Debates of Feb. 19th, 2019

Opposition Motion—Transparency and Accountability

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Does the member for Beloeil—Chambly have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

(Motion agreed to)

[Marco Mendicino, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities, Lib.]

Madam Speaker, I am rising to speak to the opposition motion that has been brought forward by the member for Timmins—James Bay.

Before I make some comments on the substance of the opposition motion the House is currently seized with, I would like to take a few moments to thank two individuals. First and foremost is the member for Vancouver Granville. When she was Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, I served as her parliamentary secretary and I would be remiss if I did not express my gratitude for her work and her contributions to that portfolio. Certainly, it speaks for itself in terms of how we advanced the overall causes toward justice, and her leadership on the indigenous file reaches beyond her time in government here.

I would also like to take a moment to express gratitude for the work of Gerald Butts. I have come to know his family. I am keenly aware of the sacrifices that both he and his family had to make in order to put country before personal time. Obviously, it goes without saying that his loss will be felt by our team. However, we will remain focused on the work he has been committed to in the public interest for many years.

Turning to the opposition motion, as I read it, it calls for two things. First, it calls on the government to waive solicitor-client privilege for the former attorney general with respect to allegations of interference as it relates to an ongoing SNC-Lavalin prosecution. Second, it urges the government to call for a public inquiry in order to provide Canadians with transparency and accountability by the Liberals as promised in the 2015 election.

Going back to those campaign promises, we have indeed made significant strides when it comes to making government more open. I highlight a number of examples, including the introduction of Bill C-58, as well as Bill C-76, which would in fact undo some of the harm caused by the last Conservative government so that we can ensure that every voter has the right and can fully appreciate the right to vote. Bill C-50 would shed more light on political fundraising activities.

As it relates to the justice system, I am very proud of the work our government has done when it comes to ensuring that our judicial appointments process is open, transparent and merit-based. We have also introduced legislation that would improve access to justice. Here, I am referring to Bill C-75, which I know is continuing to be studied by the other place. We look forward to receiving its report back so that we can ensure our justice system is serving all Canadians.

These are all concrete measures that have raised the bar when it comes to open government and having a government that is transparent and accountable to all Canadians. We have supported each and every one of these measures with full and fair debate in the House and in the other place. What did the opposition members do when they had a chance to support those measures? They voted against those measures. That is indeed regrettable, because their voting record, in standing in opposition to those measures, actually speaks much larger volumes about how they feel about open government, as opposed to some of what I have heard from the other side of the aisle today.

The allegations that have been levied against the government are indeed serious. No one on this side of the House takes them lightly. However, as in the case of any allegation, we have to begin by looking at the sources. Who are the sources? Are they reliable? Have they been independently verified? Have they been substantiated?

Here is the truth of the matter. At present, the sources of these allegations are unknown. They are anonymous. They are not corroborated. They are not verified. They are not substantiated. This should be of great concern to not only the members of this chamber who are currently debating the motion. This should be of grave concern to all Canadians. Why is that? It is because in the place of facts, evidence and circumstances that would underlie and underpin these allegations, we have the opposition embarking upon a campaign of conjecture, speculation and a rush to judgment. While indeed I will concede that this does make for good political theatre, it does not advance the pursuit of truth.

The Prime Minister has been clear that at no point did either he or his staff direct the former attorney general or the current Attorney General on the matter of SNC-Lavalin. He has been abundantly clear that at no point did either he or his staff wrongly influence the former or present Attorney General when it comes to the SNC-Lavalin matter.

I understand from the opposition that in answer to those statements made by the Prime Minister they would hear from the former attorney general, the member for Vancouver Granville. It is not for me to speak for the member for Vancouver Granville. It is not for the opposition to speak on her behalf, as I have heard some of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle purport to do over the last number of days.

I understand from media reports that the member for Vancouver Granville has sought legal advice. I imagine she is certainly taking that legal advice into consideration. Coincidentally I would note that the legal advice itself is privileged and I will come back to the importance of that principle in a moment. I want to underscore that it is a decision of her making as to if and when she will make a further comment about this matter in public.

In regard to the merits of the motion, the Prime Minister has indicated today, as has his Attorney General, that he has sought and is in the course of seeking legal advice on the matter of solicitor-client privilege as it applies to the motion. Let me say a few words about the importance of solicitor-client privilege.

