Val Meredith

[Prime Minister, April 4th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday we asked about a piece of land purchased for $500,000 by Claude Gauthier, a friend of the Prime Minister, at a time when the Prime Minister was owed nearly as much for his shares in the same golf course.

Mr. Gauthier's investment unquestionably increased the likelihood that someone would buy the Prime Minister's shares.

Was the Prime Minister or his agent involved in any way in the sale of the land to Mr. Gauthier?

[Points Of Order, April 3rd, 2001]

Yes, Mr. Speaker. I would like to say that it was a false accusation that was placed on me. I would like to give notice of a future point of privilege.

[Prime Minister, April 3rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, Jonas Prince was able to sell his hotel chain to Canadian Pacific for $90 million. We can bet that sale or deal was not on a handwritten single piece of paper.

Mr. Prince certainly knew how to buy and sell property without the help of the Prime Minister or his lawyer. Is it not true that Mr. Prince told the Prime Minister that if he wanted to get paid for his shares he had better find another buyer?

[Prime Minister, April 3rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister and his apologists claim that he had absolutely no interest in the golf course after November 1993. Yet in the same breath they admit that his lawyer was actively trying to sell the shares up until 1999.

That in itself indicates that the Prime Minister did in fact have financial interest in the shares. Is it not true that unless the Prime Minister found new buyers he would not get paid?

[Supply, April 3rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the Liberals are willing to say things about us in here. I would like to know whether the hon. member would take his comments outside as well.

[Supply, April 3rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, in answer to the hon. member's question, I do not even know if the two parties were together in the same room when this bill of sale was drafted. There is no recognition of witnesses to verify that those signatures are in fact the people who they purport to be. There is no witness or corporate seal to justify that the two individuals were in the same room at the same time or in what province it was and therefore in what jurisdiction it could be challenged.

That is why we need this judicial inquiry: so that the background information that may or may not support it is brought to the table. Like I said, in real estate and in municipal government we would never even have considered a document such as that.

[Supply, April 3rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I think the issue here is that Canadians do want this matter cleared up. If there is nothing to hide, if there is no reason that this should not be brought to the table, then why are the government members and the Prime Minister so opposed to having an independent inquiry? If there is nothing to hide, what is wrong with having an independent inquiry?

[Supply, April 3rd, 2001]

The Liberals are trying to pretend that these coincidences are just normal, common events. Unfortunately, there is a whole pattern here and this does not stand out as being unusual. There is a whole pattern in the Prime Minister's riding of this kind of exchange of money and exchange of influence, and people who are friends and colleagues end up with great sums of investors' money, bank money and HRDC money. This happens all the time.

There is a pattern here, but this one concerns Canadians because there is a conflict of interest. There was a financial gain to the Prime Minister of Canada with his interference with the BDC and getting that loan. There was a financial interest.

In conclusion, what we have here are a lot of unanswered questions and a lot of things that have to be cleared up. They will not be cleared up with this government. The government has refused to allow the principals to come before the industry committee to answer some of these questions and clear up this issue. The government has refused to co-operate and has left the opposition no other recourse than to call for an independent judicial inquiry to get the answers that are needed.

It is a shame that it has come to this point. It is a shame that there was not full disclosure earlier, that this thing could not have been cleared up earlier so that the House of Commons could move on to other important issues. However, Canadians are concerned that the high office of the Prime Minister shall not be tainted by a scandal, by all these questions left unanswered. Canadians want the issue cleared. Canadians want full disclosure and they want it sooner rather than later. They want it done by an independent inquiry that is not controlled by the Prime Minister, not controlled by the Prime Minister's Office and not controlled by the House leader of the government. Canadians want to know whether or not the Prime Minister was in a direct conflict of interest by lobbying for a loan.

At this time I would like to tell Canadians that we are hopeful the government will support this motion and see that inquiry happen.

I would like to move the following amendment to the motion. I move:

That the motion be amended by inserting before the word “establishment” the word “immediate”.

[Supply, April 3rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is a shame for Canada that we have to be debating this in the House of Commons. It is a shame that there is not parliamentary reform that takes this issue out of the hands of the Prime Minister, where it is not legislated that the House can deal with the issue and that a private inquiry would be automatic in a situation like this.

It is really unfortunate that the members of the government cannot see that Canadians want this issue to be resolved by independent inquiry. They are doing everything that they possibly can to stop this from happening.

