Ken Epp

[Criminal Code, April 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, several times in her speech the member said that all Canadians are entitled to their opinion. I remind everyone that she voted for Bill C-250 which rather decidedly prevents people from expressing their opinion. That is a serious error of the Liberal government.

On this bill, she says that the judge will take into account the age of the victim and the age difference of the so-called perpetrator. If I were the father of a 13 year old girl, and many years ago I was, and the 14 or 15 year old neighbour, near in age, smooth talked her into doing things that I believed were immoral and wrong, I believe that person should be just as guilty as if being a 20 or 21 year old. They may not do that.

In that sense, the bill fails to protect our children. A 13 year old girl or boy is entitled to protection of the law. The bill does not provide that. As emphatically as she said it, but on the other side, I urge all members to vote for this motion to send it back to committee so we can get it right and actually protect our children instead of having a bill that just has in the heading, protection of children.

[Committees of the House, April 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of his speech, the member went on and on about how the new Prime Minister is repairing democracy in this place and fighting the democratic deficit. I would like to remind him of the fact that it was the Prime Minister who, in just a matter of days after the House opened following his appointment as Prime Minister, invoked closure for the first time.

I would like to point out that, even in gaining his position as Prime Minister, the man went ahead and basically tied up anything that could be called democratic in the Liberal Party. If we look at those three line vote systems, that is what it has always been. It is just a new name for it. In private members' business, usually members voted according to their individual will, and the cabinet always voted together. It is still that way. There has been no change.

With respect to nominations in the ridings, I find the Prime Minister is about as undemocratic as he can be in some of the ridings, including the Vancouver riding of Burnaby. I challenge him when he says that the new Prime Minister is fighting the democratic deficit. I think he is sustaining it, and even building it.

[Committees of the House, April 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I have another comment and a question with respect to the code, which is that it requires disclosure.

Up until now, members of Parliament, who actually have very little say financially in spending taxpayer money beyond the administration of their own office budgets, have very little to gain. We already have rules in place with respect to conflict of interest in a broad sense that are in the Standing Orders and even in the Canada Elections Act. Now we have a whole bunch of rules, including this disclosure regime, which will be made public.

I wonder whether the member thinks that perhaps such disclosure will serve to discourage otherwise well-qualified candidates from running for public office.

[Committees of the House, April 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I heard the member's words, and I do not for a moment question the sincerity of those words, but I would ask him to comment on something.

We undoubtedly have this motion before us today, the new code of conduct and the rules for the ethics commissioner, because of the fact that there were some scandals that involved the cabinet. It was at that time that the Prime Minister pointed out that there would be a correction of this. The Liberals of course are famous for this. They always like to announce things and appear to be doing things that are necessary, whether they actually do them or not.

I have a bit of a tough question for the member. Does he perhaps have any cynicism in the fact that the rules will now encompass all members of Parliament, where there was not a problem, and show a different set of rules for cabinet ministers, with whom we have had problems in the last number of years?

[Committees of the House, April 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, one more issue that we ought to consider is the fact that this report becomes a part of the Standing Orders and those Standing Orders can actually be amended at any time. The fact is that putting it not into a statute but into the Standing Orders provides for the kind of flexibility the hon. member has just spoken of, so that if there are errors, they can be corrected.

However, Bill C-4 becomes a statute. That is the one that provides specifically the activities of the commissioner and it is much more difficult to change. I would simply point out, probably more as a comment, although I would be interested in the member's response, that this set-up right now is pretty well written in stone. I guess our only hope can be that the newly appointed ethics commissioner will respond according to our expectations.

Although I did not hear it from the government side, the member said and I said and all of us have said that we do expect him to deal honestly, fairly and openly, all those things. Those are the expectations even though I think there is a place in the legislation, in the report we are discussing today and in the ethics code, to weasel out of it if the ethics commissioner were so inclined. But we are hopeful and are expecting that he will not.

[Committees of the House, April 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would reiterate again the concern that was expressed by the member for Saint John. She said that the ethics commissioner, in dealing with public officer holders, has a different role. It is very explicit in section 72.07 of Bill C-4:

The mandate of the Ethics Commissioner in relation to public office holders is

(a) to administer any ethical principles, rules or obligations established by the Prime Minister--

In other words, the Prime Minister establishes them. The bill provides that the Prime Minister must table that in the House so that it is accessible to everyone.

In the previous 10 years, remember that the then prime minister kept saying, “I have this code, I have this code,” but we could not get a copy of it. It took six years of cajoling until finally the thing was made public. Now the legislation requires that it be made public, but the Prime Minister is still the author of it according to the bill.