This is not only a legal principle recognized in the common law. It is not only a legal principle that has been enshrined in various statutes. It is a principle that has been elevated to constitutional status by the Supreme Court of Canada. It is permanent. It survives the relationship between the parties and it is, as the Supreme Court of Canada has held, fundamental to the proper functioning of our government and to our democracy. In fact, the Supreme Court of Canada has held that without solicitor-client privilege, the administration of justice, and by extension our democracy, would be compromised. We cannot take for granted what is at stake when we put into play the questions of when solicitor-client privilege applies.

The Prime Minister and the government, as some of my colleagues will have served in the last administration will recall, some of whom indeed were in cabinet themselves, no doubt understand first-hand the importance of this principle as it relates to the day-to-day functioning of our government. It is required in order to ensure that there is an atmosphere, an environment in which the government can seek legal advice on how best to undertake policy and legislative initiatives so that they are consistent with the charter.

Without that environment, without that space, in order to have a free, fair and flowing exchange of ideas, different perspectives and different voices, there would be an undermining of the proper functioning of government. We place this privilege at the very pinnacle of our justice system and it does not just apply to government. It applies to all Canadians. If at any point in time Canadians have either retained a lawyer and have come into play with the justice system, they will understand the importance of having a confidential relationship with their lawyer so that their lawyer can best serve their interests. Canadians would understand that they would not want their lawyers to flippantly waive that privilege. We need to be sure that we put this issue into its proper context in the debate of the opposition motion that is on the floor today.

It is true that in law there are some limited exceptions to this privilege and I understand that members of the opposition are calling with great fervour for the waiver of privilege in this case as it relates to their allegations and the former attorney general of Canada. To my mind, in order to waive this privilege, we need something more compelling, more confirmed and more corroborated than the anonymous sources that have appeared in a number of media reports.

I look to my colleagues in the opposition, and in particular to those who have been called to the bar who have a deep understanding of and I would hope a profound respect for this principle, to substantiate their claim beyond the hyperbole, the exaggeration and the stretched statements that I have listened very carefully to throughout the course of this debate. I am still waiting.

The second part of the opposition motion urges the government to initiate a judicial inquiry, something that my Conservative colleagues have had some experience with themselves. In some cases, there were obvious social causes for which the public requested, of the last Conservative government, the compelling need for an inquiry and the Conservative government refused. One such case was the call for an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women. The last Conservative government consistently, in the face of an ongoing systemic tragedy in our justice system, refused to undertake one. I will let members opposite defend that decision, and I will stand here and explain my reasons the call for a judicial inquiry is, at best, premature.

Currently, there are a number of processes unfolding in Parliament and within the law by statutory parliamentary officers to provide a degree of accountability and transparency in response to the allegations that have been put forward by the opposition.

The first comes from the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, which is meeting at this very moment, if I am not mistaken, to determine which witnesses it will hear from. Once more, the opposition has rushed to judgment. It has made this a partisan matter without waiting to see the full list of witnesses who will be called by that committee.

Respectfully, I would suggest that my colleagues and friends on the other side of the aisle let that process unfold and place faith in the independence of that committee, in which members on this side of the House place great faith, and in its members' capacity to bring their own ideas, their own thinking and their own principles. I suggest they see where that committee takes this, rather than claiming that on the one hand the committee should do its business, and on the other hand, it is essentially fraught with partisanship. It is either one or the other. Either members of the House will come to that committee with an open mind, an appreciation of independence and an understanding of the importance of this work, or they will not.

Certainly for my colleagues who work on that committee, I have faith in their independence and integrity. I speak on behalf of all members on this side of the House when I say that we all look forward to their ongoing work at committee.

We have also heard from the opposition that we need to have a judicial inquiry because the Ethics Commissioner does not have the sufficient ability or capacity, the statutory mandate, to look into the allegations that are the subject of the opposition motion. In particular, my colleagues in the NDP have expressed their concerns and frustrations regarding the Ethics Commissioner's lack of capacity to do his job.

The first observation to make is that it was the NDP members themselves who decided, of their own volition, which parliamentary official to bring this allegation to.

