Deborah Grey

[Unemployment Insurance Act, November 2nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in this adjournment debate to ask more questions and try to get some clarification about this ongoing saga that has continued in the front benches.

I would like to make the Chair aware again of the remarks I made on Friday where I asked the Prime Minister about his particular quote in which he said and I quote from Hansard :

I consulted the government's ethics counsellor and the one I appointed for myself-

We asked questions about that and did not seem to get wonderful answers. The Prime Minister replied to me on Friday morning, October 28 and I quote from Hansard at page 7367:

The ethics counsellor was consulted yesterday and gave his advice. The advice he gave was given to me and it did not force me to change my mind about the decision I took a few days ago.

It is pretty straightforward. It would seem to me that would make perfect sense if we took the Prime Minister at his word.

However this morning the ethics counsellor appeared on national television, CBC Newsworld. I quote from the transcript that we were provided where the interviewer said: "You're saying then that the Prime Minister at no point asked you to rule on the ethics of this letter". Mr. Howard Wilson replied: "No. That is quite clear. The Prime Minister indicated that he had handled it and came to the conclusion and he stated it".

This seems perfectly clear to me that the ethics counsellor in fact was not consulted, was not asked for his advice. There is a huge discrepancy here and we want to get to the bottom of it.

There are any number of guidelines for cabinet ministers, the most recent of which I quote from, when we look at quasi-judicial bodies versus the judiciary. It would seem to me pretty straightforward again where these guidelines from the Privy Council Office in a confidential document say to ministers: "You are advised to take very special care to avoid intervening, or appearing to intervene in cases under consideration by quasi-judicial bodies". It is again fairly straightforward to me. It would seem like the minister certainly knew what his bounds were and he stepped outside of them.

I would just like to finish before asking the parliamentary secretary to respond to this by pointing out that the Prime Minister has made it clear over and over again that you should not phone a judge no matter what. I refer to a situation that went on in the House yesterday and of course in the newspapers recently where the Prime Minister said that I was being dreadful for bringing up an incident in which he phoned a judge in 1971. Of course he said that he was just asking when the particular court case on this bankruptcy would be. That is fine. The Globe and Mail accused him further of saying that he had tried to intervene in that case.

Regardless the instance, regardless the circumstance, this Prime Minister stood in his place a number of times in the last week and said that no cabinet minister should phone a judge ever, for any reason, period. That seems fairly straightforward to me.

We are trying to get to the bottom of this. I hope that we get further answers and further clarification from the parliamentary secretary right now.

[Ethics, November 2nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister says they talked to the ethics counsellor.

Did the ethics counsellor talk to the government? The Prime Minister indicated to us that the ethics counsellor had advised him on the minister's letter and the ethics counsellor says that this is simply not the case.

This morning he said no, and that is clear. The question of course is: What part of no does the Prime Minister not understand? Will the Prime Minister accept responsibility for this contradiction in his integrity and apologize for breaching the trust of the Canadian public?

[Ethics, November 2nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has said over and over again in the House that his officials had consulted the ethics counsellor regarding the letter by the Minister of Canadian Heritage.

He said over and over again that the ethics counsellor's advice had affirmed his own decision to not fire this minister. The ethics counsellor has a different story. He says that he was not asked to rule on this incident.

Can the Prime Minister explain why the ethics counsellor was set up to be the fall guy for providing bad advice when his advice was not even sought?

[Ethics, November 1st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, in 1976 Prime Minister Trudeau brought in guidelines that stated: "Nor may any member of cabinet communicate with members of quasi-judicial bodies", except of course through the proper formal channels. Even in 1984 Mr. Mulroney put guidelines in place.

Are these guidelines of the 1970s and the 1980s not good enough for these Liberals of the 1990s? Will the Prime Minister live up to that fine sense of integrity and ask this minister to resign?

[Ethics, November 1st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I too would like to change the line of questioning. The Liberals of the 1990s are scandalously similar to the Liberals of the 1970s, smacking of allegations and conflict of interest.

In 1971 our present Prime Minister called a Quebec judge. Regardless of the reason he maintained he could call since he was acting just as a member of Parliament and not as a minister. Sound familiar? He did not say that was a mistake.

Could this be the reason 20 years later why the Prime Minister will not ask this minister to resign because he could not hold this minister to a higher level of responsibility than he himself had?

[Recall Act, October 28th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to just close off this debate by saying how much I appreciate members who have spoken in favour of this bill. The member for Ottawa West called it a foolish idea when she rose in her place. They may think it is a foolish idea but I am here to say that the Canadian public, even Liberals who have been polled across the country, hardly think this is a foolish idea.

What the Canadian public thinks is foolish are the people in this Chamber who are completely immune to job security, completely immune to being put forward to somebody who would say: "You are not doing your job, you are not acting responsibly".

The member for Ottawa West spoke about good times and bad times in a marriage. She likened this bill to an instant divorce. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are many provisions in this bill to be safeguards for that.

This is something that is going to carry on over a period of days, weeks, even months. A person who has been a member of Parliament for 18 months has had a chance to prove themselves. That is hardly an instant divorce.

This bill calls for 50 per cent plus 1 of the number of voters who voted in the last election. That is not something that can be obtained instantly to call for this instant divorce.

I will wrap up my comments by saying how sad I find it that people on the government side refer to this whole thing as just something that is foolish, that they have spoken about it more than we have. May I draw the House's attention to the fact that the Liberals said today they have no more speakers on this. The member got up without knowing her facts about the bill, making comments about it.

I would urge this government to support-

[Recall Act, October 28th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask to speak briefly under the right of reply under Standing Order 44(2). I believe we have time as we go to about 28 minutes after the hour.

[Recall Act, October 28th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I would like to clarify a lot. First of all I would like to just say that this bill was debated in February, not April. February was the beginning of this debate-

[Ethics, October 28th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what we are asking for: absolute responsibility and accountability from every member in this Chamber.

Instead of establishing an independent ethics watchdog to investigate ministers and hold them publicly to account, the government has established an ethics lapdog that answers to nobody but the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister keeps him in the dark and employs him only when he is needed at the last minute to excuse the actions of an embattled minister.

Will the Prime Minister stop dodging his responsibilities as he is proud to do and demand the resignation of the Minister of Canadian Heritage?

[Ethics, October 28th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, this is not something we are dealing with just a couple of days ago. The ethics counsellor said that he was contacted on Wednesday night, not by the Prime Minister or his officials but by a Southam News reporter. This has been going on literally for months. According to the ethics counsellor he was only contacted Wednesday night. This is not good enough.

I ask the Prime Minister: Where are the reports and the minutes from this meeting with the ethics counsellor? Why can we not have all the facts for this? Will he table a report from the ethics counsellor with the facts?