Deborah Grey

[Rcmp Investigations, October 10th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, it is pretty hard to even read from a prepared script.

The RCMP investigation into the illegal fundraising tactics first of all was delayed until after the election. Then when the police did get two search warrants, they only acted against the party bagman, not the Liberal minister to whom he answered.

I want to ask the question one more time. Who in the world is running this investigation, the RCMP or the Liberal minister of the treasury board.

[Rcmp Investigations, October 10th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, let me ask the minister this question. Could he tell the Canadian public what he knew about this investigation and the search warrant and why he knew it in the first place?

[Rcmp Investigations, October 10th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday we saw the minister of the treasury board squirming about a criminal investigation of his own office. He gave four different answers in four minutes. Surely that is a new Canadian record.

Now that he has had 24 hours to get his alibi straight, I was wondering if he could tell us just what—

[Government Grants, October 9th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, there is something strange here because on the Tuesday the minister approved $3 million for companies in the Prime Minister's riding, paid from the transitional jobs fund. On the Wednesday he wrote to the RCMP as if there was some amazing new revelation that he had received to blow the whistle on corruption in that fund. The ink was not even dry on those cheques.

Let me ask him this and please come up with a better defence. Did it just hit the minister that something might be wrong as the clock struck midnight?

[Government Grants, October 9th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to judiciously say that on March 5 the minister for HRD sent a letter and asked the police to investigate illegal fundraising. He knows that. But just 24 hours before that, the same minister approved $3 million out of that same jobs fund to go into the Prime Minister's riding.

Let me ask the minister for HRD this. Just how is it that he signed cheques one day and called police the very next day?

[Government Grants, October 9th, 1997]

No wonder, Mr. Speaker, if he can keep buying his way into office. We have some pretty serious questions here.

[Supply, October 9th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, the entertainment just does not end. He talks about the link that I was trying to make between bringing back respect to the office and this idea of fundraising and linking partisan party activities. This was not my letter. This says “Liberal fax transmission from Jean Chrétien to Terry Mercer, National Director, Liberal Party of Canada”, and it says Prime Minister's office at the top. So the link has been made. It was not made by me. It was made by the prime minister, the PMO having absolutely direct political party activities begging for money for the campaign. I think it is wrong.

[Supply, October 9th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, the member talks about me doing this as a violin playing matter. I hardly think that was the best analogy to use. I do sing although I am not a violin player, that is for sure. Quite frankly, I do not like the tune he is singing.

He accuses me of incorrect facts. I am trying to get any facts that I can. That is what the difficult part is, trying to get facts from the government. We are trying to get the facts. When he says that we are bringing this up I have to remind him and jog his little memory that this criminal investigation was launched by the Minister of Human Resources Development.

This was not something I dreamt up during the campaign. This is not something my party thought would be fun to investigate. It is his own guy. He is the one who decided that this should be looked into because he smelled a rat. I think it is probably a good thing that he did. I have some concerns about the fact that we did not hear about it until five days after the election was over. I am not making these accusations, I am asking questions. If he were in opposition surely he would be doing exactly the same thing.

He accuses me also of shirt rending, Madam Speaker, and I want to give you this assurance. What we saw on This Hour Has 22 Minutes the other night was bad enough. I promise I will not be rending my shirt in here.

[Supply, October 9th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, I am not begging for leeway in the House, what I am begging for are answers to the questions that have been raised about some people. I am not stating that something is illegal. I am not accusing the member of going around asking for votes. I am saying that if this type of thing is allowed to happen, as we are talking about in question period right now, surely to heaven the member would like to see it cleaned up. I do not think he would like his name besmirched anymore that I would like mine besmirched.

We need to make some fundamental changes so that the Canada Elections Act cannot be abused during writ periods. Further, when a government is in full blown operation and is now the victim and its members at arm's length in an RCMP criminal investigation, it is wrong. I do not think the member is very proud of that.

Let wrap up with this. Here is a little quiz for the House. Who said this? “The best party that deals with the issue of morality and ethics in government will win the next election.” I bet a dime no one can guess. It was the member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell in November 1987. Does that sound like a broken record? “Integrity and honesty must be restored to the political process,” page 91 in the red book. I do not think the Liberals have moved on that promise.

I say to the government, do not just tell us, show us. Do not just think about it, do it, do it, do it.

[Supply, October 9th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate you and wish you well. I wonder if you are ruing the day you got the appointment to be in the chair.

I would like to enter the debate today on the motion. The House leader from the government talked about one part of the motion, financing federal political parties. I would like to talk about another phrase which may upset him, the phrase about the existing legislation that allows for a wide range of abuses. I think that is what we need to look at here today.

I would like to thank the voters of Edmonton North, the new constituency in which I ran in this past election. It was an honour for me to win the election and to voice their concerns on the floor of the House of Commons.