We are not saying, one way or the other, whether this was the right choice. That was a matter for the NDP to determine. However, listening to the NDP members today in question period, it was somewhat ironic to hear them say on the one hand that they filed a complaint with the Ethics Commissioner and then on the other hand, virtually at the same time, that the Ethics Commissioner did not have the ability to look into the very allegations that they were bringing forward. It is inconsistent and incompatible with basic logic that they would have submitted those allegations to the Ethics Commissioner in the first place if they believed that the Ethics Commissioner was unable to look into them.

We have said that we believe in the work of the Ethics Commissioner. This is a parliamentary officer. This is an officer who is independent from government. This is an officer who is not part of the partisan exercise and debate that is the sine qua non of this place. This is a parliamentary officer who has the statutory mandate to examine the circumstances and the allegations put forward by the opposition.

As we have said repeatedly, we place faith in the office and the people who serve in that office, and we will co-operate at every step of the way, as we have in the past.

There are many other fora and venues for the opposition to make their case. It is not for the government to set those steps or to provide that road map for them. The opposition will determine what it wants to do. However, in the meantime, in addition to all of the remarks that I have made about the subject of this motion, I hope Canadians view this matter as not just simply turning a blind eye. There will be transparency. There will be accountability. I am confident in what the Prime Minister says in saying that there has been no direction and no wrongful influence as it relates to the former attorney general or the present Attorney General, because I know that this is a government that has great respect when it comes to the independence of our judiciary, when it comes to the independence of the legal profession and when it comes to the independence of the administration of justice. I believe firmly that our work speaks to those values.

At the end of the day, what matters more than the theatre and the drama—which can make for good reading on a weekend or at night if there is nothing else to do—is the work, the work of the government, the work to ensure that every Canadian has the opportunity to achieve his or her full potential. It is the work to serve the most vulnerable, which was a campaign promise, a belief on which the government was elected, and work that we do each and every day, together, united in solidarity. It is bigger than any one of us. It is bigger than all of us. It is the very reason we are here: to serve the public, to serve the public interest.

For all those reasons, I am going to encourage my opposition colleagues to reconsider this motion and to put our focus and our energies back on the people who sent us here—Canadians.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I was listening to the parliamentary secretary's speech, and I will give him an A for effort in trying to spin this issue.

The Liberals' communications strategy over the last week has been a slow-moving train wreck. I would offer to him that The Globe and Mail does not publish a story on its front page unless the sources have some credibility.

Then we can look at all of the actions since then. There is the Prime Minister's ever-changing commentary, saying that the former attorney general's presence in cabinet spoke for itself, and then her subsequent resignation. There is this changing narrative, the character assassination comments coming out of the PMO, and so on and so forth. We have had five different versions of this story.

Then the justice committee voted against having the witnesses who are at the centre of this storm appear. Yes, the committee is meeting today, but it is meeting in camera, so we will not find out what the deliberations are and the Canadian public will not know what goes on at that committee, because we cannot speak about it.

Does the parliamentary secretary realistically expect Canadians to believe that these are the actions and words of a government that has nothing to hide?

[Marco Mendicino]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the question. However, I feel obliged to point out in regard to the statements that were reported in the press in relation to the member for Vancouver Granville and former attorney general of Canada, particularly those statements that were offensive, racist and sexist, that the Prime Minister unequivocally disassociated himself from all of those, as do I and as does every decent member who serves in this chamber. Such remarks have no business to exist, not only here but in the public domain. As somebody who had the opportunity to work with the member for Vancouver Granville, I was deeply offended by them.

There are important issues here and there are important allegations here, but what I said during the substance of my remarks is that it will take more than the anonymous, unverified, uncorroborated sources that we have thus far heard from.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Madam Speaker, if the House or its committees do not vote to get to the bottom of this issue, do not vote to compel Mr. Butts and others to testify in front of committee to clear the air, then this place has become a Potemkin village. Sure, we have spent billions of dollars on beautiful wood and stone carvings here, but the hold that the government has on its members clearly shows that the processes and procedures in this place are broken.

The government is hiding behind solicitor-client privilege, but solicitor-client privilege does not exist in this chamber and it does not exist in its committees. There is good precedent for this. According to precedent, the attorney general, the prime minister or anybody else who is asked for information must provide it to the House of Commons. In fact, this past fall, when the U.K. government and the U.K. attorney general refused to provide the advice the AG had given to the government, they were found in contempt of Parliament. As well, Speaker Milliken found the former government in contempt of Parliament for refusing to release information on the basis of national security.

