Pierre Brien

[Code of Conduct, June 20th, 2002]

I hear the Minister for International Trade, who is a candidate in a possible Quebec Liberal Party leadership campaign, tell us 2040.

I remember that when I first joined the Parti Quebecois, at the age of 17 or 18, they were predicting that the referendum held in 1995 would never take place. But it did take place, and much sooner than anticipated.

So, let us leave Quebecers go at their own pace and make their own decisions at the appropriate time. They will make this decision when they want to. I respect this. We will go at the same pace as them and follow their aspirations. However, I am convinced that they are not headed toward less autonomy, but greater autonomy in the future.

That being said, in order to fight this movement, Ottawa chose to invest in its sponsorship programs. It took this opportunity to reward all the friends who helped set up campaigns for the referendum and for various candidates, and who supported defeated candidates between elections.

All these friends of the government found two objectives. They thought “We are going to promote Canada and at the same time we will line our own pockets. We will justify it to the Canadian public by claiming it is good because it is being done for the benefit of Canadian unity. Everything done in the name of Canadian unity will be accepted”.

I am happy to see that people outside of Quebec are waking up and condemning this situation because it is unhealthy, in a true democracy, to work this way. It is also unhealthy, in a true democracy, to pass a law telling Quebecers how to practice democracy when they already have extremely high standards in this respect.

This same logic is behind the clarity bill, the sponsorship programs and others. This logic was brought here by the Minister for Intergovernmental Affairs; his vision is shared by the Prime Minister. We could talk about this for a long time.

However, I do not believe that what is before us now will deal with this fundamental problem, namely that the government does not understand what is going on in Quebec. It may be boasting now but the wake-up call will be all the more difficult to take. Their little Liberal cousins in Quebec are not doing too well. If I were them, I would avoid spitting up in the air because, as they say, what goes up must come down.

In the same vein, I would add that if the government wants people to believe it when it talks about ethics standards, it will have to be a lot less shallow than it has been of late.

I have a problem with the fact that only two days before we are scheduled to adjourn and a week before the end of the session which, as we know, will very likely be prorogued this fall, the government is all of a sudden announcing its great plans regarding a code of ethics.

We question its real motives, all the more as in the background there are major internal struggles among our opponents across the way, which explains why some of them are behaving the way they are.

In short, I would tell my colleague from Trois-Rivières that, unfortunately, what is there will not assuage his concerns. I do not think there is any major motivation for the government to do so, because it has explained that losing a few millions here and there, for the cause, could be justified.

Now it is up to the voters of Canada to judge. I am sure that they will find this increasingly unacceptable in future, especially if the other opposition parties do their homework and speak out against practices like these.

It is one thing for them to go about boasting the merits of what they consider a good system, but it is quite another to mess with public funds in order to buy off people or to pay back friends for political support and co-operation with party activities. Ultimately, unlike the Prime Minister, I am not convinced this will serve their cause.

To put it succinctly, all this will also be affected by the motivations of each of us as far as this bill is concerned. There is one thing for sure, however: we will be extremely vigilant.

Something has just come to mind now that I had neglected to mention. The sponsorship program is one of the rare programs in which Quebec got more than its share from Ottawa. I have listened to my colleague from the NDP asking how it was that there were no sponsorships in his riding, in his region. Quebec was heavily advantaged in this $40 million program, whereas we would have liked to have been equally advantaged for programs relating to real problems such as health care funding and post-secondary education.

If they really want to give people tangible assistance, let them inject funds into these programs, rather than sponsorship goodies—

[Code of Conduct, June 20th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, I do not think that it will change the nature of what the hon. member for Trois-Rivières described.

My colleague did raise the question, and for a good part, the answer was also in his comments. We must remember what led to the establishment of the sponsorship program, which began, in a more controlled fashion, in the aftermath of the referendum.

During the Easter recess, I read on public works' Internet site all the conditions imposed on the department regarding its corporate image, or how to sell Canada. It was obvious that the whole thing had been written with Quebec in mind. I am not convinced that they show the same rigour across Canada.

All this is based on a logic that is the result of the last Quebec referendum. People in Ottawa got a real scare and told themselves “If so many Quebecers vote yes, it must be because they did not understand something. There is a problem”. When they say that the public did not understand, perhaps they should ask themselves if they themselves understood. So, they figured, “We will make Canada visible everywhere. That should take care of problem”.

If they think that this is the way to the future for them and let themselves be fooled by this gain, the shock will only be greater when Quebecers decide to have another referendum on the matter.

