of having this fundraiser? Will there have to be debate in the House as to whether their actions were correct or incorrect or whether they should return the money or keep it?

The debate has been fulsome. Lots of members have raised interesting points. They have spoken about the importance of ethics and meeting a new expectation, and that is what I want the government to do. This is a government by cabinet. I want the Minister of Justice to speak up for herself. I call on her to return the money. That is the right thing to do.

I would invite all members to vote for this motion. It is a good motion. It is straight to the point. It is all Conservatives are asking for.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the previous government was not brought to power by the people who voted for it, as the member says, as much as by the sheer force of the number of voters who were suppressed by the Conservatives' unethical electoral practices. How do Conservatives sleep at night knowing that they have condemned a young, unilingual, non-technical local staffer to jail for a national, coordinated, bilingual, and highly technical voter suppression scheme?

When it comes to the Conservatives, ethics are as mythical a creature as balanced budgets.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, that is an interesting question. I speak as a bilingual member of Parliament from Calgary Shepard. I remember that this election had one of the highest voter turnouts, despite what members claim on that side of the House, that there was a problem with the Fair Elections Act. We had the highest voter turnout ever in my riding. I won by 43,706 votes, the highest number of votes in Calgary. Therefore, I thank my constituents for entrusting me with this. I believe I received more votes than the former prime minister did in his riding. There was nothing wrong with the act itself. If I look at the Ottawa region, there was a 80% voter turnout. Therefore, the act had no effect on voter turnout.

As far as staffing decisions and the conduct of the previous government are concerned, I am one of the members who was just elected to this Parliament, so I can speak to what is happening now.

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

Mr. Speaker, I note the hon. member for Calgary Shepard's point that he was elected to this 42nd Parliament. However, I recall the beginning of the 41st Parliament, where the previous Conservative platform called for an accountability act with 52 specific measures. Many of them dealt with the issues we are debating today. We would not be debating them today if the previous Conservative government had kept its word and brought in those 52 specific measures. It was an issue much discussed by the most knowledgeable group in the country, Democracy Watch.

I ask the hon. member this. Would he support bringing back the 22 missing ethics commitments of the Conservative platform from 2006?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, that is a good question. I would not mind looking at all 52 of those recommendations one more time. It has been many years.

When it comes to the question of ethics, it is not so much what is put into the law but its application and the expectations that are set. As I mentioned, on the Prime Minister's website there is a question of what the law states and the expectation one has to live up to.

When I was the registrar for the HR profession in the province of Alberta, what I would tell members when they asked me an ethical question was this. The law states the minimum requirements, the minimum bar one has to meet. However, it is the perception of a conflict that one should worry about. At the time, basically what the members were dealing with were issues with respect to a company code of ethics and a professional code of ethics and how the two come together. In that respect, they would have to see where the minimum bar was set and then what the expectation would be for their clients, the employees, the employer, and the outside stakeholders. Therefore, when we are looking at the law and what it states, we also need to look beyond that to what society expects from professionals, members of Parliament, and ministers as well.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I salute the member and congratulate him on his excellent speech. His references were on point, particularly those about Quebec's political history. His French is excellent. I would also like to remind everyone how well he performed in the election. I am ashamed to say that I won by just 19,000 votes. I am not in the same league as him, but still. He is an inspiration to us all. My question for the member is as follows:

What should the minister do to start over, put all of this behind her, and move forward?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question.

The minister should give the money back and apologize to the House.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would not necessarily say it is an honour to rise in the House today. It is something we all have to do, unfortunately, particularly when there is an incident like this one.

I commend the member for St. Albert—Edmonton for bringing the motion before the House. It is something he has worked hard at, to ensure we are holding the government to account, not only in his critic role but as a member of Parliament as well. He has been doing a bunch of media interviews. I have seen him on them. I know it is something that has kept him up late at night and something he prepares for each next day.

When the government House leader gave his speech, he had some interesting points, but then he began to attack the hon. member for St. Albert—Edmonton on the very issue that he is debating here, that he had a fundraiser with the then minister of health. It was a $35 fundraiser versus a $500-a-plate fundraiser, and it was not in her capacity as the minister of health. There were no stakeholders there. There was nothing to be gained by people in the health care profession attending.

It is rich to hear. That was the attempt made by the members opposite because, quite honestly, we are here because there is a lot of back and forth.

We have had finger-pointing all day from both sides of the House. It reminds me of being back home in the wonderful constituency of Edmonton Riverbend. I have two little daughters. One is eight and one is seven. They constantly attempt to blame each other and say, “It was her” and “No, it was her”. However, at the end of the day, it is not necessarily about who did it or why they did it; it is about getting an apology from one to the other. That is a value I try to instill in them.

