Ken Epp

[Ethics, March 21st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.

The ethics counsellor has condemned a recent junket of MPs to Cuba which he himself said was outside his jurisdiction. Did the ethics counsellor initiate this investigation himself, or was it at the request of the Prime Minister?

[Canada Post, March 20th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, this event sounds an awful lot like the Pearson airport deal which was also started by the previous administration.

I would like to ask the minister for some clarification on behalf of Canadian taxpayers. Will he, when he conducts his investigation, also make public to the Canadian taxpayers who are footing the bill the terms and conditions of the lease agreement?

[Canada Post, March 20th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, last Tuesday the Prime Minister told the House that he would not undertake an investigation into the Perez affair. On Friday, however, the Solicitor General admitted that the minister of public works was conducting his own investigation into the incident.

What type of investigation is this? What assurances will the minister give the House that the investigation will be open and non-partisan?

[Charitable And Non-Profit Organization Director Remuneration Disclosure Act, March 17th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure and an honour to speak in favour of the motion.

A couple of things have come to mind in the last few minutes while I have been listening to the other speakers. I would be remiss if I did not add to the commendation of the hon. member who has proposed this bill. I have had the privilege of working with him in the Bill C-43 committee. It is a very healthy sign and gives me a little glimmer of hope that perhaps there are some Liberals who do believe in accountability. Sometimes we get the impression that is not there.

The hon. member was instrumental in adding to the strength of Bill C-43 in a couple of areas, in particular disclosing. When lobbyists receive government funds they must now disclose it. I believe disclosure is the first step to elimination of receiving the funds.

The best legislation in the House seems to come from private members. It is really the only time when we have this large envelope of unanimity. Perhaps we ought to consider changing the rules of the House and have government business the last time of the day on Friday and have private members' bills the rest of the time. Perhaps we would be able to change the system.

I commend the member on this principle. It is close to my heart because I believe strongly in charities and the work they do. I also believe in accountability. If it were not for that I would not have come here as a member of Parliament. That was one of my prime motivations.

I remember listening to my son whom I have mentioned before in the House. He is currently working as an administrator in an orphanage in Rwanda for a charitable organization. He and his wife are helping to look after some 400 children whose parents were killed in the unfortunate occurrence there. My son has been doing this type of work for five or six years, having been in Somalia, in the Sudan, in Bosnia and in other areas. He made a statement that I thought was very significant. He said that in the areas where he has worked the non-government organizations, the NGOs, are about twice or more as efficient as government organizations.

He talked about salaries. When he goes there he basically gets an expense allowance and that is about it. Whereas other people who are supposed to be helping receive huge salaries. He said he could not believe it. I will not mention the organizations because that would be unkind since they are not here to defend themselves. After working over there for five or ten years some of the people he mentioned will come back to Canada with a pile of wealth in their accounts because they were not spending it over there.

A charitable organization has potential for the greatest accountability. The whole idea of bringing the good we do to help people down to people and away from government needs to be strengthened. That will happen if we open the accountability and the desire of organizations to be open and honest with the people that support them.

In my experiences I made it a policy many years ago of not supporting private charitable organizations that will not open their books. In some instances I have actually written and and said: "Please send me your annual statement for last year. If it is not audited by an independent auditor I will probably not help you". I believe in that principle and it ought to be applied right across the board.

It is refreshing to see it being done in this area of tax expenditure. I say in the very best sense I can that I wish the hon. member for Hamilton-Wentworth would spread this virus of accountability throughout his caucus so we can infect every agency of government with total openness, total accountability and total declarations of how much money was received and how it was spent.

I am pleased to have spoken in favour of the motion. I certainly will be supporting it.

[Supply, March 17th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by focusing on what we are talking about today. Maybe we could begin by agreeing on the things that we agree with.

We agree that all Canadians living in the best country in the world would expect from their government good fiscal management, so that all of our resources, all of the people with all of their energy, with all of their integrity, would be able to manage their affairs. Those affairs that are managed for them by the government would be done in such a way that the benefits are sustainable.

In my short life I have had a number of occasions where we have been beneficiaries of living in this country. The first one is the privilege of being able to come here.

I am a first generation Canadian but I remember distinctly my grandparents. Long before they passed away, they use to speak of the privilege of being in Canada. They did not want handouts. My grandparents were rugged, self-sufficient individualists. When they immigrated to this country they declined government benefits. They said they will live poorly but they will make it. They did.

I am happy to be in a family that has a rich record of helping other people. It is not true that you can only help people by having the government pluck the pockets of the taxpayers, spin it around in the whirlpool in Ottawa, use up a whole bunch of it for administrative purposes, have politicians and bureaucrats decide of the money that is left who is entitled to it. That is a false assumption, if you stop to think about it.

