Michel Gauthier

[Auberge Grand-Mère, March 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is basing his defence on the fact that his assets were administered by a blind trust and that this trust was responsible for recovering his money in the Auberge Grand-Mère matter.

If a blind trust did look after his shares, why did the ethics counsellor say that the Prime Minister himself had decided to hold negotiations in order to resell his shares in 1999 and finally recover his money?

[Auberge Grand-Mère, March 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister telephoned the president of the Development Bank on April 12, 1996. He invited him to his residence on May 29, 1996. He called him again on February 20, 1997, and the loan was granted on May 6.

Here is my question. How can the Prime Minister claim that he had no interest in the arrangements to save the Auberge Grand-Mère, when he was still waiting to be paid for his shares and, according to the ethics counsellor, whom they quote abundantly, the Prime Minister was trying to discover his options?

[Auberge Grand-Mère, March 19th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, by intervening with the Business Development Bank of Canada, when these shares had not yet been paid for, the Deputy Prime Minister should admit that the Prime Minister acted in his own interest. At that point, he infringed not only the code of ethics, but the Criminal Code as well.

[Auberge Grand-Mère, March 19th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, when they have nothing more to say on the other side, they translate.

The Prime Minister approached the president of the Business Development Bank of Canada in order to counter an unfavourable opinion expressed by analysts, who had told the bank not to lend any money, that it was not a good file. He personally intervened.

I ask this to the Deputy Prime Minister. When he intervened, did the Prime Minister not do a good business man lobby, since the positive outcome of his efforts considerably increased his chances of being paid and being paid a good price?

[Auberge Grand-Mère, March 19th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it was all very well for the Deputy Prime Minister to quote the ethics counsellor, but, in the same testimony, the same ethics counsellor said that the Prime Minister had not been paid for his shares.

Will the Deputy Prime Minister admit that the chances of the Prime Minister recovering his money were much better with the Auberge Grand-Mère in much better financial health, since it was financed by the Business Development Bank of Canada, than with the Auberge Grand-Mère in bankruptcy?

[Auberge Grand-Mère, March 19th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, in May 1999, before the Standing Committee on Industry, the ethics counsellor was very clear about the Prime Minister's interests in the Grand-Mère golf club. He said, first, that the Prime Minister had yet to be paid for his shares, second, that the sale seemed imminent and, third, that the Prime Minister had decided to hold negotiations.

My question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. In the matter of the Grand-Mère golf club, does he acknowledge that negotiations involving the Prime Minister were still going on in 1999, as the ethics counsellor mentioned?

[Ethics Counsellor, March 15th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has suggested we look at the evidence given by the ethics counsellor. So I read it, and he said that, in May 1999:

The course the Prime Minister did take was to have negotiations. They are very well advanced, I understand. They have been very well advanced for some time. I keep saying that my understanding is that there will be an imminent closure to this.

How can the Prime Minister say that the ethics counsellor cleared him, when he simply confirmed in May 1999 what he was still negotiating, that is, to have shares paid for after intervening to ensure the continued existence of the Auberge Grand-Mère? These shares were worth more,—

[Ethics Counsellor, March 15th, 2001]

The problem. Mr. Speaker, is that this same ethics counsellor whitewashed the Prime Minister during the election campaign and we now realize that he did so without checking all the facts. This proves that he was more concerned with hastily whitewashing the Prime Minister than finding the truth.

Does the Prime Minister not realize that, by refusing to make the bill of sale public, he is implying that there is something in it that he does not want known, and that is what is disquieting?

[Ethics Counsellor, March 15th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the ethics counsellor is going to look into the ownership and actual control of the Prime Minister's shares in the Auberge Grand-Mère affair. However, we see all this as an attempt to whitewash the Prime Minister.

My question for the Prime Minister is a very simple one, which I believe merits consideration. Does he not understand that the only way to settle this matter, to exonerate himself—the only way, there are not 50 of them, only one—is to provide us with the record of sale, as we have demanded so many times already? Let him provide that, and the problem will be over.

[Immigration, March 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.

Here we have a justice minister who claims that her duty to Cabinet, as Minister of Justice, is to keep secret the information she has on a criminal, to conceal it from her Cabinet colleagues.

I am asking the Prime Minister, the one responsible for his team and a former Minister of Justice, if he considers that the Minister of Justice has a duty to keep information of this type quiet, even if the individual involved becomes a citizen of Canada as a result.