It may not be tomorrow morning, but it will happen some day.

[Code of Conduct, June 20th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, a substantial amendment to the original motion has been brought forward, but let me return to the main motion before us.

We are discussing the appointment of a committee, which will examine the ethics guidelines and the code of conduct for all parliamentarians. Depending on whether the amendment is passed or not, there could be provisions on the ethics counsellor and whose jurisdiction he will fall under.

We must also ask ourselves why we are debating this very important issue today. It would be better if the government were more sincere about this. Some fundamental issues have to be examined when ethics guidelines and the work of lobbyists in general are examined. But all this comes in the wake of the major crisis that has shaken the government because of the sponsorships scandal.

There is always a credibility problem when a government decides to table such measures at such a time. We wonder if it is trying to create a diversion or if it sincerely wants to change the rules. Finally, if we do change the ethics guidelines, maybe it will solve several problems for the future, but we will still have to shed light on the past.

We are not yet adopting new rules, that is still a long way off. There is still much work to be done before that time comes and it may take a long time. We have to ask ourselves if the government wants to follow through on this or if this is not, as I said earlier, some sort of diversion to show us how good things will be in the future, and at the same time, make us forget that Liberal cronies all over the place, at Groupaction, at Everest and at Lafleur Communications, have lined their pockets for the past five years with taxpayers' money.

People do not take well to working hard and paying their taxes, and then watching the government take this money and send it to its friends who, on top of this, did no work for it. When we think about the fact that people received 3% commissions to oversee sponsorships that never took place, it is pretty easy to understand why voters are cynical when it comes to some aspects of politics.

Unfortunately, we have spent a great deal of time debating this issue, but we have to. Practices will not be improved by hiding these things. This painful debate on all of these dubious government actions must take place. It is not true that it is limited to only a few individuals.

Day after day, systematically, we saw how people who stood to benefit from organized events made sure that communications firms and friends of the party, very close to a number of government ministers, received money in ways that astonished those who have been following this issue.

I repeat, we must get to the bottom of this. Public money has been mishandled. People have to account for this, both politicians and public servants. Sending the minister off to Denmark has not solved this issue. We must not forget that we have not yet gotten to the bottom of this.

Among our objectives, we are asking for a committee to be appointed to study a code of conduct for members. No one is against the idea of defining a clearer code of conduct for members. Personally, I am all for it, but we will have to look at what this means more closely.

There was already a group that worked on this ia few years ago. I have been here since 1993, and this is not the first time a committee has looked into this.

At the time, the Bloc Quebecois tabled a dissenting report pointing out that the government was trying to impose an even greater burden on members than on ministers. The government was creating a bit of a diversion by trying to impose very high standards on MPs, when ministers have much more latitude in how they manage. We are not talking about the same thing. The scope is very different.

The executive—the ministers—controls many things. A desire to tighten up and redefine the work of MPs is a good thing, however. It is not a waste of time. It is something worth doing. At the same time, however, there are things we must not lose sight of in connection with the behaviour of certain ministers or the rules that are going to be imposed on them.

I am going to talk more specifically about the rules. The Prime Minister said “Yes, we will have much tougher rules for the funding of leadership races”. One of the fears is that ministers are using taxpayers' money to give preference to certain individuals in connection with contracts, to obtain political favours in order to achieve their personal ambitions.

Naturally, there is a way of dealing with this in the way that public finances are managed. However, there is also another way of dealing with it through the funding of political parties' leadership races.

What has been proposed so far may, at first glance, seem tougher, but let us take a closer look. The Prime Minister said “Candidates will have to reveal their expenses 30 days before the end of a leadership race”, an official race. But we all know that, in real life, there is an unofficial race going on between the former Minister of FInance and the Prime Minister. And we do not know the source of all the funds now being used to fund the former finance minister's campaign. We will only find this out in connection with the official part in a future race.

Without making a big political deal about it, several candidates often run for leader, but they do not all make it to the end. We are told they will have to reveal the names of those who contributed to their campaign 30 days before the end of the race. But what about the candidates who mysteriously disappear 31 days before the deadline?

There could very well be incidental alliances where money goes through a supposed leadership candidate, who would function as a foil or a cash entry point. There are a number of unanswered questions in the government's proposals.

The way to provide for the ethical funding of political parties, be it with regard to nomination races in ridings or leadership races, is through amendments to the Elections Act, not through a code of conduct or a code of ethics.