The government cannot hide behind solicitor-client privilege and not release the information. It has an obligation under section 18 of the Constitution to do exactly that.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind the parliamentary secretaries that they do know better, that they should be a model here in Parliament and they should not be interrupting while somebody else is speaking.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities.

[Marco Mendicino]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague who rose with the question clearly has a very selective memory when it comes to the last Conservative government's record on open government.

Openness, transparency and accountability are all principles and values that seemed to be very elusive under Stephen Harper. I can think of two examples which come readily to mind, both when a government that my hon. colleague served under was found in contempt for not bringing forward documents that were sought by this very chamber, which he voted in favour of opposing—

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

No. Simply not true.

[Marco Mendicino]

Madam Speaker, I will let him correct the record on that. Maybe it was on principle, but certainly that was the first time a government had been held in contempt in this chamber. That was when he served under the last Conservative government.

Also, when it comes to the matter of calling for an inquiry on missing and murdered indigenous women, where was his moral suasion then? It was nowhere to be seen.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, first the Prime Minister blamed the former justice minister because she did not complain about not being pressured. Then he said that it was Scott Brison's fault. Surely the Prime Minister mixed up the SNC-Lavalin fiasco with the Davie shipyard file. The latest development is that his top adviser has stepped down, refusing to take the blame for something he did not do and not wanting to be a distraction, though he did in fact become one. It is easy to get lost in all of these versions. This is 50 shades of Butts.

Meanwhile, no party in the House seems concerned about the future of the thousands of workers at SNC-Lavalin.

Can my colleague explain how this motion helps, or does not help, the thousands of SNC-Lavalin workers?

[Marco Mendicino]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

Our government is working very hard for the province of Quebec and for the rest of Canada.

This is a government that believes in pursuing an economic agenda that provides good jobs for any Canadian who wants one. I want to assure my colleague that this is true both for his province and for every province and territory that we represent.

With regard to the rest of my colleague's question, I will reiterate what I said during my remarks. The Prime Minister has been abundantly clear about the allegations. There has been no direction or wrongful influence as it relates to the former attorney general and the current Attorney General, as it relates to this matter. While the opposition will continue to pursue various venues in which to have an answer to this allegation, we remain, on this side of the House, focused on the work of Canadians.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I wonder if my colleague can just add some further thought in regard to the independence of the office of the Ethics Commissioner. That is something that the Prime Minister has welcomed. Could my colleague also reinforce the important role of standing committees in situations of this nature?

[Marco Mendicino]

Madam Speaker, as I mentioned earlier, our government believes in the independence of parliamentary committees, and we place confidence in the members who serve there. I hear my colleagues chuckling across the way. I put some confidence in the members of the opposition who serve on those committees as well, and I know some of those colleagues. We have to allow those processes to unfold.

To the other part of my colleague's question in relation to the Ethics Commissioner, this is a parliamentary officer created by statute. The Ethics Commissioner is independent and non-partisan and is granted the powers to both require evidence and determine whether there has been any breach of the high standards of ethics that Canadians demand of our government. We place faith in that individual and in that office as well.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have so much to ask.

The question today is whether the Prime Minister or a staff member directed or pressured the former attorney general to stop the criminal prosecutions of SNC-Lavalin.

As was mentioned previously by a colleague, the conditions laid out in the remediation agreement state very clearly that the director of public prosecutions is within her rights to refuse to negotiate remediation, that she would be breaking the law if she did pursue such a negotiation with SNC-Lavalin and that the attorney general cannot instruct the director to let SNC-Lavalin or any other off the hook.

As in the words of Andrew Coyne, I would like to pose this question. Since it is very clear that this is not possible, what on earth was there for the Prime Minister or his staff to discuss with the Attorney General in the first place?

[Marco Mendicino]

Madam Speaker, as I said during the course of my remarks, this is a government that respects the independence of the office of the Attorney General. It is a value that has been adhered to consistently and has manifested itself in various ways.

I know that my hon. colleague wants answers with regard to some of the substance of the allegations that have been made. Thus far, what we have are anonymous sources. They have not been corroborated. They have not been substantiated. I know that there is much debate on this floor, but we place faith in the processes that are currently under way to get to the bottom of the matter.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Windsor West.

