Jean-Paul Marchand

[Agusta, May 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. The government is preparing to compensate the firm Agusta. After cancelling the contract to purchase nearly $6 billion worth of EH-101 helicopters, the Prime Minister stated, a few days after his election, and I quote:

"The program is cancelled and there isn't any compensation for anybody".

His Minister of Public Works reaffirmed yesterday the government's intention to conclude an agreement with Agusta.

How can the Prime Minister allow his government to pay compensation to Agusta from public funds, without any investigation into this $6 billion contract to purchase EH-101 helicopters, when Agusta is currently facing charges of corruption and influence peddling in Italy and Belgium?

[English]

[Agusta, May 15th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that Agusta has just hired the former director of communications of the Liberal Party of Canada, Daniel Despins, and the former special adviser to Pierre Elliott Trudeau, James Peacey, as lobbyists in order to sell helicopters to the Government of Canada, would the minister of public works assure us that he is not negotiating a new contract on the quiet with Agusta, in exchange for compensation for the cancellation of the last contract?

[Agusta, May 15th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Public Works categorically refused last week to break off negotiations between the federal government and the firm Agusta regarding potential compensation for the Liberal government's cancellation of the contract for the EH-101 helicopters. The Prime Minister stated a few days after his election that the contract would be cancelled and no compensation would be paid to anyone.

How does the Minister of Public Works justify his current negotiations with Agusta, when the Prime Minister stated a few days after his election, and I quote: "The program is cancelled and there is no compensation for anybody"?

[Lobbyists Registration Act, May 3rd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I truly appreciated the comments made by the hon. member for Beaver River. She is right on when she raises the issue of who the government is listening to regarding this legislation. The government is certainly not listening to its members: it is listening to lobbyists. The government listens to lobbyists even in the case of Bill C-43.

Earlier, the member for Ottawa Centre said that the hon. member for Beaver River was going around in circles. However, at one point, that same member was laughing when she accused the government of tabling a bill with no substance. It is as though the government is making fun of people by not tabling substantive legislation.

Such substance is not found in the details mentioned by the government member earlier, but in the comments made by the western member when she said that what we need is an independent ethics counsellor. The fact that it is not the case confirms that this government does not really intend to strengthen the legislation and counteract the efforts of lobbyists.

I have a question for the hon. member. Does she not agree that lobbyists are the only ones to whom the government is really paying any attention?

[Lobbyists Registration Act, May 3rd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question. The answer is obvious. Of course, we would like to introduce every possible amendment to give more teeth to Bill C-43, which has lost quite a few since it was introduced. We want this bill to be stronger, and every bit of information regarding lobbyists should be disclosed, including their donations to political parties and their political affiliation. All the information should be provided to ensure greater transparency. I justify this disclosure requirement simply because when lobbyists are subject to no controls, no restrictions, obviously this leads to all sorts of abuses.

It is sure, for instance, that if we cannot have an independent ethics counsellor, a counsellor appointed by the House rather than by the Prime Minister, this really puts the value of this bill and the lobbying on Parliament Hill into question. It proves that the general public is right to be seriously concerned about lobbying. Again, the worst of it all is that it affects us personally as politicians because it casts doubt on us. Introducing a bill like Bill C-43 regarding lobbyists brings our political integrity into question because, as politicians, we know that there is corruption and abuse of power in those circles. The fact is that we are in a position to act and pass a bill that would have teeth, but we are not taking advantage of this possibility.

This brings us into disrepute. The public is perfectly justified in questioning the integrity of politicians because, no matter what people say about politicians, I know that there are certain things that we cannot do, like perform miracles. But in this House we have the possibility and power to make a good bill out of a bill like this one. We could make sure that the ethics counsellor is appointed by the House of Commons, thereby ensuring greater transparency in a matter of great concern to the general public.

[Lobbyists Registration Act, May 3rd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that my turn has come to speak to Bill C-43. For those who just arrived and those who, maybe, have just tuned in, I would like to say that Bill C-43 is a bill which the government has tabled to regulate lobbyists on Parliament Hill.