There is a problem with a code of ethics. Indeed, what happens when the code of ethics is broken? As we know, currently the ethics counsellor reports to the Prime Minister and is appointed by the Prime Minister. So eventually he always ends up saying that after all it was not that bad or that it was not improper.

The government is not proposing that the ethics counsellor report to parliament. The amendment put forward by the Canadian Alliance proposes that the counsellor report to parliament, whereas the government's proposal is for party leaders to be consulted. It does not say it will listen to the advice of the other party leaders. Yes, they will be called and told “We have a couple of names of people we are thinking of appointing”. In any event, at the end of the day, it will still be the Prime Minister who has the last word in this respect.

If the ethics counsellor still reports to the Prime Minister the problem will remain as is. When there are only ethics guidelines for ministers--regarding for instance the funding of leadership races within the party in power--the question is what happens when these guidelines are broken.

First, will the public be informed? Second, will there be penalties? When I see what is happening in the sponsorship scandal, I have trouble believing that the government's ethics standards are being followed. So far, very few people have paid the price. Very few people have been punished either among public servants or in the party apparatus.

It is as if nobody were responsible. Now, the RCMP is investigating. I am somewhat skeptical. I am willing to believe in the independence and skills of people in the RCMP, who are doing their job. However, I doubt they will be given all of the information and receive full co-operation.

We may find ourselves dealing with such cases as CINAR, on which an investigation was carried out, but without RCMP co-operation. In this regard, in the riding of the Prime Minister, there were investigations of his involvement in the Auberge Grand-Mère and with the BDC, but nothing came of the investigations.

In two or three years, we will find that many RCMP investigations have led nowhere for all kinds of reasons. This is why we have called for a public inquiry, where the impact is much greater, because there is a public dimension to it. In fact, it is an independent and neutral person who tables a report, which becomes general knowledge. With RCMP reports, we do not know exactly what will happen to them.

In shorty, a code of ethics is a good thing, but if it is not followed and does not have teeth, there is a problem. According to the timetable before us, a group of members is being asked to examine some rules of ethics, a code of conduct for members of parliament this fall. The Prime Minister has washed his hands of the whole thing by saying that he just tightened up the rules for his ministers. But this is not true. His ministers will have to follow a code of ethics that has no teeth if they break the rules and, also, he has announced that he intends to bring some changes to the Elections Act. But we have seen nothing at this time.

Make no mistake, it is a good thing for MPs to study a general code of conduct on what a member should or should not disclose, providing a framework for his job, but this is not where the main problem lies. It relates to the ministers, who collectively administer in excess of $160 billion annually. If we deduct the fixed interest on that debt, that leaves some $125 billion annually that are administered by the Prime Minister and a group of ministers. This is more than regular MPs have any control over, since we are primarily lawmakers.

There is a blurring of roles here. MPs represent the legislative level, while ministers are the executive level, which manages and administers allocations voted by parliament. There could, of course, be a temptation to influence the lawmakers. That is why there must be a framework for the actions of lobbyists, lobbying practices.

On a day to day basis, in practical terms, the ministers administer public funds and there must be protection against potential abuse of all kinds. We have no reassurance, judging by what we have seen in recent weeks, about the ethical standards of the team in place at this time. And there have been other instances in the past.

It is my impression today that what we are seeing is a government public relations exercise. The Prime Minister has revealed a certain number of measures to govern the actions of his supporting team. At the same time, he has tried to include some guidelines for the leadership race which pits him against his former finance minister, but I doubt that the motivation for this is to elevate general ethical standards, particular since his announcements are virtually toothless in the short term.

There is reference to doing something in connection with MPs as well. They claim a desire to do some housecleaning. This fall, the government will try to steer us toward some other program so that we will sort of lose sight of this one. I am very anxious to see the actual bill that will amend the Elections Act with respect to the funding of political parties, for example. People are contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars, and then we hear about the contracts they have obtained. This is a major problem. Often, these contracts have been obtained in a dubious manner, as we have seen with the sponsorship programs.

If this practice existed with the sponsorship programs—which we know about—there is also what we do not know about. The government has more spending programs for advertising than sponsorship programs. I have the feeling that there may also be potential intermediaries in the government media placement. Is it the same system that is in place?

Will it take another year or two to learn, through access to information requests, that Groupaction and others are not only connected to sponsorship programs? We already know that they have connections in other departments, be it justice or defence, for example, but are they elsewhere as well? And, regarding the $40 million in sponsorships, are there more ramifications?

