Debates of March 22nd, 2019

Finance

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I believe the issue before us deals with Madagascar and the tax treaty. That being the case, I suggest what the member said is absolutely irrelevant to the issue at hand.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I thank the hon. parliamentary secretary for raising the matter of relevance. Of course, it is a pertinent part of our Standing Orders with respect to speeches.

I recognize that the hon. member for Carleton is halfway into his remarks and is splitting his time. I know that he has been referring to points in his speech and I urge him to focus on the issue that was articulated in the motion that is in front of the House.

The hon. member for Carleton.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister said twice on September 17 to the former attorney general that either she should shelve the charges against SNC-Lavalin or its headquarters would leave Montreal.

This week, Business News Network asked the CEO of SNC-Lavalin, “Did you threaten to move your headquarters from Montreal?" CEO Neil Bruce replied, “No.” He was asked, “Never?” and again he replied, “No.” The interviewer then asked, “Where did this issue come up that it was a possibility for SNC?” The CEO replied, “I don't know what people make up, or what they have in their minds.”

When he said people, he was referencing the Prime Minister. It was the Prime Minister who said twice on September 17 to the former attorney general and then once a few weeks ago at a press conference that SNC would move out of Canada altogether if the criminal charges went ahead.

Now that we know the Prime Minister's claim to the former attorney general was false, this raises a number of important questions.

Section 139 of the Criminal Code makes it an offence for anyone to attempt to obstruct, pervert or defeat the course of justice. The course of justice at the time the Prime Minister met with the former attorney general was for SNC-Lavalin's fraud and bribery charges to go to trial. That is where the course of justice was leading. He was attempting to interrupt that course of justice by persuading his attorney general to sign a deal with the company, or have the prosecutor do so, that would shelve those charges. If he deliberately stated a falsehood to the top law officer to have charges shelved, his own criminal culpability may be at stake, and we will examine that issue more as the days go on.

That is the issue of the headquarters, but the other half of the Prime Minister's jobs claim is that, according to him and to testimony by his top adviser, Gerald Butts, “9,000 people's jobs are at stake”. I am quoting Mr. Butts in his testimony.

Earlier this week a reporter for BNN asked the CEO of SNC-Lavalin about the claim. She said, “The inference is that if you do not get to go the way of deferred prosecution agreement, 9,000 jobs disappear.” The CEO answered, “That's incorrect, and we've never said that.”

The CEO was asked directly about the Prime Minister's claim that 9,000 jobs would vanish if the charges proceeded, and he replied, “That's incorrect, and we've never said that.”

The Prime Minister suggested he got that information from the company. Who else would have told him that 9,000 jobs would up and vanish if charges were to go ahead? Now we know that his 9,000 jobs claim was a falsehood; we know that he looked Canadians in the eye and told them something that was not true. Not only do we have the mendacity around the Prime Minister's defence, but we also have a broader and bigger question that has not been answered or even explored.

If the Prime Minister was not protecting jobs when he tried to shelve the fraud and bribery charges for SNC-Lavalin, then who was he protecting? What motivated him to personally interfere with the former attorney general and to direct his staff and ministers to contact her 20 times in order to shelve these charges? That is an extraordinary amount of activity for a prime minister and his team under any circumstances. In the interest of dropping charges on a corporation accused of a serious crime, it is spectacular in its weirdness.

In all my years I have never heard of a prime minister or any politician trying to interfere to have charges dropped. However, to personally interact with an attorney general in order to do so is maybe a once in history event in Canada, and that is the source of this massive scandal.

I will conclude now by saying that the Conservatives will use every tool in the parliamentary tool kit to find out why the Prime Minister interfered and whether such interference may have been a criminal offence.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member opposite's statement just now and as well listened to his questions in question period. I just want to clear this up for my own understanding.

Is the article on the interview with the head of SNC-Lavalin that the member keeps referring to the article published on March 19, headlined “SNC Chief Says Job Losses Possible Amid Canadian Scandal”? Is that the same article that says that while he never threatened to move the company, and spoke to the Prime Minister about it, what he did say in it was this:

“This is where we want to be, in terms of our base.” But the chief executive also signalled the company could pivot its focus elsewhere.