I would also like to pay tribute to the voters in the now defunct riding of Beaver River in northeastern Alberta, those people who took a chance and voted on the first ever Reformer in the House of Commons back in March 1989. Although I am away from the riding of Beaver River because the electoral boundaries commissioners blitzed that riding in the last election, it was a tremendous honour for me to sit here for several years on their behalf. I am close to them still in heart and also geographically as I am literally the girl next door in the riding of Edmonton North.

I would also like to pay tribute today to a very special aunt of mine, Reta Yerex, who died of cancer two days ago. I dedicate my maiden speech in the House of Commons in this Parliament to her. I want to say to her husband Art and family that I love them and I will do the best job I can do in the House. She loved me and she supported everything I did. I want to do this today for her and everything else that I do here also because she is not with us any more.

I would also like to say how pleased I am today to have my mother, Joyce Levy, and my sister Alison Horne with us. They have watched me grow up. They have watched me make Canadian history and they are watching me today in the chambers of the House of Commons. I want to do the best job I can do for them as well.

I want to thank my greatest friend and confidant, my husband, Lewis Larson, for the support that he has given me over the years in the Chamber and at home. He knows and understands politics probably even better than I do. He is my greatest advisor. I just want to say thank you, Lew. I appreciate everything that you have done and will continue to do for me. I think he is pretty upset right now about some of the ways political parties use and abuse their funding powers.

Therefore, I want to say several things in the debate today. We never have enough time to talk about all the things that we should talk about, but this whole phrase “allowing for the abuse of legislation for federal political parties that can in fact misuse and abuse the trust of the Canadian public”. I do not find anything more reprehensible than that. Somebody under the guise of a federal political party that looks as if he is on the up and up should not be able to bully people into making donations.

This government used to be against free trade but now it seems it is all in favour of it. “I'll trade my promises, contracts, all those kinds of things to you if you vote for me and put me in”. That is shameful. We have been addressing this during question period over the last several days and we will continue to address it in question period and every other chance we get. We want to make sure that this dirt comes to the surface in order to find out what the answers are.

I am not making allegations today. I am not making any assumptions of wrong-doing but I am going to continue to ask questions so that people in government are not doing the literal free trade “you vote for me and I'll pad your pockets later with a government contract”. That is shameful and nobody in that situation should ever be voted into office.

Let us look at the Liberal bagman who is being investigated right now. He is somebody who raised funds for the Liberal Party. We have to ask the question: What was the trade-off? What was the free trade deal they were talking about? This was even more deplorable than what we have been suggesting the last couple of days and asking questions about.

Here is a letter that came from the Prime Minister's office concerning Liberal fundraising during the election campaign. I thought that was wrong. In fact, I thought it was not just immoral or unethical, I thought it was illegal for someone who is the Prime Minister of the country. That is wrong, but it does not seem that the things that he does are wrong. This letter is going to the Liberal national director stating that the election has been called and it is the time to start rallying Liberals across the country, to get the Liberal message out during the campaign. It refers to encouraging all Liberal friends to climb on board and show their ongoing personal and financial support. This came out of the Prime Minister's office.

If ever the question needed to be asked in this place about the abuse of fundraising for political parties it is this kind of thing. It is wrong at the beginning, wrong in the middle and wrong now at the end. People must not be allowed to do that in government. Signing his name, Jean Chrétien, from the Prime Minister's office, sending out Liberal stuff asking for Liberal money and Liberal donations so they could try to form a Liberal government. That is not right.

As Her Majesty's loyal opposition, which we are proud to be, we will continue to make sure that we hold these people accountable for the abuse of some of the funds. The timing of these suspicious grants is certainly questionable and we are going to continue to ask the questions that need to be asked.

What about federal political parties that become government and interfere and manipulate some of these arm's length groups? How about the CBC? It is always said here that these are arm's length people. What is at the end of the arm? A hand, a great big hand that can go around the neck of the CBC or, for instance, the Canadian Armed Forces, to say “Here is our free trade agreement with you; you support us, give us good coverage and talk about us and the military well or else. You may be at arm's length but our hand is attached to the end of that arm. We have a stranglehold on you and we will cut your grants for the CBC. We will cut your funding for equipment and staff in the Canadian armed forces”. It is wrong. What is at the end of the arm's length relationship with the provinces, for instance with health care? The government was to fund the provinces 50:50 when medicare came in in 1965. Now the federal government is down to 10% cash donations for transfer payments and it is falling fast.

What is wrong when a federal political party can finance itself any way it sees fit, even though it goes against the red book promise, yet it turns around and says it is the great champions of health care, the great champions of the defence department and the Canadian Armed Forces and of public broadcasting and the CBC. It is a farce and nothing more.

What about Canadian taxpayers? How many people have gone around in ridings during the campaign saying “You vote for me and I will get you this, I will get you that. I will make sure that your company gets a grant.” Surely those days should be far, far behind us. It is wrong, very wrong for someone to go around a constituency and make promises that if “you vote for me, I will make sure I look after you.”