I have the feeling that the government does not want to share this information. This is why we have not given up on our idea of getting to the bottom of the sponsorship scandal, which could also reveal more about all the ramifications between these communication firms and the government in general.

The motion before us proposes that a committee be appointed, and a substantial amendment was just moved a few minutes ago. We will have to examine it further before making a definitive judgment.

From what I understood, the amendment proposes that the ethics counsellor report to parliament, and not to the Prime Minister. This is more than desirable. I do not want to attack the individual personally, but the current ethics counsellor has lost all credibility because of the very nature of his position. He is paid by the Prime Minister and reports to him.

It is important to the public that there be a credible ethics counsellor. If the government wants to introduce ethics standards and get people to trust what it does, the people it appoints and the nature of the position they occupy deserve this trust on the part of the public. This is an important criterion.

It is a bit like the auditor general, who has the public's trust. There are bodies which have the public's trust because people know that they are independent and that they are not there to protect the government, but to try to defend citizens. So the auditor general model is much more appropriate because of the autonomy of the position, than that of the ethics counsellor.

Someone who is around a Prime Minister to give advice to ministers plays the role of political adviser. Having a political adviser handle the ethics side is fine. But when the same individual has responsibility for ethics, this poses a problem.

Obviously, we are in this situation which led up to a sequence of events, from the Auberge Grand-Mère to where we are today, where the Prime Minister and ministers have been involved in scandals and misuse of public funds.

While the public at large condemns what happened, the ethics counsellor still finds it normal. There is certainly a problem there.

This will give us an opportunity to discuss these issues in the fall, because we are not opposed to the creation of this committee and we intend to participate in its work. Of course, we will see if its mandate is modified somewhat by the proposed amendment. We took part last time. We had things to say, and we will have things to say again this time.

However, we will not lose sight of the fact that ethical standards for ministers and for the government need to be raised, the elections act needs to be amended, and all that will be done at the same time. We will take part in this effort to develop a code of conduct for parliamentarians.

That is basically what I had to say today. We will have more to say in the fall when we take part in the committee's work. Surely summer will be an inspiration. It will give all members an opportunity to listen to their constituents and find out what they think about the way public funds have been managed in light of recent events.

Let us hope that it will inspire many of us and that we will indeed give ourselves the tools we need to work effectively and to regain the confidence of the public. It is our duty to do so. However, the government must be sincere in this initiative. It must not turn this into a political show, merely to divert attention from the major crisis that has rocked the government.

[Statutory Instruments Act, June 11th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, tonight we are debating Bill C-202, a private members' bill from the member for Surrey Central, one of the co-chairs of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations.

This bill may appear highly technical for those following the debate, but it is very important for parliamentarians, particularly given that many governmental decisions are made in the regulations rather than in the acts per se.

The purpose of this bill is to improve procedure so that members of the House can disallow a statutory instrument. People should know that there is a parliamentary committee that reviews regulations. It assesses the regulations and their consistency with the statute. In other words, it ensures that the regulations are legally justified, that they are well drafted and that they are within a justified context, with a solid legal foundation.

Occasionally, it is surprising to observe that by a simple error, and not because of bad intentions, statutory instruments are not consistent with the statute, which can lead to significant problems.

In other cases, it is clearly the lack of good faith in certain departments that leads them to draft statutory instruments where they have a tendency to expand powers more than they could otherwise.

As such, when members identify such a situation, they report it to the House. The bill at hand would improve the procedure available to members to disallow these regulations, but also to pressure the government to let the House debate these issues.

I am lucky—or unlucky, depending on your perspective—to sit on the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations, where the work is very technical, but nonetheless very interesting. We study cases where, after having identified a problem, we advise the department concerned, which then tells us “Your regulations are not consistent. You must redraft them. You are overstepping your powers”. Then an exchange of correspondence and discussions take place for years between the Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations and the departments involved. In cases such as these, the process is ineffective and meaningless.

Obviously, there are a great many statutory instruments, and I have a great deal of respect for those involved in drafting them. They are very competent people who are required to process an inordinate amount of information in a short time. However, the significant workload leads to problems. Furthermore, we must at least feel as though parliament has the will to correct things when problems are identified.

The remarks of the Liberal member who said “The government is always prepared to listen to new ideas to help elected members be more effective, but we will not support this bill” concern me.

For those who know how statutory instruments are dealt with, the process lacks any teeth. Ministers and departments do not take us seriously.