They have not created any money. They have not created any wealth. All they have done is taken the wealth away from the people, thereby reducing their ability to help those around them in need.

I know of what I speak. I am old enough to remember before all of these programs were in place. I remember as a youngster one of our neighbours was very sadly, suddenly and tragically killed in a farm accident. There was no government program at that time to help the widow harvest her crop.

I remember my dad organizing the neighbours. I was probably only five or six. I still remember that our neighbours went and that lady had her crop harvested first. When that was done, each one of the neighbours went back and did their own. That is the essence of charity. That is the essence of looking after people.

There was a young couple my wife and I were familiar with who did not have regular jobs. They had financial difficulties. They obviously needed a lot more help than just money thrown at them. I am very happy to say that one of the best experiences of my life was I, one of the leaders in the group, got a number of mutual friends together. This man who was in financial trouble, was living in subsidized housing and the rent was high. He said he could get into a housing program if only he could get a down payment. There was a house builder who had really good starter homes, but he did not have the down payment. His payments if he got into it would be less than his rent.

The most fun I ever had was when this small group of us could get together. Some of us made a donation to this. Some of us gave interest free loans. We went to this couple and we said we have arranged for the $6,000 they need as a down payment, let us go and buy the house. That was fun. The couple picked up on that and said that they now had an obligation to pay it back. They became more accountable. It did not take them long to pay back the money some of us had given them as interest free loans.

That really was a good experience. However, that was before the government was taxing us to death. Now we are getting more and more government intervention which prevents us from looking after ourselves.

This plan the Reform Party is promoting today simply says: We reject the premise that the government can look after our long term savings, our long term benefits or our temporary need for assistance when we are out of a job. We reject the premise that the government can do it better than we can ourselves or with the help of someone close to us. It is too far away and too inefficient.

[Canada Post, March 17th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, integrity is missing; the perception of it is missing. This is not the first time the Reform Party has asked for the ethics counsellor to investigate issues on behalf of Canadians. Every time we get the answer no. It seems the Prime Minister is only willing to unleash his ethics lap dog when it is suitable to the government.

If the government is unwilling to let the ethics counsellor investigate in matters of public contracts, why should Canadians have any trust at all in the ethics counsellor of the lobbyists act?

[Canada Post, March 17th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, irrespective of the minister's answer, a number of serious issues need to be addressed.

Developers need to be assured that Mr. Perez had no unfair advantage. Taxpayers need to be assured that their money is being spent correctly and wisely. Most of all, Canadians need to be assured that either the politicians and bureaucrats did nothing wrong, or if they did do something wrong that they will be exposed.

I have a supplementary question. Will the government's presumed commitment to restoring integrity in the political institutions allow the ethics commissioner to investigate these issues?

[Canada Post, March 17th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, we have trouble right here in Ottawa city; that starts with t and it rhymes with e and that spells ethics.

All this week the Reform Party has been asking the Prime Minister to direct the ethics counsellor to investigate the Canada Post building contract and the influence of Jose Perez and political officials in the tendering process. The Prime Minister has refused our request on the grounds that these events took place under a previous administration.

How would an investigation of the postal building contract differ from the investigation of the Pearson airport contract which also took place under a previous administration?

[Supply, March 17th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to this speech. There were a couple of anomalies within it which we should think about.

She indicated this was an old thinking, knee-jerk reaction. To me that is an oxymoron. Knee-jerk is something not thought of before.

The principles we are espousing are based on both experience and thinking. We have found the country did best when there was the least amount of government, when there was less intrusion. To now say we should once again use those principles of self-sufficiency and encourage people to look after themselves and making it possible for them to do that is not knee-jerk. That is good, solid thinking.

The member said Canadians reject this. She said that several times. That is not my experience. I have shared this concept with a number of people for over a year. I am pleased the ideas we had are now coming forward in the House. I have yet to hear a single person indicate anything but enthusiasm for this concept.

With respect to the reduction of old age security benefits, the member made mention that Reform is saying we are going to cut back. I want to make it very clear, I want everyone to know we are forced into this, not by what Reform is doing but what governments over the last 30 years have done. We have run out of money and the Reform policy is to target the remaining money, as little as there is, to those who have true need.

When we are talking about reducing old age security, we are talking about reducing to those who do not need it because they have an income over the national average.

We would be most honest with Canadians if we were to say the Canada pension plan is at risk because we will not have the money. That is the result of Liberal and Conservatives governments. That has to come to an end.

[Canada Post, March 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, this is now the third time that we have asked for a response or a study or an investigation by the ethics counsellor. The answer we have received each time is: "No, no, no".

If the Prime Minister will only authorize the ethics counsellor to investigate when it is safe, when and who is going to investigate controversial issues like this one for which Canadians demand an answer?