Lobbyists are individuals or associations who represent private interests. There are all kinds of lobbyists. Some represent legitimate associations, such as the Canadian Association of Firefighters, farmers, etc. But there are also more worrisome lobbyists who try to influence the government for the benefit of private interests. Sometimes, these interests do not serve the general public interest, and often represent unjust causes.

This is what the Canadian public is concerned about. We have known for a very long time, maybe a decade or more, that the general public wants lobbying activities to be regulated to make them more transparent, to bring out in the open what exactly it is that lobbyists do. The public is concerned because it knows that the work of lobbyists often leads to abuses of authority. We saw this very recently in a series of troubling cases.

For example, there is the case of the Pearson airport contract. It was mentioned during debate. This was a contract prepared by Conservative and Liberal lobbyists which amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars. We still do not have all the facts on this matter. However, the Conservative Senate decided, today, to appoint a commission of inquiry into this use of lobbying.

There was also a second case, one which clearly shows how lobbying can vary considerably, the case of bovine somatotropin or BST. This substance is a hormone produced by Monsanto, a pharmaceutical company which wants to introduce BST in Canada to increase milk production. Well, the Monsanto lobbyists managed to influence Health Canada, they even bribed Health Canada officials, so much so that, even though the industry disagrees and the population disagrees, Canada will soon have milk produced through the use of BST. This is the result of a disturbing kind of lobbying.

There was also the case of the Minister of Canadian Heritage who tried to exert influence on an agency under his responsibility. He interceded directly on behalf of one of his constituents.

Really, Bill C-43 on lobbying raises questions of fairness, justice and transparency. It has been said over and over again, we want a bill that would really regulate lobbying because we know there were cases of abuse of power and that colossal sums of money can be taken out of the system for the benefit of some special interests.

This is what Canadians are concerned about. As you know, we have a weakened bill here. At first, what was proposed with Bill C-43 was legislation that had teeth, that members of the opposition could have approved.

The government could have presented a bill offering more transparency in such cases. What happened is that lobbyists themselves intervened in the development of this bill to water it down and weaken it to the point that the bill we are dealing with today is no better than the previous act. It is indeed all smoke and mirrors. As far as control and openness with regard to lobbyists is concerned the situation has not really changed, as evidenced by the government's refusal to put into Bill C-43 the provisions we recommended with regard to the ethics counsellor.

Currently, there is an ethics counsellor appointed by the Prime Minister and that he can consult if he wants. But as we know very well, in the instances I just mentioned, despite abuse of power and disturbing cases of lobbying, the Prime Minister did not consult his ethics counsellor. We know it because he admitted it himself.

So, we now have an ethics counsellor, but the House of Commons cannot turn to him, because the Prime Minister has him in his pocket, so to speak.

We would like to see in the bill a clause providing that the ethics counsellor be appointed by the House and report directly to the House. In that way, the ethics counsellor would be independent enough to intervene in the issues and settle them and would be empowered to investigate even if it means bringing proceedings against lobbyists or people abusing their power.

I think that in this case, the essential condition for a strong piece of legislation that has teeth and that will be respected, is to have an ethics counsellor appointed by the House and reporting directly to the House, and operating sufficiently at arm's length, like the auditor general, to settle issues.

We make that request because there are issues we would like the ethics counsellor to be able to decide. An example would be the whole question of conflicts of interest which has been under discussion for several weeks concerning direct-to-home television broadcasting. This is a case of lobbying that is particularly interesting and even quite disturbing.

You are familiar with that case, but, for the sake of those who are not, let me outline the particulars of the incident we have been dealing with for a couple of weeks. A wholly Canadian company called Expressvu Inc. managed to get the direct television broadcasting contract. Direct broadcasting means programs are transmitted directly by satellite and not through cable companies. Expressvu complied with the rules of the CRTC and its bid got CRTC approval. The whole process had begun several months earlier.

