Debates of June 8th, 2017

Canada Elections Act

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in the speech, the bill is about making fundraising more open and transparent. It is precisely about providing more information to the public with regard to political fundraising. All members in the House know that political parties need funds to operate. All members in the House have certainly raised funds for their own campaigns and for their own party, and they follow the rules.

As I mentioned, we have strict rules when it comes to fundraising at the federal level in Canada. It is $1,550 maximum with regard to raising money for political parties and the bill would make it more open and transparent so Canadians can know who attended a fundraiser, when it happened, and where it happened. It is part of our democratic expression and part of how we contribute to our democracy.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I want to remind hon. members that the procedure is that somebody asks the question and somebody answers. I know everybody is excited and is throwing more and more questions, but we can only answer one a time. I am sure the hon. minister appreciated all those extra questions coming her way, but she can only take one at a time.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Victoria.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for her presentation this evening. As my colleague from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo has reminded us, the reason we are here is cash for access and the scandals associated with that. The government's solution has been to provide a certain kind of transparency.

In November, the Prime Minister on his website had something called open and accountable government, part of which says:

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.

In January, the minister's mandate letter instructed her to devise a law that would make fundraisers involving ministers and leadership candidates more transparent including requiring them to be conducted in publicly available spaces.

I would like the minister to confirm whether or not her bill does what her mandate letter required.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my bill indeed does what my mandate letter requires, which is advertising in advance where political fundraisers will take place. When we advertise where they are and where tickets can be purchased, that information is then available to the public. The bill is about ensuring that Canadians have access to this information and that it is indeed more open and transparent when it comes to political fundraising.

We know that all members in the House and all political parties require funds to operate. We also know what happens at political fundraisers. We have all attended them. Groups of like-minded Canadians get together to support a candidate or a party that shares their aspirations, that shares what they hope to see in the future of their country. This is one way for them to contribute to ensuring that the dialogue persists and that we have a robust and vibrant dialogue between different parties within our democracy.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. minister for her very clear speech, which opens the door for me to ask another question.

Beyond making political fundraising more open and transparent, Bill C-50 would also make technical changes to Canada's Elections Act with regard to nomination and leadership contestant expenses.

Could the minister tell the House what changes are being proposed?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-50 would respond to a recommendation from the Chief Electoral Officer to align certain leadership and nomination contestant expense rules with that of election candidates. This recommendation was unanimously supported by the procedure and House affairs committee during its study of the CEO's report.

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

Mr. Speaker, clearly, I agree that one of the few areas of Canadian political life, which is reflected as far better than most other democracies, has been our control of fundraising. Accepting donations from anyone other than an individual Canadian is already illegal federally. I come from British Columbia. We hope to see changes in political financing there, because clearly campaigns are financed without any rules at all in the current situation.

I am disappointed that we did not look at the broader question. I asked the minister, did she consider or would she consider in future looking at more equitable public financing? The public is already financing political parties. We need to make it clear that the largest contribution from the taxpayer to political parties was not the per vote subsidy, it is the return to political parties at the end of a campaign for money they spent during the campaign. That is rebated as much as 50% to 60%, depending on whether we are talking riding or federally, so there is public financing already.

Would the minister consider returning to the approach that was put in place under former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien to bring back a fairer system?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her interest.

This legislation specifically deals with political fundraising events. I am looking at a number of recommendations that will be coming from the CEO and Elections Canada's report. He made 132 recommendations. As I mentioned, both the House committee on procedures and House affairs as well as the equivalent Senate committee are working on reports. I look forward to receiving those recommendations to inform the work I do moving forward.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed the minister is not standing up and following-through on the promise made during the election by the Prime Minister that 2015 would be the last election with first past the post. I want to register how disappointed I am that was taken out of her mandate letter, and she is not standing up here today talking about how we would move forward in that way.

I know the bill is about political fundraising. First, I feel that cabinet members and the Prime Minister, who are government, should not be at political fundraisers, period. They can be at events where everyone can have access. We should not have to pay to talk to a cabinet minister or the Prime Minister at any time during their mandate. Could she comment on that?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, this government has been the most open and accessible government that Canadians have seen in recent history in terms of being able to access the Prime Minister, whether it is at a town hall, or a minister, whether it is at a round table throughout the country. We are very much committed to engaging with Canadians, as indeed are all members of this House. It is important for us as public officer holders to ensure that we remain engaged with Canadians all the time.