Is that the same article that says that job losses are in fact possible, that there used to be 21,000 jobs in Quebec and Canada in 2012 but that since then they have been reduced to 9,000, and more job losses are possible as a result of the ongoing situation?

Is that the article he keeps quoting as saying that the head of SNC-Lavalin never threatened job losses, although he does, in the title of the article and in the body of the text, and that he never talked about moving the headquarters, although he does reference the board meeting that happened in December 2018? Is that the article the member keeps referencing, or is there another article where he contradicts himself?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the answer is no. I am referring to an interview the SNC-Lavalin CEO did. In the interview, he does not say that job losses will result. What he actually said was that in the absolute worst-case scenario, Canadian workers at SNC-Lavalin may ultimately just get jobs with other Canadian construction companies in Canada and that those jobs would be in Canada, because the construction projects are in Canada.

Let me explain something to the member about infrastructure. When they are doing infrastructure jobs, their workers have to be there. SNC is building the north-south transit project in Ottawa. They cannot build a 14-kilometre transit line in Beijing or London and drop it out of a helicopter in the nation's capital. The work would actually have to be done here. Not only is it wrong to claim that there would be job losses in the event of prosecution, it is physically impossible.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, since my colleague opposite introduced the concept of jobs, etc., and my colleague has now explained it, I am curious. I am listening to this debate and thinking that at the heart of the SNC-Lavalin scandal is the fact that the company stands accused of bribing a Gadhafi with a yacht and buying Canadian prostitutes for Moammar Gadhafi's son, hundreds of millions of dollars in bribery, I believe.

I just wonder why the Prime Minister is going through hell and high water to protect a company that has clearly gone to such great lengths to bribe a company to get contracts, when he should be perhaps focusing on things like the energy sector or maybe the agriculture sector, where we have a catastrophic failure today on behalf of the government, and, relating it to the motion at hand, why travel and Canadian voices are so important, especially given the culture of silence this Prime Minister and the current government have undertaken this week.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Calgary Nose Hill for the very good points she makes.

The Liberal member across the way continues to revive from the dead this 9,000-jobs claim. The CEO of the company has correctly pointed out that 9,000 jobs are not at stake. He said that in the worst-case scenario, a criminal conviction might cause some of those employees to work for other Canadian companies in Canada.

I will tell members why they would have to work in Canada. SNC-Lavalin has the five biggest construction jobs in all of the country right now. They are worth $52 billion. Because they are construction jobs, they have to be done on construction sites. In other words, the employees working on those jobs would have to do them in Canada. Unless the Liberal government is going to allow foreign workers to come into Canada and displace those construction jobs in our country, it would be impossible for those jobs to be lost.

In other words, the whole jobs excuse has been a patent lie, which raises two questions. One, is it appropriate to have a Prime Minister who looked 37 million Canadians in the eyes at a press conference a couple of weeks ago and stated a patent falsehood that is disprovable with a brief look at the facts and a brief listening to the company's CEO? Two, given that we now know that he was not protecting jobs, who was he protecting, and why?

Alleged Process Used to Determine Liberal Caucus Membership

[Adam Vaughan, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, Lib.]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising to address a question of privilege that was raised earlier in the House.

I wish to table a statement that was made by the member for Whitby. There have been conversations with my good friend and I have been granted permission to table this statement. Her statement to the member of Perth—Wellington was, “What in your right mind made you decide that you were allowed to speak for me? Everything in this ridiculous point of order is false and you have no right to speak on my behalf. I am perfectly capable. Quit grandstanding and please correct this.”

I would like to thank the member for Whitby, who is a very good friend of mine. I thank her for sitting in the House late into the night as we went through the marathon votes, voting with the government each and every step of the way. I respect her decision to sit as an independent. I know why she did that. It is for her to say why she did that, and for the members opposite to read body language as a way of reading fact into the record has now quite clearly been dismissed by the member for Whitby. I wish they would respect her words, rather than put words in her mouth.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Before we go to the next steps here, I thought perhaps from the initial comments by the parliamentary secretary that he was signalling that he wished to table a document he had with him. As a parliamentary secretary, this would not ordinarily be permitted without the unanimous consent of the House.

Does the hon. parliamentary secretary have unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Perth—Wellington.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to indicate that in response to the tweet that was sent, I acknowledged to the member for Whitby that I would be rising to address that statement. I do want to do so.