There has been talk since December about disallowing regulations based on exchanges or a disagreement between the committee and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, in this case, but nothing ever comes of it. We never manage to do as much as we want. It is even complex getting the committee report on disallowance concurred in, but as soon as it is, the House will have to at least look into the matter in a more efficient fashion.

I will not dwell on the technicalities of the legislation, but there is pressure to respond within the short timeframe within the bill, which I find very interesting. The member in question knows a great deal about the subject, which is based on a recommendation that goes back some 15 years, to move in that direction. So, this is an idea that is again being raised here to say “This is something we should have done a long time ago”.

I feel compelled to warn members that they should be concerned about the fact so much goes through regulations instead of the legislative process.

If we members of parliament want to retain some control over the decisions taken, the legislation has to be as explicit as possible. When regulations are made to complement the act, as is the case for immigration here, mechanisms have to be enshrined in the act to ensure that the political base for the legislation is reviewed.

Today for example, in connection with the Immigration Act, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration has the power to review the regulations. The minister had to table them in the House. It is therefore not something that we see regularly, but it is at least going in the right direction.

However, many departments and ministers do not place such constraints on themselves. The governor in council is adopting many regulations that are not submitted to us.

One of the objectives of the member's bill is to ensure that when there are problems with the on the legal foundation or basis for the regulations, we can at least take this power back or give ourselves tools to make ministers and departments more accountable to this House.

I can therefore only applaud this initiative. I will support it and urge my colleagues to do the same. I hope that a majority of members will support it, so that we can finally have greater influence on decisions made in this House, perform to the maximum our role as members and balance a little better the powers between ministers and departments, and the members of parliament.

I support the member's initiative because it gives us a little more teeth to do our job. When time comes, I will support it.

[Government Contracts, June 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, ethics rules existed, and despite this, millions of dollars were shamelessly misappropriated in the sponsorship affair.

The Prime Minister can try as he will to divert our attention with new ethics rules to clean up his act and that of his ministers, but he cannot erase the past.

Does he not understand that a true public inquiry is needed, and that this is the only acceptable way for him to respond to the scandals that are plaguing his government?

[Government Contracts, June 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister can try as he will to distract us from the sponsorship issue by introducing a new code of ethics, but he cannot do anything about the many scandals plaguing his government, which even the Deputy Prime Minister refuses to defend.

Will the Prime Minister admit that ethics rules are irrelevant if people spend most of their time trying to circumvent them, as is the case with the Prime Minister and his ministers in the sponsorship affair?

[Government Contracts, June 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, how can the Deputy Prime Minister justify the attitude and answers in the House of the Prime Minister, who expressed surprise, who said he wanted to tighten up the ethics code, who denied the ties between his ministers and the communication firms, when today we find out that all his answers were part of a previously hatched communication plan to limit the damage?

[Government Contracts, June 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, not only did the Prime Minister know, but the government has continued to hand out contracts, dozens and dozens of them, since August 2000, when the Prime Minister was informed of the situation.

The newspapers have reported more examples today involving the Montreal Grand Prix. To top it all, he appointed the same minister again, Alfonso Gagliano, to continue the whole operation.

Is this not proof that, far from wanting to rectify the situation, the Prime Minister had decided to keep it going?

[Main Estimates, 2002-2003, June 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the members of the Bloc Quebecois will vote against this motion.

[Supply, June 4th, 2002]

If members wish to hear my answer, perhaps they could at least listen. I am certain that many events in small communities have much more merit than coming to the assistance of the Montreal Expos, the Montreal Canadiens, the Ottawa Senators, the Toronto Raptors, or the Vancouver Grizzlies.

I am sure that the public will find that there was more merit in helping small community projects than professional sports, where those involved earn in the millions.

That is my last question, because I know that time is running out. In the House, the minister was very surprised when we told him that the federal government had bought advertising space in L'Almanach du peuple at a cost of $500,000 a year, when the government of Quebec had paid 35 times less for the same amount of space.

I do not know whether he will remember this but he was told in the House that the government of Quebec had paid 35 times less than him for the same advertising space. This goes back ten days or so. He has just taken up his new position. I can understand that it has taken him a certain amount of time to get up to speed.

Where is he at with the audit of contracts handled by Groupe Polygone, which cost the federal government 35 times more than they cost the government of Quebec? Where is he at with that? In this case, there was no RCMP investigation, it was not referred anywhere, and it is completely scandalous that this much money was spent.

Where is he at with his audits concerning the specific case to which I am referring today?