When it comes to political fundraising, however, this is something that is different. This is about people expressing their values, their ideas, and their support for a given political party. That is why we maintain this is an important right for Canadians to be able to exercise. Furthermore, we acknowledge this is something we should be more open and transparent about, and that when we shine more light, we will see exactly what is happening. This is a very good thing, and I am looking forward to the continued debate on this matter.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this legislation could be understood in three steps. Step number one, the Liberals come up with a fundraising system that is profoundly profitable. Step number two, the public finds out about it and it becomes profoundly unpopular. Step number three, the Liberals attempt to develop a piece of legislation that would provide ethical cover for continuing this unpopular practice because it is so darned profitable.

This legislation is the Liberal Party's attempt to legitimize and normalize the practice that is sometimes referred to as pay to play, and sometimes referred to as cash for access. Either of those two descriptions makes a point. If one wants to play in this game, if one wants to have access to ministers, then pay up, and one can have access to the cabinet minister of choice, in particular, the Prime Minister himself or the finance minister, although every minister is a part of this game.

The goal of Bill C-50 is to legitimize this process. The Liberals are getting attacked. They can say it was the expressed will of Parliament that this practice be continued, because they will publicize some information about these enormously profitable events in which only the Liberal government can participate.

This is an issue here. It was a huge scandal for the Liberal government in Ontario, which has quotas for ministers to seek out great events at which access would be provided only to those who paid up to the Liberal Party of Ontario. This has been a huge issue in British Columbia. It may very well have been the issue that will cause the Liberal government out there to ultimately lose power, but that remains to be seen. There is a hung parliament in British Columbia, but this is a big scandal out there.

I want to give some examples of what the federal Liberals are doing, not the provincial Liberals in B.C., or the Liberals in Ontario. I want to give some examples of how this works and what it is about. I am going to give some examples of actual pay to play or cash for access events over the course of the past year or so.

Chinese billionaires have been attending Liberal fundraisers even though they are not allowed to donate because they are not Canadian citizens. One of these individuals Zhang Bin, who is also a Communist Party apparatchik, attended a May 19, 2016 fundraiser at the Toronto home of Chinese Business Chamber of Canada chairperson Benson Wong according to this report in The Globe and Mail. A few weeks later Mr. Zhang and a business partner donated $200,000 to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, and $50,000 to build a statute of the current Prime Minister's father.

Here is a second example. On November 7, B.C. multimillionaire Miaofei Pan hosted a fundraiser at his West Vancouver mansion, and made the case to the Prime Minister, at this event that he had to pay to get into and that he also hosted, to allow Chinese investment in seniors care and real estate developments, and ease rules for rich immigrants from China. What better way to get preferential access than to have it in your own home? This took place as the federal government had been reviewing a $1 billion bid by China's Anbang Insurance Group to buy one of British Columbia's largest retirement home nursing care chains.

Here is another example. An event scheduled for September 29 was actually cancelled, but was organized by senior business executive Geoff Smith, CEO of the giant construction firm EllisDon, which was involved in a scandal in Ontario over very similar events, and Linda Hasenfratz, CEO of Linamar, Canada's second largest automotive parts company. Both companies could benefit from government decisions concerning infrastructure and automobile policy.

Here is another example of pay to play as exercised by the Liberal government. The finance minister was scheduled to attend a fundraiser that cost $1,500 to get in the door in Calgary on November 2 at the home of Shaw Communications Inc. President Jay Mehr. The telecom firm has directly lobbied the finance department eight times. Is there a conflict there?

Here is an example of an exclusive event. On November 7, the finance minister attended an event in Calgary, and the Prime Minister attended an event in Toronto. This was an exclusive event held at the Toronto condominium of philanthropist Nancy Pencer and funeral home executive, Michael Benjamin. Helping to sell tickets were Barry Sherman, the chairman of generic drug manufacturer Apotex and Joel Reitman, who runs global venture firm Jillcy Capital. Apotex is the company whose executives had civic-minded children, I believe under the age of 10, who decided to make contributions to the leadership campaign of Joe Volpe, when he was running for the Liberal leadership. That is the kind of company the cabinet over there runs with.

Another event is a corporate law firm in Toronto with interests in Ottawa lobbying the federal government, hosting an event where the justice minister was the guest of honour, for goodness' sake. The finance minister was the star attraction at a $1,500 per person Liberal Party fundraiser in the home of a wealthy Halifax developer. Another event was $500 per person. That is a bargain price for the finance minister.

Members get the idea. This is a sample of the kinds of activities the cash for access activities in which the federal cabinet members have all been involved. The Prime Minister, the finance minister, the justice minister, and the whole crew met with people who do business with the federal government, and who now get to speak face-to-face with these ministers, when no one else gets that kind of access.