Also, it says explicitly:

(b) to provide confidential advice to the Prime Minister with respect to those ethical principles, rules or obligations and ethical issues in general; and

(c) to provide confidential advice to a public office holder with respect to the application--

There is all this private and confidential advice referred to. On the one hand I can see where it has some merit. Everything cannot be done out in the public, but how does the public know that the thing is being administered properly if there is all this confidential advice being given to the ministers and the Prime Minister? I would appreciate the member's comments on that.

[Committees of the House, April 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I agree a lot with what the member has just posed as a question. However we must remember that this code will only come into effect at the beginning of the 38th Parliament. The little fact that is hidden in here is that we will be under the Liberal regime until the next election.

Under the present regime, the ethics counsellor provides personal and confidential advice to cabinet ministers and to the Prime Minister. Any public pronouncements that he has made and that have been posted on his website, unfortunately, have, in some instances, been very carefully sanitized so that they, in essence, become part of the damage control team to which I spoke.

I believe that in this code and with the regime of the new ethics commissioner and the rules under which he will operate, there will be more openness. However I think there is still a real danger of sanitization of things. For example, when the Prime Minister was originally suspected of arranging for a loan in his own riding, of which he became an indirect beneficiary, we got no real facts out of that at all.

I will wait eagerly to see whether this new regime will be better but, frankly, I have serious doubts about it.

[Committees of the House, April 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, at that time Senator Oliver and I did not enjoy the fact that we were in the same party. Therefore I do not think I should be held accountable for what he said and did at that time. However, be that as it may, I do not believe an error was made then.

We have to look back in history where there have been cases of cabinet ministers who were perceived to have received benefits through their spouse. It is a huge loophole to say that the member cannot benefit from his position as a parliamentarian but then not to include the fact that usually spouses have a close relationship with each other. My wife and I have been married for 42 years. We have a policy in our house that what is mine is hers and what is hers is hers, and it works very well. For me to give a benefit to my spouse because I am a parliamentarian is just as wrong as if I were to take it for myself. It should be included, it is included and I am quite content with it except for that little aberration.

[Committees of the House, April 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, when standing in the House on a vote, I believe that cabinet ministers are also standing and voting in equality with other members of Parliament. At that stage, they are acting as members of Parliament in the vote. Notwithstanding that, of course, they have an awful lot of clout, as cabinet ministers, in driving forward the agenda that they want.

The real issue here was the fact that the present Prime Minister, then the finance minister, was originally the sponsor of this bill. I think later it was moved to another minister because the government was embarrassed by it. The fact that it was embarrassed by him sponsoring the bill should have indicated the necessity to abstain from voting on it.

This particular code of conduct provides that all members of Parliament shall not vote on an issue in which they have a direct and a personal advantage. I think that is good. I believe that it is now going to be up to members of Parliament to ensure that this part of the code is upheld. When that happens, then we go to the ethics commissioner and we will see whether or not he can make these corrections.

I would like to see the Speaker intervene so that he would disallow the vote as it was taking place.

[Committees of the House, April 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to speak to this motion this morning.

A number of people in my riding admit to watching CPAC regularly. I ask them, through you, Mr. Speaker, if that is the end of the excitement in their life, what do they do in the evenings? I also ask them if they have any other medical problems. Those who are watching CPAC and listening to the debate on the motion to concur in the 25th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs must be saying to themselves that this is another report that will sit on someone's shelf and then be archived so that a 100 years from now people will be able to study it, if they are so inclined to look at the history of the country.

I submit that the motion today is one of great significance because we have an increasing loss of trust and confidence in our political process and in our Parliament. Consequently, having such a code, I believe is first and foremost rather helpful in rebuilding that trust and confidence, just as the purpose of the code says. I would like to remind members why we are here.

It was just a little under two years ago, I believe in June, that the initiative was introduced by then Prime Minister Chrétien. It was a big point plan on increasing ethics in government. We must not forget what it was that triggered that response.

Members will recall that the Auditor General presented her first report at that time on what has now become the ad scam scandal. We will recall that in January of that year, the former minister of public works and government services, Mr. Gagliano, was summarily dismissed from cabinet, dismissed from Parliament and dismissed from the country. He was sent way off to Denmark to do his penance at maybe $200,000 a year. No wonder people are outraged at this place, when they see that this is the way their taxpayer money is being abused and misused. Consequently, the government responded in what I call damage control mode by trying to do whatever it could to put a better spin on this.

Notwithstanding that this was the motivation, I am in concurrence with the report and with the code. I have worked on this. I had the privilege of working way back, about seven or eight years ago, on the Milliken-Oliver report which was an extended study. It was a great exercise. As members know, the first individual mentioned is the present Speaker of the House. The second one is the hon. Senator Oliver who I got to know and really respect and appreciate. When we on this side of the House sometimes cry for the election of senators, I know people like Mr. Oliver would certainly be re-elected because he is a very good, hard-working and a respectable person.