It is frustrating to see the Minister of Justice repeatedly refuse to stand in the House and let the House leader stand and do the dirty work for her. Also, it is frustrating to not have her admit the mistake. That is simply what we are looking for. I imagine how this day would be different if she did do that, even if the government House leader did that on her behalf. I am sure that would have made the day a bit less like this and a bit more progressive a day.

In the motion, we say the minister should follow her own guidelines. We are assuming the minister read the guidelines. Perhaps that is where it has gone south for the minister. Quite honestly, I read the guidelines. They are penned by the Prime Minister. The document is called “Open and Accountable Government”.

I have a number of tabs here. One of the parts reads: “...sets limitations on outside activities, acceptance of gifts, invitations to special events and hospitality, and post-employment activities”.

Just for that alone, if a minister were looking at that, he or she would say, wait a minute, maybe this is an event they should not attend.

Next, under part I, public scrutiny, it states:

Public office holders have an obligation to perform their official duties and arrange their private affairs in a manner that will bear the closest public scrutiny, an obligation that is not fully discharged by simply acting within the law.

I imagine that the minister would have read that and decided it was not an event she should have attended.

Next, in annex B, the big one, it states: “...the appearance of conflict of interest and situations that have the potential to involve conflicts of interest”.

That is what we are debating here. We are not debating whether we agree or disagree with the Ethics Commissioner, as a lot of the members on the other side have suggested in their questions. We are talking largely about this specific point in annex B. That is on page 21, for those following along.

The Prime Minister has told his entire front bench this is what he intends to hold them up to. When they disregard this very point, it is questionable what they will disregard from the Prime Minister in the future.

Again, under “General Principles”, on page 22, it states:

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.

That again should have a huge check mark beside it. I would think the minister would have looked at it and said, “Wait a minute. Let's double-check this before we go ahead”, not 48 hours before, but weeks before the event happened. I bet this would not have gone forward if she had done that.

The last one is this:

Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries should not seek to have departmental stakeholders included on fundraising or campaign teams or on the boards of electoral district associations.

That gets me to the points I would like to discuss.

We do not know who was at this fundraiser. We will find out eventually, when the report comes out. However, the motion simply asks that the minister tell us who was at the fundraiser. We want her to let us know so we can be clear, on this side of the House, that whoever was there is not going to be appointed to a federal bench job or appointed to any other sort of special committee.

It is something that we need to know on our side, as critics, to ensure that we are holding the government to account. Not knowing these sorts of things makes our job a lot harder. This speaks to open and accountable government, and it would be a lot more open and transparent if we could have that information.

I am assuming, with everything I said about “Open and Accountable Government”, the letter penned by the Prime Minister to all of his frontbenchers, that she did not read it, or if she did read it, she did not read it thoroughly. However, I assume she read her mandate letter.

In the mandate letter from the Prime Minister to thejustice minister, he states, first, “It is my expectation that we will deliver real results and professional government to Canadians.”

I think the mere fact that we are having this debate calls that into question.

He further states, “We made a commitment to Canadians to pursue our goals with a renewed sense of collaboration.”

I am certain that he did not mean to indicate that was a fundraiser with a law firm.

At page 3, he says, “It is important that we acknowledge mistakes when we make them.”

She is not standing up and recognizing that a mistake was made. Obviously she was not there as the member for Vancouver Granville. I think the laughter from our side of the House was a good indication that it probably was not going to go over too well with the general public either. Why would she be there as the member for Vancouver Granville to speak at a downtown law firm in Toronto?

It boggles my mind to see each member standing up and defending the position that she was there as—what were her words?—a member of Parliament to talk about Canada.

I talk about Canada every day. People are not paying $500 to come to hear me talk. Granted, I am a backbencher on the Conservative side, but still, as a member of Parliament, I go out and talk about Canada. I think it is rich to argue that as the reason she should be invited to a downtown law firm. She is the top lawyer in the country talking to a bunch of other lawyers, a lot of whom could possibly be looking for contracts in the future.

I think it was an exercise of poor judgment on the minister's part. If this motion is defeated, I would encourage the minister, since this is not her first run in the House, to consider that maybe she should think twice, three times, four times, before she attends these events or any future events.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to resist the temptation to provide some suggestions about what my hon. colleague across the way might fetch in the way of a speaker's fee.

We have spent a lot of time today speaking about openness and transparency with respect to fundraising. From our side of the aisle, this is not just about fundraising, this is about stitching together a number of components with respect to achieving that goal.

My hon. colleagues across the way used to introduce bills in an omnibus fashion. They would bury all sorts of policy in their bills and the public would try to unearth some of the essential components of those bills, but it could not do it because they were buried among volumes of pages of legislation. We have done away with that practice.

The past government never published a single mandate letter that was attached to a ministry or a responsible minister. We have done away with that practice. In the spirit of openness and transparency, we are now putting the mandate letters on the website, making them accessible to all.