Pay to play is the backbone of Liberal fundraising. To make this point, I want to say how much the Liberals raise when they have these kinds of events. In this report, they would not actually say, but attendance figures had suggested that the party brings in between $50,000 and $120,000 per event, when either the Prime Minister or the finance minister is the star attraction, and the ticket price is $1,500. That is how much they bring in at an event in an evening. There are paying very special attention, and it has had a big impact on their bottom line. This is the backbone of their financing.

The pay to play process for raising funds started early last year, but it really took off in the final quarter of last year. Liberal Party finances went from $4 million, substantially behind the Conservative Party in the first quarter of 2016, to $5.8 million, well over $1 million ahead of the Conservative Party in the final quarter of 2016.

This was going to be the ace in the hole for the Liberals. This was how they were going to finance the next election. Let us be clear about this. When our party was in government, we did not do this stuff, but even if there were no ethical considerations holding back other parties in this place, only one party can deliver cabinet ministers, people who can, with the stroke of a pen, make someone's company tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars richer, at the expense of the Canadian people. Only the government can do that. There is an inbuilt incumbency advantage. This is an inbuilt way of ensuring that the governing party can raise funds in a way that is simply impossible for other parties.

That in itself is an outrage. Any system that is designed to give the incumbent party an ongoing, perpetual systemic advantage is inherently morally wrong. That is leaving aside the fact that giving preferential access to cabinet ministers, when the average Canadian does not get this chance, is absolutely contemptible.

This is not actually illegal right now. It is not unlawful, but it is a violation of the Prime Minister's ethics code, his open and accountable government code, put in place in 2015. Let me read the fine words the Prime Minister put at the front of this code. I do not know if he writes his own stuff, but there is a unique sanctimonious tone to whatever he puts on paper.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

He had his hand over his heart.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

As my colleague suggested, Mr. Speaker, he probably had his hand over his heart when he put this down. It reads:

To be worthy of Canadians’ trust, we must always act with integrity.

He gets breathless, too.

This is not merely a matter of adopting the right rules, or of ensuring technical compliance with those rules. As Ministers, you and your staff must uphold the highest standards of honesty and impartiality, and both the performance of your official duties and the arrangement of your private affairs should bear the closest public scrutiny. This is an obligation that is not fully discharged by simply acting within the law.

Those Liberals have the highest standards. They stand above anybody else. They are demigods of integrity. Now, specifically, this is the injunction they place on themselves with regard to lobbyists and those who seek out special access to them.

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.

Those are the Prime Minister's words.

Of course, the Liberals have completely violated this, but they have not broken the law. The thing is, though, that they have broken their word, absolutely, completely, and flagrantly broken their word. Their words mean nothing, as we can see. On top of that, they have also violated the norms of acceptable behaviour. Even if the Prime Minister had not put that sanctimonious bumph down on paper, the fact is that they violated what everybody thinks are the norms of acceptable behaviour. There is a crime called influence peddling and while this does not meet the technical description, it is clear that is exactly what is going on. The influence of the Prime Minister, the finance minister, and the justice minister are being peddled like so much soap.

This is why so many people have had the incorrect impression that the law was being violated. John Ivison wrote a piece for the National Post last November condemning the Ethics Commissioner for not having cracked down on the Prime Minister and the other members of cabinet for their outrageous behaviour and the commissioner was forced to write back to explain. I have her response from her website on November 30 of last year, entitled, “Response to a column in the National Post: the Commissioner sets the record straight”.

What she sets straight is that she cannot do anything because, outrageous as this behaviour is, it does not violate the actual rules. She goes through the various sections of the law and says, “It is a strange section. It fails to prohibit all preferential treatment, which should be the rule.” This is section 7 of the conflict of interest legislation. She says it should be the rule, but “Section 7 only prohibits preferential treatment that results from the intervention from a third party.” Liberals found a way around the rules, which is another signature of the government. If there is a way of violating the spirit of a rule but not violating its letter, they are all over that.

To be clear, everybody thinks this is either illegal or is astonished to discover that it is not unlawful, and yet it is not. As The Hill Times summarized it:

So [the] Justice Minister...wasn’t breaking any rule by being the guest of honour at the pricey fundraiser organized by a Bay Street law firm. It just smells really bad and violates the spirit of the government’s own code of conduct.

This also explains why, when Nanos, the polling organization, asked Canadians what they thought—

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am calling for a quorum count.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

We are missing three. Ring the bells.

And the bells having rung:

We now have quorum.