The intention of my intervention this morning was focused on the Reform Act. It was not my intention to put words into the mouth of the member for Whitby. For that, I do apologize. I had already indicated that to the member over Twitter. I acknowledged that I would be returning to the House to do just that, which is what I have now done

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I thank the hon. member for his response in that regard.

The hon. Minister of Justice is rising on a point of order.

[David Lametti]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am tabling the government's responses to Order Paper Questions Nos. 2192 to 2222 and a revised response to Question No. 1720.

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Finance

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

We are going to resume debate. However, I want to bring to members' attention that the issue of relevance was brought up in the last exchange. Members are reminded that we are in debate on a matter that was proposed by the member for Carleton in respect to the Standing Committee on Finance during its consideration of Bill S-6. This is just to remind hon. members with respect to the rule of relevance that these things do come up on a regular basis.

I am quoting from the third edition of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, which states:

Notwithstanding their importance, these rules remain difficult to define and enforce, not least because such enforcement must respect the freedom of debate enjoyed by all Members. The rule against repetition can be invoked by the Speaker to prevent the repetition of arguments already made.... The rule of relevance enables the Chair to counter any tendency to stray from the question before the House or committee. It is not always possible to judge the relevance...of a Member’s remarks until he or she has spoken at some length or even completed his or her remarks....

The Speaker must exercise his or her discretion:

...if the rules are applied too rigidly, they have the potential for severely curtailing debate; if they are neglected, the resultant loss of debating time may prevent other Members from participating in debate. Particular circumstances, the mood of the House and the relative importance of the matter under debate will influence the strictness with which the Speaker interprets these rules.

I say that just as a reminder to hon. members, since the time of the House is limited when a matter is before it. This is why we encourage members, who have great liberties to phrase their arguments in the way they wish, to ensure at the very least that the arguments they make have relevance and can be tied to the question the House has been presented with.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Foothills.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your clarification on the debate today. I feel it is very important for me and my colleagues to get up and speak to Bill S-6, which is the Canada–Madagascar double taxation legislation.

Today we are talking specifically about allowing the Standing Committee on Finance to travel as part of that study. I feel that it is a very important element for this legislation.

I am not usually in support of committees travelling for unnecessary reasons. However, in this case, I believe it is absolutely vital that the Standing Committee on Finance have the ability to travel. The reason I say that is that it seems to me that on some of these issues we have faced over the last few months, we have seen a real lack of presence when it comes to some very important foreign affairs issues.

For example, right now we do not have an ambassador in China. That means that we do not have the right representation from Canada in China. We are already seeing the consequences of that. Late last night, as we were going through our 30th hour of debate, it broke that China has now refused to purchase any canola from Canadian producers. Initially it was from just one supplier, Richardson, but that has now been expanded to include canola from every Canadian producer.

It ties it back to Bill S-6 and the importance of having representation from the House of Commons and from parliamentarians reaching out to some of our trading partners around the world and some of our allies around the world, including Madagascar. Had we had that relationship with China, we may have been able to address this crisis before it started.

Not only was the announcement late last night about canola very disconcerting to the 45,000 canola producers across Canada, but this morning we also heard that it has been expanded to include peas, wheat and possibly other Canadian commodities.

I want to expand on the consequences of not having representation from Canada and Canadian parliamentarians with our trusted trading partners. Let us go back in time a little, when one of our number one importers of Canadian lentils and peas was India. Under our government, we expanded that market to more than $5 billion in Canadian lentils and peas being exported to India.

After our Prime Minister's ill-fated trip to India, India has refused to give us an exemption to their fumigation rules. It has also put extremely high tariffs, up to 50%, on some of our lentils and peas. As a result, our exports of these products to India have gone from $5 billion, a high under a previous Conservative government, to as low as $500 million now. That is a massive market for our pea and lentil producers we have lost because of the inept foreign affairs positions and strategies of the Liberal government.

Sometimes good can come out of bad. Because we lost that significant market in India, many of our producers were able to look to other markets. They had to. We cannot sell that much of that product here in Canada. Ninety per cent of the agricultural products we produce here in his country are exported.

