Mr. Speaker, the opposition has raised numerous questions about the government's habit of creating real or apparent conflicts of interest when cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister attend cash for access fundraisers.
The Liberal Party of Canada organized fundraisers, exclusively invited wealthy donors, used search engine protocols to hide them from Google search results, and specifically mentioned that ministers like the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, or the Prime Minister himself would be available for an intimate talk.
Such meetings create conflicts of interest when attended by registered lobbyists, since the latter pay to meet with ministers who make decisions which affect their clients. This is clearly a breach of the ethical standards that Canadians demand of elected representatives.
Such meetings also breach the Prime Minister's own code of ethics as laid out in his publication, “Open and Accountable Government, 2015”. Indeed, this document instructs ministers to avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest, explicitly stating that the commitment to accountability is not discharged merely by following the letter of the law.
My second point would be funny if it were not so disturbing. At last count, the government House leader has claimed over 200 times in the House that Canada has the strictest rules in the world. Well, we know that the rules are strict. The issue is that the rules are not being followed.
When I asked the government House leader why she continued to defend cash for access fundraising when the Commissioner of Lobbying was investigating the fundraisers, she replied, “When the rules are followed, no conflict of interest can exist.” That statement is naively optimistic to the point of absurdity, and the whole government knows this. The Prime Minister knows it, since he acknowledged in “Open and Accountable Government” that avoiding the appearance of conflict of interest is not limited to simply following the technical compliance of the law. Cabinet members know it, since they have recently announced that they will introduce new ethics rules to further clarify expectations for fundraisers.
Canada does not need new rules to supplement what are perhaps the strictest ethics standards in the world; we just need the government to start obeying the rules that are already on the books. Liberals need to actually live up to the expectations they created in the statement on open and accountable government.
I ask again, why does the government defend cash for access fundraising? Why does it not listen to the lobbying commissioner when she says that a sense of obligation is created when a lobbyist organizes or hosts a political fundraiser and when the practice is known to be under investigation?
Why do the Liberals not listen to the Ethics Commissioner who calls their fundraisers unsavoury, who has asked for jurisdiction to enforce the standards in “Open and Accountable Government”, and who has launched the first-ever ethics investigation by her office of a sitting Prime Minister? Why do they not raise the standards that their own leader sets out in the mandate letters and in his own code of ethics?
Canadians want to know why ministers and the Prime Minister allow registered lobbyists to host and organize fundraisers for them, why the Prime Minister attends fundraisers with foreign nationals when he knows that only Canadians can legally donate to a party, and why the Prime Minister allows lobbyists at his fundraisers when he is on record stating that he is lobbied all the time since people want to talk about their issues?
Canadians want to know why the Prime Minister and his cabinet keep getting into conflicts of interest, real or apparent, and keep prompting investigations of their unethical and possibly illegal behaviour. We want to know why Canadians should trust the Liberal government to govern in the interests of all Canadians when it has shown time and time again that it puts its own party's finances above the rules for public office holders.