Just when the decision was about to be made in favour of Expressvu, a new company called Power DirecTv came into the picture at the last minute and managed to have the CRTC decision overturned so as to get at least part of that market. We all know that Power DirecTv belongs to the son-in-law of the Prime Minister of Canada.

That is what I call patronage. It is hard to imagine that, in such a case, a private company could act so quickly to set up a network of influences in order to have a CRTC decision overturned by the federal cabinet. That takes some doing. It takes some clout to get the consensus needed in the federal cabinet to overturn a proper decision by the CRTC. This is the first and only time in the history of the CRTC that such a thing has happened. It is really incredible. All this just to further the interests of a fully private corporation chaired by the Prime Minister's son-in-law.

It is really incredible. It takes some clout to do that. That is some kind of lobbying. One might even say that the Liberal government is lobbying for Power Corporation. It is a known fact that Power Corporation has certain ties in Canada. Its network of influences was active throughout the federal government and even put pressure on the very top, the cabinet, in order to have the CRTC decision overturned, a first in the history of the CRTC, all in the interest of a private company which wields a great deal of clout.

In fact, as I said before, one wonders whether the Liberal government was perhaps lobbying for Power Corporation, because the process to promote Power DirecTv included appointing a panel of three former deputy ministers, all friends of Power Corporation and of Mr. Goldenberg, an adviser to the Prime Minister. We know that Michael Pitfield, the senator and former Clerk of the Privy Council, is also a vice-president of Power Corporation. Many of those involved are very, very close to the Prime Minister. They are almost part of a family. In fact, they are family.

So all this raises a number of questions. How did they manage to reverse a decision so quickly, to influence cabinet? Meanwhile, and this is what I find so amazing, they managed to give the impression that the Prime Minister himself was not involved in this decision. That takes some doing.

They managed to give that impression, despite the fact that he was surrounded by friends, neighbours, a son-in-law, former colleagues, and so forth, and they managed to reverse the CRTC's decision. They brazenly claimed that the Prime Minister himself was not involved in this decision, but that is inconceivable. We understand how this could happen when we

realize that Mr. Desmarais, the head of Power Corporation, is a very powerful man in this country. So powerful that he is able to use cabinet to further his own interests and, on top of that, he manages to control the media. That is what he did. He controlled the media. He controlled public opinion in Canada. That is quite a feat.

Normally, if Mr. Desmarais had not been the kind of man he is, if this had been a normal case, once this conspiracy, this massive lobbying on the part of the government in favour of Power Corporation was revealed, the headlines of newspapers across the country would have screamed "Nepotism, Nepotism". The Prime Minister is giving preferential treatment to his son-in-law's company. That is obvious.

The long and the short of it is that, Mr. Desmarais owns the newspaper La Presse in Montreal. He is very close to Conrad Black, who controls nearly all newspapers in Quebec. They both have a major interest in Southam News across Canada, which controls L'Actualité and Maclean's . Now that is power.

This man and his organization, Power Corporation, this is more than a lobby, this goes beyond lobbying. It is a superlobby. Not only did it reverse a CRTC decision, but it also swayed Cabinet in favour of one of Power Corporation's subsidiaries and used the press to influence public opinion.

Why has this case been dropped? After, all it is extremely disquieting. In my opinion, this is reminiscent of the family compact era, which in the 19th century was so damaging for the interests of the state. A few families who controlled money, power and trade were intimately linked with the politicians in power. It caused, as we know, rebellions in both Upper and Lower Canada.

I do not mean to say by this that the issue will spark a rebellion because, obviously, we have come a long way since then. We are a very democratic country, but in essence, we have remained a family compact. It is the family compact revisited. This incident with Power DirecTv is a case in point that the family compact is coming back.

And now, I come back to this doubt, to this suspicion that Power Corporation manipulated public opinion in order to distance the Prime Minister from a decision which has turned out so favourably for a company held by his son-in-law. Who in this country could doubt that the Prime Minister was unaware of this ploy? Legitimately and reasonably we have to assume he was involved even though in the House he has said he did not comment in Cabinet on this matter.