With respect to the membership fees of our party, the party on that side of the aisle is raising its membership fees. The fee has now been put up to $25 and our—

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would direct you under Standing Order 11(2) to remind the member to return to the relevancy of this debate. He is going off on things that are not related to government business. I would encourage you to remind him to return to relevancy.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

There have been a number of issues discussed this afternoon. I think judgment is what comes up. I will let the hon. member finish what he is saying and we will see what happens when he is done.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

This is about a culture of openness and transparency and our party and our government is committed to making this party and this government as open as possible and setting the threshold higher than it has ever been.

With respect to fundraising—

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

Release the names then if you are so transparent. Your five minutes are up. Get to the point. Answer the question.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if my hon. colleague would demonstrate just a tad more patience, I will get to that in a moment.

The minister consulted with the Ethics Commissioner. She has abided by all of the laws and the rules that are set and she absolutely at no time has breached any of them. Why will the hon. colleague across the way not acknowledge the proactive steps she took in consulting with all of the appropriate authorities before she attended this event?

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Mr. Speaker, that was a bunch of inaccurate facts.

Let us first of all talk about the omnibus bills. We just heard not even an hour ago a notice of time allocation. I cannot see how that member can stand and argue that fact.

I would like to think I could fetch a fee, but perhaps we will see how the justice minister survives this and I will go from there.

With respect to the mandate letters, I bet the member wished that there were some changes to those mandate letters, particularly the lines which were quoted from. It is important that we acknowledge our mistakes when we make them.

I have outlined pretty clearly that the justice minister showed a poor lack of judgment when she went to this fundraiser and when she did a media interview in front of the fundraiser, saying that she was there as a member of Parliament. Absolutely nobody believes that. Even members on the other side have to admit deep down they do not believe that. Then the minister stood in the House and said that she was there talking about Canada. It speaks to some of the culture the member talks about, that we supposedly have changed.

This is the minister's second incident. We have talked about the agriculture minister in the House. We have talked about the House leader in the House. We talked today about the international trade minister. I would like to know what type of culture the member is referring to because this is not looking too good.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I believe I have a limited amount of time to speak in this debate, probably not as long as the hon. member for Eglinton—Lawrence used in the questions and comments period. However, that is good, because to be honest, when I was first elected to Parliament, I did not really expect to be speaking in debates such as this one.

I have been very proud to rise in the House each and every time thus far that I have spoken, talking about issues such as the amendment to the Air Canada act, the budget, the response to the throne speech, and our united opposition in this House to the BDS movement. However, to be honest, I have very little interest in speaking in a debate that is simply one side throwing mud against the other side, and going back and forth.

Personally, I did not get elected to complain about what the last government did and I did not get elected to throw mud at my own government. I think that this debate is a futile waste of the time of the House of Commons.

As somebody who is generally non-partisan, and I hope my colleagues in the official opposition believe that, I do not think that this was the best motion the Conservatives could have come up with for today. I have seen much better motions from that side, and I hope that in the future I will be speaking to much better motions from them.

Given that there is a concern right now over a fundraiser that the Ethics Commissioner has declared to be perfectly legitimate and in line with current guidelines, what might have been useful would have been a motion as to how we should change Canadian fundraising laws, rules, regulations, and procedures so as to make something clearly not possible. However, that is not what came forward. What came forward was simply a criticism of the Minister of Justice.

I do want to say that I have had the pleasure to work with the Minister of Justice for several months now. I know her to be a woman of great integrity. I know her to be a woman who is not only intelligent but who is also a person who would not put herself in a position that was compromising. She is somebody who checked this out. She checked with the Ethics Commissioner and asked the questions.

I could understand complaints if nobody ever asked a question as to whether or not this was okay, but she asked in advance. She took the precaution. She wanted to be sure. I can only say that as a result, I disagree with the text of the motion.

I would much rather that we were talking about the economy. I would much rather talk about the $120 billion we are putting into infrastructure. I would much rather talk about issues of substance and interest to Canadians, such as the money we are giving Canadians under the Canada child benefit or the extra amounts for seniors under the guaranteed income supplement, because that is what Canadians really want to hear about.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to wind down, because I would like to share good wishes with all of the members of the House. There has been a lot of rancour going back and forth today, I only hope that despite that rancour, we all leave here today as friends and colleagues.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I, too, would rather have talked about this government's $30-billion deficit and its changes to the tax system, which will cost $1.7 billion.

However, the reason we are talking about something else is that the Minister of Justice violated her own government's code of conduct.

How can a member defend a minister, the Minister of Justice, to be precise, who broke the rules and charged lawyers $500 for a chance to talk to her?

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to answer my friend and colleague. I will answer him in a less aggressive tone.

Frankly, I believe that the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner already answered that question. She said that the rules have not been broken.

My colleague maintains that the rules were broken, although the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner told his own colleague the opposite. That is untenable.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I being 5:33 p.m., it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the business of supply.

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.