Our producers were able to find other markets, including China. With this morning's announcement, we have now lost that secondary market. Within one calendar year, our pea and lentil producers have lost their first and now their second major markets in the world. A big part of that is because of the failures of the Liberal government when it comes to our foreign relations.

That goes directly back to Bill S-6 and why I think it is so important for the Standing Committee on Finance to have the opportunity to travel as part of this study to rebuild some of those foreign relations we had with some of our trading partners.

I talked about canola at the beginning of my intervention. I want to stress the fact that it is clear that the Liberal government does not understand the urgency of this decision by the Chinese government to block Canadian canola imports. This is a $26-billion market with economic impacts on Canada's economy. There are 250,000 jobs. These are decisions that are going to impact our producers, not in the fall, when they harvest next year's canola crop, but now. This is impacting the decisions they make right now.

The cost of a bushel of Canadian canola has gone down by more than a dollar a bushel. The value of the canola that farmers have in their bins from last year's harvest has reduced by more than half a billion dollars and is probably getting close to a billion. Every single day, the price a bushel—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Salaberry—Suroît is rising on a point of order.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Mr. Speaker, regarding the motion currently before the House, you will note that the English and French versions in today's Notice Paper are inconsistent. There are in fact several errors in the French version. It is rather difficult to follow. I would ask that you come up with a solution, since there are several errors.

For instance, the English version refers to the Standing Committee on Finance, which is correct, while the French version talks about the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. It goes on like that in the paragraphs that follow. This makes it somewhat hard to follow the debate.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I thank the hon. member for Salaberry—Suroît for her intervention concerning an error in the Notice Paper. With respect to notice of Motion No. 539, there appears to be a small concordance error between the English and French versions. We will try to determine what caused the error, but I suspect it is probably simply an administrative error. We will correct and clarify the translation of the motion in question.

The hon. member for Carleton.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if I understand correctly, the error in question is in my motion. As a solution, I could read the motion in the language of Molière, since it was already read out in the language of Shakespeare. I can also give my speech again in French, to make up for the error in the French version of the motion.

I am prepared to give my speech in French and to read the motion in French, out of respect for bilingualism and for francophone Canadians who have the right to hear our messages, our debates, our deliberations and our motions in both languages.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I thank the hon. member for Carleton for his intervention.

I would like to add some clarification to this motion. It seems that the motion was moved in English and that the English version is correct, but that a number of words were added in the French version by mistake. It is an administrative error found in a number of other motions, including the mention of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. The Clerk of the House will immediately see to having the necessary corrections made.

Again, I thank the hon. member for Salaberry—Suroît for pointing out this error. These things happen from time to time, but it is important that all motions are submitted correctly to the House.

The hon. member for Malpeque on a point of order.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order, and I am not good in the French language, but I agree with the remarks of the member opposite.

Mr. Speaker, I think you have to look at this motion and the source of the motion, which is the member for Carleton. As you stated, there are clearly errors in this, just as we heard in the speech earlier from the member for Carleton; there were factual errors in many areas of his remarks.

However, in terms of the motion itself, there is no question. I chair the finance committee. The member for Carleton is on that committee. The motion was drafted in great haste, and you will see several motions that are just changing the number of days that the committee would travel. This is coming from a member who represents a party which is constantly blocking travel by the finance committee, and this motion, being written in haste, is all about trying to delay the debate on the budget, which was tabled this week, so that Canadians cannot hear about all the good things that are in that budget for Canadians.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I appreciate the hon. member for Malpeque's addition to this discussion, and I see the member for Carleton is on his feet.

This is a matter that was brought to attention by the hon. member for Salaberry—Suroît. I have given an explanation on the corrections that will take place for these motions that, I will say again, were properly entered and properly disposed of in the finance committee. It was just an error in the translation when that became reflected in the Order Paper.

I will accept the hon. member for Carleton on a brief intervention, and then we must get back to the debate at hand.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the chair of the finance committee is angry that Conservatives are questioning all the junketeering he wants to do at taxpayer expense. What I was hoping he was going to address in his intervention is why he slammed his gavel and shut down the finance committee to prevent his finance minister from answering as to why he and his chief of staff personally interfered with the former attorney general in order to shelve charges against a powerful Liberal-linked corporation. That chairman shut down the study.