The hon. member for Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, last November, the Nanos polling organization asked Canadians what they thought of cash for access or pay to play. I will just read from The Globe and Mail coverage, what the answer was. It says:

A Nanos public-opinion survey, conducted for The Globe and Mail from Nov. 26 to 30, shows that 62 per cent of Canadians disapprove of the Liberal Party’s practice of charging people $1,500 a ticket to meet in private with Mr. Trudeau and senior cabinet ministers who oversee major spending or policy-making decisions.

Canadians strongly do not approve. There we go. Number one, it is a profitable way of raising money. Number two, Canadians strongly do not approve. Sixty-two per cent were against this and 33% approved, so 2:1 Canadians think this is a bad idea. Therefore, the Liberals need cover and their cover is to say, “We have this legislation that is going to still allow all these things to happen, but there will be public notice that the events are occurring”. Of course, there is public notice anyway. They are selling tickets, so that is not a change or an innovation.

It would be on a website now, which is nice. They would not be in a private residence. That was their promise that they subsequently backed off from. Members will notice how many of those that I cited were in private residences. I think the reason they took that out is that this is a key component. The really special access to the PM, to the finance minister, and to others comes from being the host.

As well, there would be a reporting afterward. The fact is that everything gets reported anyway, because donations are reported in Canada. They get put up on the Elections Canada website. We could go back and track every single donor who contributed more than a relatively paltry sum to my riding association or my campaign or any of the leadership campaigns we had going on for the Conservative Party. There is simply no new meat here.

This is simply a way of having it so that the next time someone like John Ivison thinks of writing a story, he will say, “Wait a minute, they passed a law about this; I guess it is now okay”. The next time the Ethics Commissioner has something to raise, she could say, “After the issue came up, Parliament passed a law, so it is the expressed will of Parliament that this sort of practice be permitted”. This is all about regularizing this practice. The legislation is all about legitimizing this practice. This is all about saying, “Yes, influence peddling is okay. Influence peddling is just the way we do business here in Canada.”

If there is a theme other than sanctimoniousness about the current government, a theme other than finding ways of violating the spirit of the law over and over again, a theme other than abandoning conventions of behaviour, whether it is about unilateral changes to the Standing Orders in the House of Commons or the unilateral breach of the practices that we have all had regarding fundraising, if there is a theme beyond those it is this: that we need to go back to the good old days. I do not mean the good old days of Trudeau senior. I mean the good old days of the 19th century, with no restrictions at all on the practice of power. Far from moving ahead to a new age or a new era, the current government is the most retrograde government.

I have been here since Jean Chrétien's day, and I was not the biggest fan of Jean Chrétien but the current Prime Minister is so much worse. In fact, I think it was a surprise to him that our prime minister, despite his vast powers, is not actually an elected dictator. There are in fact careful restrictions in this place and out there in public, some of them in law, many of them simply in conventions and practices and usages.

The Prime Minister frankly regards all of these as an impediment and would like to see them swept away. He is not our elected dictator, but it is my belief that he thinks he should be our elected dictator. Every four years we will go back and the people will decide whether they want to keep him on, but that is not what the Prime Minister of Canada is. He needs to learn that, and I can assure members that the Conservatives will be voting against Bill C-50.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Democratic Institutions]

Mr. Speaker, I must say I find myself unsettled this evening by the creeping and insidious appearance of a tone of sanctimony in some of the comments coming from the other side of the House, particularly with regard to fundraising events and how tickets are purchased. Of course, the rules that apply now applied during the previous government's tenure as well, and nothing has changed there.

Could the hon. member perhaps explain to the House how the appreciation events that were often held for high-dollar donors worked under the previous Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government, how people bought tickets for those events, and how they were rewarded for those investments? We would be very interested to hear about that.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think this is one of these situations where the Liberals were saying, “We're not claiming we're ethical. We're just saying you're as bad as us.”

First, nobody buys tickets for appreciation events. The way an appreciation event works is that the people have already paid, typically, the maximum donation and the appreciation event is then held for the Laurier club in the Liberal Party and for the leaders' circle in the Conservative Party at a convention, and they get to have wine and cheese and hobnob with some cabinet ministers, for sure, when they are on the government side.

I will just make this point. If those are as bad as the parliamentary secretary is implying, and I think he was saying that we are hypocrites for not opposing them, then I have to ask why there is a specific exemption for those events in Bill C-50, so that those events can continue. The leaders' circle events will continue, and so will Laurier club events. I am mystified why he even brought that up at all.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like some clarification.

During the election campaign, the Liberals said that there was broad consensus to change the voting system and that this would be the last election under first past the post. Then, they changed their minds because supposedly there was no broad consensus on electoral reform, which I think is an intellectual conceit.