However, that Saturday night, at the home of Paul Desmarais, his daughter's father-in-law, he could have easily discussed it. Do you not agree with me, Mr. Speaker? He could easily have talked it over with his senior adviser, Mr. Goldenberg. Just as he could have spoken to Michael Pitfield or his buddies, there are so many of them. Can we for a moment think that the Prime Minister was not familiar with this matter? Impossible.

I contend that it is definitely a question of honour for the Prime Minister to obtain a decision in favour of Power DirecTv. It is a question of honour, of power and of fine politicking. This is politics at its highest and finest level. We know that all politicians want power. Supreme power is having the ability to do whatever one wants and to be totally above suspicion.

It is a matter of degree of corruption, in fact, because this is a case of corruption. We must not fool ourselves. It is a sign of extraordinary power when you can reach such a level of corruption and be totally above suspicion. For the Prime Minister it is a question of honour. The Prime Minister cannot not know about this matter. He was surely aware of everything that was happening.

He used all his power so that it would pass, because he could not say to his daughter: "My dear, your husband cannot have a favourable decision. We cannot overturn the decision of the CRTC". He could not say such a thing to his daughter or to his son-in-law. The honourable thing would have been for him to say: "My son-in-law, you will have it. Not only will you have it, but no one will suspect that I tipped the balance in your favour". And this is what he did.

How could he live with himself as Prime Minister, honourable and powerful as he is, if he had failed to grant this favour to his son-in-law? I close by saying that this is lobbying at its finest. This one more reason, one of many, why we need clear and very strong legislation and why we should certainly improve Bill C-43.

[Supply, May 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from the West mentioned, in his speech, that he was committed to keeping the country together. He also stressed how important it was to negotiate.

I would like to remind him that Quebec has long been asking in vain for a special status within Canada, in recognition of its unique French culture. This is not negotiating. The 1982 Constitution was forced on Quebec. We did not accept it, we tried repeatedly to negotiate. It would appear that the federal government is no longer interested in negotiating with Quebec. Once again, Quebec is losing. These are two reasons why Quebec wants to separate from the rest of Canada.

In his speech, the member also said that the federal government was bankrupt. Not only is it bankrupt, but as we saw, the Liberal government has no vision. It makes cuts everywhere. Without any vision, it lacks compassion for the less fortunate. This is not reassuring.

I want to tell you that another reason why we want Quebec to become sovereign, is that we will do better on our own, we know what our needs are, and we know how to solve our problems, if only the federal government did not interfere. This is why we want to separate.

[Lobbyists Registration Act, May 1st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I as well know a bit about sophistry. Sophistry is a lot of rhetoric, knowing how to use words that mean virtually nothing.

In this case when we are talking about lobbying it is a very serious issue in spite of the fact that the project under study, Bill C-43, does not have any teeth. I ask the member what he thinks about nepotism. We have been examining over the past couple of weeks the fact the Prime Minister would actually arrange to favour a firm owned by his nephew. That is a clear and flagrant case of nepotism. No one can doubt it. No one should doubt it. It is not only apparent, it is difficult to argue otherwise being that the whole system is filled with people closely connected to Power Corp. or closely connected to the Prime Minister who have actually acted in a very exceptional way overturning a decision by the CRTC. This is the first time in history. One really has to have a lot of power. We are not talking about the average lobbying firm. We are talking about corruption in high places. We are talking about a Prime Minister favouring the firm of his nephew.

In spite of the fact it is quite obvious, high stake patronage and corruption, the Liberal government finds this to be a subject of humour. This is a flagrant example of the misuse and abuse of power.

What I would like to ask the member-

[Lobbyists Registration Act, April 25th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I said there were some very recent cases that have proved beyond a doubt that in Canada lobbying can be excessive, dangerous and costly and can have an impact that is rather disturbing to Canadians who, for some time, have been demanding a bill that would regulate the activities of lobbyists on Parliament Hill.

