Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to debate this motion. I will say from the outset that I support the motion and the amendment. I have some history with these matters: I chaired the ethics committee and spent time off and on that committee over the last three Parliaments.
It is a core function of committee to review legislation. Earlier in debate, the member for Winnipeg North made a weird comment suggesting that there is a matter of hypocrisy with Conservatives who supported the Federal Accountability Act in the 41st Parliament who are now concerned about its shortcomings. It is a core function of Parliament and of committees to review laws. This law was up for review, no matter what the circumstances, so I am going to point that out from the outset. There is nothing inconsistent about Conservatives wanting to review a law that is up for review and bring the lens of current problems that have been identified throughout the years to its study. I support the motion and the work the committee is undertaking now.
As my friend from Calgary Heritage talked about in his speech, there were many cases of the Conflict of Interest Act being breeched by the Liberal government in the 42nd Parliament and the 43rd Parliament. All the way through, it breeched the act. We had the former Prime Minister's acceptance of a vacation, which has been spoken of, and SNC-Lavalin. That episode is a particularly troubling one in that we had interference in the prosecution of a corrupt business being influenced by the former prime minister and the then clerk of the privy council. It was shameful.
The penchant of the Liberal government for trying to get around or ignoring the rules is troubling. We had Bill Morneau and the episode of his forgotten villa in France. The ethics commissioner of the day remarked on loopholes that needed to be repaired in the act, and the government failed to bring forward changes to the law then. That was some time ago. It was 2017, I think.
Later, in the 43rd Parliament, we again saw Bill Morneau in a conflict of interest scandal. He would have it now that he left as finance minister because he could not stand the fiscal imprudence he was being forced to undertake on behalf of the former prime minister, forgetting that he actually resigned in disgrace over his role in the WE Charity scandal.
It is against this backdrop that we have today's motion, which I hope that parliamentarians of all political stripes will support, both the concurrence motion for the report delivered by the ethics committee chair and the amendment moved today.
We have to evolve and make sure that our laws evolve to meet the challenges of the present and the future as best we can. We have had a lot of talk about the Prime Minister's blind trust. I remember a former prime minister and opposition leader Joe Clark, who, under the prime ministership of Paul Martin, called it “a Venetian blind trust” because the concern was that someone could see through and know what assets are there. A blind trust does not work as a protection against conflicts of interest if the subject knows what is in the trust.
That takes us to the current Prime Minister, who has, as has been pointed out by other members today, the potential of carried interest, bonuses and perhaps options. There is the prospect of the Prime Minister's financial interest's being tied up in companies that he knows or can presume are in his blind trust because they are not liquid. It is not a matter of selling everything and having a manager manage funds that one would have no idea of in terms of what is there. That is not the case presently with the Prime Minister, or certainly does not appear to be the case, and that is why there is the need for the study and to hear from specific witnesses at the ethics committee.
We did not really get off to a good start with the Prime Minister. There has been a lot of talk about how he delayed disclosing his financial interests until absolutely required under the act, having already become Prime Minister. It actually goes back quite a bit further than even before he became the leader of the Liberal Party.
He was named economic adviser to the leader of the Liberal Party; the Liberals did not say “to the prime minister”. A few people noticed right away. They wondered why the Liberals were trying to split hairs between “the prime minister” and “the leader of the Liberal Party”, who were, of course, the same person. Justin Trudeau was the leader of the Liberal Party, and he was the prime minister. The legal hair they were trying to split was that, at the time, the now Prime Minister, as the then adviser, would have been required to comply with the Conflict of Interest Act if he were an adviser to the prime minister. If he were adviser to the leader of the Liberal Party, the Liberals would avoid this disclosure.
This goes back many months, before the Prime Minister became a leadership candidate, but it is material to the debate because one of the things that happened early on, when the Prime Minister had the advisory role, was that the Liberals made a government decision to increase the mortgage insurance ceiling limit on insured mortgages. This created a business opportunity of course for mortgage insurers. One is a Crown corporation, and there are two private ones. One of them is called Sagen, and guess who owns and controls Sagen? It is none other than Brookfield. We saw this happen, and we saw a share price bump immediately after the announcement with Sagen.
Canadians are left to wonder. What are the disclosures? What are the relationships? Was the Prime Minister a part of the decision? Would he have had to recuse if he had actually been listed as the prime minister's adviser rather than as the Liberal leader's adviser? This is not to say that the Prime Minister has acted in his own interest at the expense of the country's interest. The point is the appearance. Canadians want to know and to ensure that the appearance of a conflict does not exist. This is very important to Canadians.
The member for Winnipeg North, in his comments to the previous speaker, talked about all the other business that could be conducted today, and he accused the opposition of a filibuster. His own party was filibustering Bill C-4 at committee last week. As for the bill that we would have been debating, the Liberals had the entire last Parliament to pass it. They failed to manage their legislative calendar then, so I think one could hardly say that it was a burning priority of the government.
We have to at some point debate some of the committee motions. It is important that each member be given the opportunity to weigh in on this with their vote. Yes, today is the day. We are going to have an ethics concurrence report debate and have this important amendment so the ethics committee can call the witnesses that Canadians need to hear from at that parliamentary committee.