Will a broad consensus be required to pass Bill C-50 or will it be decided by government party vote?

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think that a vote by the government party will suffice in this case.

With regard to the member's other question about the change to the electoral system, in committee four out of five parties came to a consensus. We came to a consensus on the fact that it would be possible to hold a referendum on a proportional system created by the government party, by the Liberals, before the 2019 election. It is entirely possible, and I do not know why the Liberals broke their election promise, unless it is to ensure they will have a political advantage in the next election.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have to say that I usually enjoy the member's speeches because he is such a skilled orator and a fabulous human being. I actually enjoyed that speech but I did not agree with much of it. I also enjoy the fact that we both agree that we should have followed through on the commitment to electoral reform.

However, I had to wonder if he had developed, and I am so concerned, selective amnesia around the Harper years and the true distortion of our parliamentary tradition and constitutional rigour of tradition that said that a prime minister does not prorogue the House to avoid a confidence vote that he or she knows will be lost. In fact, Stephen Harper is the only prime minister in the entire Commonwealth in over a century to do what he did in 2008.

It is true the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka tried, but the governor general of Sri Lanka did not give that prime minister the ability to do prorogation to avoid a confidence vote he thought he would lose.

I think we have seen some modest improvements under the present government, and members know I will hold it to account. However, I am dismayed by the fact we have not seen more. I have seen an improvement, and I think hon. member would agree, of more true cabinet government and less control by the PMO. I think making the mandate letters public was a good thing.

I am dismayed, as the member knows, by the failures. I am very dismayed by the fact that we are sitting until midnight through June and that we have so many time allocations. What I am trying to tell the government over there is to do better. However, I cannot sit silently by and pretend that this is the worst abuse of power I have ever seen because, holy smokes, it is not.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would not go so far as to say that this is the worst government we have ever seen, if we are going back through Canada's entire history, because I have only been a member a Parliament for the last sixteen and a half years. I was merely commenting in comparison to the Chrétien government and the Harper government.

I think the behaviour in the House in general has been gradually improving over that time. I do not mean that the government is better here. I am talking about the actual practice of decorum in the House. I think that has improved.

The easiest story in the world for a reporter to write is how things are so much worse than they were in the golden age of, and then they name something that is just receding over the horizon, such as the golden Trudeau versus Mulroney years. The golden age has always just disappeared over the horizon. I do not agree with that. I think the opposite is true. That is not to the credit of the Prime Minister. It is to the credit of all of us, in particular the new crops of MPs we had in 2011 and 2015.

With regard to prorogation, I will make the following observation. The prorogation of the House in 2008 to avoid a non-confidence vote was indeed very unusual. The test of a political convention is this: how do the Canadian people respond in the next election? Conventions are not enforced by the courts. They are enforced by popular will, as expressed in an election.

The House was prorogued for a while. The House came back in early 2009. The other parties, the Liberals in particular, said they would defeat the Conservatives if they did not follow the new plan. However, they did not defeat the Conservative government. They could have at that point defeated the government. They did not do so, because they realized they would lose an election under those conditions, which makes the point that the convention actually shifted to accept those circumstances. Although it was at that point unprecedented, it is in fact a practice that has defined what the convention is vis-à-vis prorogation.

There was a second prorogation that was actually more controversial. I have a feeling that it may be the one the hon. member was referring to. I would have to think about how I feel about that prorogation. The one she mentioned I think was entirely conventional. In fact, it was a definitive conventional prorogation because of its outcome.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to fundraising, the hon. member is also a member in Ontario. I wonder if he can comment, based on his history in this place and the history of the Liberal government in Ontario, whether he sees any similarities between what went on with the Dalton McGuinty-Kathleen Wynne government and the government here.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, being an astute observer, my hon. colleague has, I suspect, noted one or two parallels with the Ontario Liberal government, starting with all the personnel. The same people have passed over. Clearly, this fundraising practice was started by the McGuinty-Wynne Liberals in Ontario. It blew up on them. It is one of the reasons they are so very unpopular today.

What is also interesting, however, is that they reacted very differently than the federal government. They actually passed a piece of legislation forbidding ministers from being at fundraising events. More than that, people who are candidates to become members of the provincial parliament and people who are already members of the provincial parliament but are not in cabinet are now prohibited from being at their own fundraisers. I actually think they have overdone it. To their credit, they have at least gone out and said that ministers cannot be present at this kind of pay-to-play event.

That is not what has been done here at the federal level. It was not what was done in British Columbia either. I think that is one of the reasons Christy Clark is now in so very much trouble.