As always, it is a great honour to rise in this place on behalf of the fantastic residents of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, and especially on a very important motion.

As our party's former justice critic, I enjoyed a very good working relationship with the member for Vancouver Granville when she was the minister of justice and attorney general. Although we differed on some policy areas, I knew her to be a person of the utmost integrity, a woman who has stood by her principles and has had a long and storied history both as a public prosecutor and a B.C. regional chief. She commands a huge amount of respect in my home province of British Columbia.

That is why, in her role as the country's first female indigenous justice minister, I was so perplexed and puzzled when I saw the news reports in January that she had been removed from her post and demoted to Veterans Affairs. Normally, I would say that serving our veterans is one of the highest callings in this land. Indeed, being the Minister of Veterans Affairs should be that. However, it is a demotion under the government, because we have seen its policies with respect to veterans and know it is not walking the talk with respect to the people who once wore the uniform. I get that feedback from veterans in my riding and I know the member for Courtenay—Alberni, who serves as our Veterans Affairs critic, also gets it from veterans right across the country.

The other puzzling thing about that demotion was the letter she released to the public, in which she talked about speaking truth to power and that our justice system must always be free from political interference. Those comments, made without any context, puzzled many people and they questioned why the former attorney general would go out of her way to make these obvious statements. We started to connect the dots when The Globe and Mail came out with its huge bombshell story on February 7.

As I said in my questions and comments to the previous speaker, the parliamentary secretary, Robert Fife and The Globe and Mail do not put a story of this magnitude on the front page unless they have gone out of their way to verify the sources of the story. They do not put their careers and indeed the reputation of one of our oldest newspapers on the line with unsubstantiated reports. It is obvious that they spoke to someone with insider knowledge of what went on in the Prime Minister's Office.

The fact is that although the Prime Minister and various Liberals have said that at no time was the former attorney general “directed”, that word was never used by The Globe and Mail. Rather, the word it used was “pressured”, which can be many different things and can come in many different forms. That is worrying because one of the pillars of our democratic system is the separation between the branches of government, and the executive branch of government in particular with the awesome power it wields, and our judiciary. It must be able to operate in a clear and unobstructed manner to ensure that the principles of justice are carried through.

There are other dots that connect this story.

Let us look at the fact that the deferred prosecution agreement provision of the Criminal Code was snuck in. The Liberals might say there were a lot of consultations, but it was extremely undemocratic for them to put this major change to the Criminal Code at the tail end of a budget omnibus bill that clocked in at over 550 pages. Even the Liberal members at the Standing Committee on Finance were questioning their own government as to what this provision was doing there. The government used time allocation to force that bill through. Therefore, did it get the proper oversight and deliberations it deserved? I would say no and venture that most Canadians would agree with me. This is coming from a party that promised Canadians it would do away with the undemocratic process of omnibus bills. What a sham. It is another broken promise in a whole list of them.

The Liberals say that there is nothing wrong here, that there is nothing to hide, but what further corroborates the story is the changing nature of the narrative. We know the Prime Minister spoke to reporters and stated that the former attorney general's continued presence in cabinet spoke for itself, only to result in him having egg on his face the very next day when she tendered her resignation. Does someone who resigns from cabinet lawyer up with a former Supreme Court justice if there is nothing to hide? We have to put all of these things together, the changing narrative and the resignation of one of the top ministers of the government, and ask ourselves if these are the actions and words of a government that has nothing to hide.

That brings me to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. My Liberal friends across the way keep talking about its purported independence. I served on that committee as vice-chair in 2017, and I have a lot of respect for all colleagues who serve on it. However, I was extremely disappointed in their actions last week.

Last week, the Liberals on the committee did not demonstrate independence; they demonstrated they were the loyal foot soldiers of the Prime Minister's Office. This is not a government by cabinet; this is a government by the PMO. That is precisely why SNC-Lavalin met no fewer than 14 times with PMO officials. Why would it waste its time meeting with the PMO if it knew that was where the buck stops? One does not go to the minister of justice or any other minister. One goes to the PMO because one can talk to Gerald Butts, Katie Telford and other major officials in the PMO. That is how one gets things done with the government.