In fact, in its red book, this government promised, as we all know and as many have said repeatedly, to introduce a bill with teeth. Of course we realize that, when the bill was being examined, lobbyists themselves managed to get certain proposals eliminated from the bill, to the extent that the bill before the House today has no real impact on the power of lobbyists. There has been no real increase in transparency. That is what we want and what the people want. Canadians want assurances that lobbyists will not operate in a way that constitutes abuse of power or undue favouritism.

The Bloc Quebecois was the party that suggested a series of amendments, that made recommendations for the purpose of improving this bill. Motion No. 22 proposes that we should have an ethics counsellor who is not appointed by the Prime Minister, as is the case now, but elected by the House of Commons. We suggest that the ethics counsellor should be independent and only accountable to the House of Commons. This is one of the suggestions for improving Bill C-43 and giving it some credibility. It was also suggested that this bill be enforceable by the courts, that there be disclosure of fees and meetings with senior officials and ministers. These are all measures to strengthen Bill C-43, to encourage transparency in this area which is, as I said, quite troublesome in Canada.

There was the Pearson scandal. There was the case of the Minister of Canadian Heritage interfering in a matter handled by the CRTC, an agency for which he is responsible. These are all cases which make the public suspicious. In addition, there was the BST case, where representatives of the Monsanto company offered Health Canada officials $2 million to approve BST.

But, in my opinion, these are just drops in the bucket, despite the fact that they are already very serious incidents involving large sums of money. But the most flagrant abuse of power was when the federal cabinet decided last week to intervene in a decision which the CRTC made, according to its own standards in the usual fashion, in order to favour a company owned by Power Corp. We know that Power Corp. has a considerable influence over cabinet. We know that Paul Desmarais, chairman of Power Corp., has close family ties with the Prime Minister of Canada. To me, the fact that Paul Desmarais' son André is married to the Prime Minister's daughter is indication enough that there is such potential for abuse of power that cabinet could even intervene in the CRTC's decisions.

If one adds to that the fact that the Minister of Finance used to work for Power Corporation, that he was vice-president of Power Corporation, it is obvious that this company has exerted a powerful influence on cabinet. These are cases of abuse. It is reported that André Desmarais, Paul Desmarais's son, was the main organizer of the Prime Minister's trip to Asia last year-a trip which was therefore organized by representatives of Power Corporation, who were so influential that it is during that trip that the Prime Minister changed his policy toward China. Just imagine, lobbyists like Power Corporation can have such an influence that they can make the Canadian government change its foreign policy.

Unfortunately, I see that my time has expired. Thank you.

[Lobbyists Registration Act, April 25th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-43 gives us the opportunity to ask ourselves: Who exactly is running this government? Is it the people through its elected representatives or is it private interests, corporate interests? The people of Canada are concerned. For a long time they called for a law governing lobbying activities on Parliament Hill, even before the arrival of Conservatives and Liberals, because they know that lobbyists exercise undue pressure. They know that patronage exists within the government, as well as waste and corruption. They know it, although they do not have

any concrete proof, but there are signs, gestures, and recent events that show without any doubt that lobbyists manage to extract favours from the government by undue pressure. For example, there is the Pearson airport case which involved millions of dollars, and even today the people of Canada do not know what the players, the lobbyists and the various interests actually did.

The case of the Minister of Canadian Heritage was mentioned. Although he is the minister responsible, he interfered with the CRTC and this, of course, raised the question of the role played by the ethics counsellor within the government, a person who was not even consulted by the Prime Minister in this case.

In the case of BST, a hormone developed by Monsanto, we read in the papers that this company had people, lobbyists, who met with officials of Health and Welfare Canada and offered some 2 million dollars to convince them to approve BST for use in Canada. These are but three recent cases among the very many which prove the abusive role of lobbyists in Canada.

I will come back to this with an even more distressing case.