The issue we are dealing with in the House of Commons is whether or not there was a conflict of interest by the Prime Minister of Canada. That is the issue we must concern ourselves with.

The issue is very clear that the Auberge Grand-Mère Hotel received funding from the Business Development Bank of Canada because of the interference of the Prime Minister of Canada.

The Auberge Grand-Mère is adjacent to the Grand-Mère golf course in which the ownership of the shares was suspect at the time the Prime Minister was lobbying the BDC for a loan. The loan had been refused prior to the Prime Minister's lobbying. The Prime Minister told the House that he sold his shares in November 1993, three days before becoming the Prime Minister of Canada.

Canadians are concerned about the supposed agreement of sale with Jonas Prince, the owner of the Delta Hotel chain. It is unbelievable that two corporate lawyers would sign a handwritten agreement with no witnesses, with no place of signature and with no corporate seal, and Canadians do not expect that it is real. There was no down payment. There was no deposit even. In any kind of sale, even transferring the ownership of a car, there has to be some exchange of money.

Mr. Prince did not make a $75,000 loan payment on November 1, 1994, as was called for in the agreement. He did not make another similar payment in November of 1995, two years later. It was on January 27, 1996 when the Prime Minister first contacted the ethics counsellor to inform him that he had not been paid. If it was in a blind trust, how in heaven's name did he know he had not been paid? He was not to be informed of what was going on.

According to the ethics counsellor, the Prime Minister and his lawyer were to look for a way for him to get paid. If that is not involvement in a blind trust, I do not know what is. If the contract was truly valid, why did the lawyer, who was supposedly handling the affairs, not take the issue to court? That did not happen. Three and a half years later these shares eventually were passed on, sold, transferred to one of the original partners in the golf course.

One has to ask oneself why there was an accompanying document in 1999 signed by the Prime Minister in regard to his company J&AC Consultants. Why was there even that document in 1999 if he had no interest? It is quite clear to Canadians watching this unfold that there was a financial interest of the Prime Minister in what was happening not only with the golf course but the hotel next door.

Liberal members may believe in incredible coincidences, but within a month of informing the ethics counsellor that he still was owed money, the Prime Minister held a private meeting with immigrant investors to discuss investing in a hotel. Funnily enough, one of the coincidences was that the Grand-Mère hotel eventually received $2.5 million in investor funds.

A couple of months later, and this is another coincidence, the Prime Minister called the BDC on behalf of the hotel. After the BDC rejected the loan, the Prime Minister continued to lobby on behalf of the hotel, and gee, what happened? BDC changed its mind and loaned some money to the hotel.

That did not happen without the interference of or influence by the Prime Minister of Canada. He is not an ordinary member of parliament but the Prime Minister of Canada and he actually met on occasion with the president of the bank at 24 Sussex Drive. I cannot invite somebody to 24 Sussex Drive to lobby him. The Prime Minister went to extreme lengths to ensure that the Auberge hotel stayed afloat. The question is why. Gee, I wonder why.

For any of us here to try to pretend that what happens next door with regard to property we may own has nothing to do with our financial well-being is fooling ourselves. Before coming to this place, I spent years as a realtor and I was also in municipal government. Let me tell the House that a municipal government informs adjoining property owners of any changes to properties next door because there is an interest. As a realtor, there is no way that I would ever have sold a house on a handwritten document that had no witness, no place of location and no corporate seal. There are reasons why realtors would not do that when selling someone's property: because it would not be upheld in a court of law and would not be made binding.

We talk about interest because that is where the conflict of interest comes in. There is absolutely no doubt in the minds of Canadians that there was a financial interest to the Prime Minister and his associates with the golf course and with the hotel. If that hotel had gone bankrupt, the Prime Minister would have lost a whole lot more money than he did with the value of his shares. If—

[Prime Minister, April 2nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is respect for the Prime Minister's Office that he should be concerned about.

Jonas Prince sold his hotel chain for $90 million. He could have paid for the golf course out of pocket change, but for six years he refused to do so. While the Prime Minister said that he sold the shares in November, Mr. Prince obviously believed that he did not buy them.

Why would a successful businessman like Mr. Prince risk the wrath of the Prime Minister of Canada and not honour what was supposed to be a so-called bill of sale?