The meeting last week was a bit of a farce. Despite the Liberals' claims of committee independence, they voted down every key witness who would have anything of relevance to say about this whole sordid affair. Yes, the committee is meeting now, but it is meeting in camera, so there is no way the Canadian public is going to know what the deliberations of that committee are. We are not going to know how Liberal members voted. We can tell the public what motions the NDP is intending to move at the beginning of the committee, but Canadians are going to have to read the minutes of the proceedings to find out what motions were passed. We cannot, because we risk violation of parliamentary privilege, talk about what goes on in that committee or what is happening right now. To say that this is open and transparent is a farce.

I am pretty disappointed in my former colleagues in the justice committee. I still have a lot of respect for them. I give every member of Parliament in this place the benefit of the doubt. We all come here to serve our constituents and do the best we can for the country. However, Liberal backbenchers have to ask themselves if they were elected on the ideals that we are seeing today. Are they here to protect their political masters in the Prime Minister's Office or are they here to join with us in the opposition to shed the light of day on this issue, to agree with the NDP's motion to have the Prime Minister waive solicitor-client privilege, to allow the former minister of justice and attorney general to speak, to give her side of the story? All we have heard are the Liberals talking for her; we have not heard from her. It is her right and privilege as to whether she speaks, but we should at least afford her the opportunity to do so.

I was very surprised last week at how many people in my constituency approached me on this issue. The Liberals have to be very careful because these are the kinds of actions that have a very corrosive effect on our politics: the changing nature of the story, the reaction to the scandal and not being truthful with Canadians. It is corrosive for this entire body. In order to salvage what little reputation they have left on this issue, I ask Liberal backbenchers not to side with the PMO but to in fact vote with us to have the Prime Minister waive solicitor-client privilege and to call for a public inquiry to give this issue the airing it fully needs.

[Arif Virani, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and to the Minister of Democratic Institutions, Lib.]

Madam Speaker, I want to raise two points and then ask the member a question. First, I agree with him completely that the member for Vancouver Granville acquitted herself extremely well and with distinction as a minister in her time serving and in her work with the justice committee, of which he was a part.

The second point I raise is that it is important the record clearly reflect what was decided at the justice committee. By vote at the justice committee last Wednesday, it was decided to undertake hearings into three specific areas: the issue of remediation agreements, the issue of the Shawcross doctrine and the issue of calling witnesses in public to address what was at issue with respect to the allegations.

With respect to the ethics investigation taking place, it has significant powers such as compelling evidence, compelling documents and enforcement similar to a court of law. That investigation was initiated by the NDP. Does the member continue to believe in the independence of the ethics investigator and in the validity of that investigation?

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, it goes without saying that I have absolute confidence in the office of the Ethics Commissioner, which is why we requested the investigation in the first place.

The parliamentary secretary does not inform the House as to why the government cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. What plausible reason is there that we cannot have two concurrent investigations? The office of the Ethics Commissioner is going to be looking at whether the Prime Minister used his office to further the interests of another individual. That is a very narrow band of investigation.

What we want to know, through a public inquiry and by hearing from the former attorney general is whether any political pressure was brought to bear on her with respect to SNC-Lavalin to instruct the director of public prosecutions not to go ahead with a remediation agreement. That is a very separate investigation. I do not see any reason the two cannot happen concurrently.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, earlier we heard the parliamentary secretary for infrastructure calling on the opposition to unite in order to deal with this issue. The call from us should go back to the government to co-operate with our position and let the committee do its job without any interference or pressure. In the meantime, I am not sure if the hon. member agrees with me that the government is signalling that there is nothing bad but not walking the talk. I would like the hon. member to comment on that.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, with respect to the committee's work, the parliamentary secretary said that it was important for the committee to study the Shawcross doctrine and other things and to kind of get lost into these legalese arguments. Anyone with a good textbook or access to Google can find out about the Shawcross doctrine. However, the fact remains that when Liberals were at committee last week, which is all on the public record, they were offered the chance to expand the witness list to include those people who had a direct knowledge of this affair and refused it. That is the fact.

With respect to the former attorney general, as a Crown prosecutor, she knows fully well what she can and cannot say at committee. We should afford her the right to determine that for herself, with the expert legal counsel she has now retained.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

Canadians' confidence in the independence of the judiciary is being called into question, and I have to wonder what the implications are—