Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Milton.
I am pleased to speak to the opposition motion. Perhaps members of the House are aware that I have an engineering background, but what they may not be aware of is that every professional engineer in this country has to take an ethics and law exam in order to get their professional licence. We receive a book and we study, and become well versed in ethics, in conflict of interest, and in a number of other issues like that. It is important for engineers to have this background in ethics and to clearly understand conflict of interest because public safety depends on them. Public trust is important.
I would argue that even though understanding ethics and conflict of interest is important in engineering, it is even more important here in the House of Commons. It is important that the Prime Minister, who holds the highest position in the country, have a high standard of ethics and integrity and an understanding of conflict of interest so that public safety is protected and so the public can have trust in him.
The Prime Minister began his campaign by suggesting that the bar was going to be higher. He said that he would be open and transparent. He said the mandate letters to his ministers would call on them to have a higher standard of behaviour so they would avoid even the perception of a conflict of interest. He raised Canadians' expectations and they expected him to do what he said he was going to do.
Unfortunately, the bad behaviour started with broken promises. The Prime Minister said a Liberal government would only spend a deficit of $10 billion. That went out the window. He said a Liberal government would balance the budget within its mandate. Maybe not. He said a Liberal government would restore home mail delivery. No. He said it would be the last election under first past the post. No.
With his constant breaking of promises, Canadians started to question whether they could trust the Prime Minister. That is a difficulty. If an organization is rotten at the top, the rot will work its way through the organization like a cancer. That is what we started to see, from the time the Prime Minister started to do the cash for access fundraisers where billionaires were paying money to him and then receiving deals, such as $1 billion for health care in B.C. or the Trudeau Foundation getting lots of money in exchange for discussions about affairs and business in the government.
That behaviour began to work its way to Liberal ministers. The finance minister started to do the cash for access thing. People would pay $500. One of them became head of the Halifax port authority. We saw it happen with the justice minister and cash for access fundraisers with lawyers that were doing business with the government. This is forbidden under the Conflict of Interest Act. The rot began to spread. We saw violations of expenses by the health minister and the minister of indigenous and northern affairs. All of these things began to erode the confidence that people had in the Prime Minister and in our ability to trust him.
Then we get to the trip to billionaire island. When I first heard that the Prime Minister, the Minister of Veterans Affairs, and a number of members of the Liberal Party had gone to this private island for a vacation, in less than five seconds I knew that they had violated the Conflict of Interest Act.
Members of Parliament receive training with respect to the Conflict of Interest Act as soon as they are elected. I knew immediately that they had violated the act. We are not allowed to accept travel of a value more than $200. To stay at a private island for a week is worth more than $200. Immediately I knew that was bad. Then the Aga Khan Foundation received millions of dollars from the government for its work over time. The foundation lobbies for money. It is clear in the act that members cannot receive anything from a lobbyist because we do not want to create the perception of undue influence.
The Prime Minister said that the Aga Khan was a close personal family friend, but the Ethics Commissioner, in her report, was clear. She said that the Prime Minister had not seen the Aga Khan in 30 years, until such time as the Prime Minister became the head of the Liberal Party and subsequently Prime Minister. Why then would the Aga Khan want to take up this relationship with the head of the Liberal Party, and subsequently the Prime Minister, when his foundation receives millions of dollars from him? I think we can easily see why he might want to do that, but it does not mean he is a close family friend.
Talking about the vacation on the island, my other question is about the Minister of Veterans Affairs. Nobody seems to be talking about this, but in that same first five seconds I thought that if it is wrong for the Prime Minister to accept travel of more than $200, it must also be wrong for the Minister of Veterans Affairs. However, nobody has even begun to talk about that part of the problem.
When someone is caught doing something that is not right, the person needs to own up to it. We listened for a whole year to the Prime Minister and the government House leader claiming that the Prime Minister abided by all of the ethics rules and the acts and there was nothing wrong at all. It was not until all of this came to light and the report was finally issued—I have no idea why it took a whole year—that it was clear he was guilty on four counts of violating the act. He is the first prime minister to break a federal law. Instead of owning up and making up, the Prime Minister apologized and said that we should move on. That is not the way things work.
When the health minister took limousines, she had to pay the money back because it was not an eligible expense. She went against what was allowed to be charged. It was the same for the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs. If the women in his government do not follow the rules and have to pay money back, I do not understand why the Prime Minister thinks the rules do not apply to him and he does not have to pay money back. Is it that the women have one standard and the men have another, or is it that his whole cabinet has a certain standard and he has a different set of rules that he thinks applies to him?
I find that part of it very troubling, because at the end of the day, there is absolutely no consequence to the Prime Minister for what he has done. However, there is a consequence to taxpayers, because over $200,000 was spent on this billionaire island vacation. If part of the $200,000 was spent on security, I accept the argument that has been made that the security of the government goes wherever the Prime Minister goes, but that does not encompass the whole cost. If we think about the equivalent value for the Prime Minister, his family, Liberal Party members, and the Minister of Veterans Affairs to vacation for that week, that is a lot of money. It is certainly a lot more than a $200 fine that the finance minister got. Canadians' trust in the Prime Minister will not be restored until he shows that he is willing to take responsibility for what he did. He broke the law and he needs to do as his other ministers did, which is to pay the money back.
Leadership starts at the top. It is very important that the Prime Minister hold his whole government to account, that all Liberals obey the rules, that they all stop this cash for access nonsense, and that they all understand what ethics are. If they need to be trained, I would be very happy to lend them the book I had to read when I first became an engineer in order to understand ethics and conflict of interest, or they could simply read the guidelines that are clearly available to the government that talk about the fact that members cannot accept travel or any gift of more than $200 and they are not allowed to receive anything from lobbyists.
I would encourage the government to come clean with Canadians, make amends for the wrong that was done, and try to restore the public's trust in the Prime Minister, who, as I said, is the highest office in the land. If it is not pure at the top, it will not be pure at the bottom.