In that committee we dealt with the necessity for a code of conduct for parliamentarians. Now, some seven or eight years later we finally have one. I would like to take this occasion to thank all those people, including the member for Peterborough, who so ably chaired the procedure and House affairs committee as we worked through this, and all staffers who worked so hard as well in doing the research and helping us with this work. In that sense, I am pleased with this.

However, I would also like to point out that this is taking a tremendously large action to solve a problem that does not exist. The committee is recommending that we adopt the code of conduct for parliamentarians. If we adopt it, we adopt its recommendations. The first recommendation is that the conflict of interest code for members of the House of Commons be included in our Standing Orders, and after that become a guide for how we behave as parliamentarians.

However, this is a redundant exercise in a sense. In the years I have been in the House there has not been a single scandal, to my knowledge, involving an ordinary backbench member of Parliament on either the government side or in opposition. I think some have had a few difficulties. I think one or two have had charges of drunken driving, which is a criminal offence, and we need to encourage members of Parliament to not only set laws, but to obey them. That is my own personal code.

I am probably the only person in Ottawa, even walking home at midnight, who stops at walk lights. Everybody walks past me and probably thinks what a stupid man I am. I stop because of two reasons. One, I need the rest and relaxation. It is mandatory. Let us stop and look around a bit instead of always running. The second reason is that it is the law and I believe in obeying the law. That is why I do it. I have a couplet that I use as one of my personal mottos, “You can't be a lawmaker if you are going to be a lawbreaker”. I try to the best of my ability to obey all the laws of the land, even some with which I perhaps do not agree 100%. I do it and members of Parliament should do it.

However, the real issue in the country is not with ordinary members of Parliament. Therefore, I believe the results of this code will be almost non-consequential in the sense that I believe most parliamentarians right now basically are living up to this code already. All it will be is a disclosure and a declaration that indeed they are.

What really disturbs me is the fact that when it comes to ministers of the Crown, the government as they are called, this code only applies to them when they are working as members of Parliament. As we know, all the executive branch is chosen from the rank of elected members of Parliament. Yes, they were elected as members, as all of us are. When they act in a the role of cabinet minister, they become the government and, lo and behold, the bill, which gave essence to this code of conduct, is specific in excluding cabinet ministers when they act in that role.

It says in the bill that when acting as a minister of the Crown, for greater clarify the code shall not apply. I am speaking from memory, but I think the wording is that for greater clarity, the prime minister's code shall apply. There are some who will contend that the prime minister's code is more stringent, and in some areas it is. However, there are other areas in which it is not as stringent. One of those is the whole issue of the public reporting of wrongdoing.

Under the code, we are being asked to adopt, and under the legislation which governs it, if there is misconduct by a backbencher, then the result of that investigation by the ethics commissioner will be made public. It is not clear to me at all in the legislation that if a minister of the Crown does something that is untoward, that will be made public. There is an argument going on because Bill C-4 provides that the ethics commissioner will provide confidential advice to the prime minister on matters of ministers of the Crown.

We have a two tier system here. The first is for MPs who have very little say on government contracts. In fact, let us be honest, they have no say at all. They are being held to a higher standard of ethical conduct than the ministers of the Crown who control, as the public works minister does, budgets of billions of dollars. Right now we are finding that the accountability is just absent.

I would like to digress for a few seconds about the ethics commissioner himself. We heard him in committee the other day. Very frankly, Dr. Shapiro presents a good resumé. When the issue came up earlier today on whether or not the House should concur in his appointment, we did not object strenuously. We objected only on the basis of the method of choice.

I object to the fact that he was invited by the Prime Minister's Office to serve in this role. His name was put forward and then we had a debate in a Liberal dominated committee and a vote in a Liberal dominated House.

In this particular instance, as I said, I have no reason to have any lack of trust in the new person who is going to be appointed. However, it is very near sighted of us in this place to set up a process that only fits the here and now. There will come a time in the future where the choice of the person by the government will not meet the approval of all of the members on this side.

There is no mechanism which would require meaningful input from opposition parties. The government, especially if it is a majority government, can in effect choose whom it will, whether that person has the approval of members over here or not.

I trust that Dr. Shapiro will do a good and honourable job. In fact, I have told him personally that it is my expectation. We shall await eagerly to see how he does his work. Personally, I think we should give him our utmost cooperation.

As a little aside, I think that the attitude of the Liberal government in doing this, unfortunately, is exactly the antithesis of what we are trying to accomplish with this particular motion today.

I would like to point out that by jamming through, with the government's majority, its method of choice over the protestations of all of the members in opposition has actually helped to increase the distrust of Canadians. If Canadians see that they ask, “Why do they not trust all the members of Parliament? Why do they only trust themselves with their whipped votes?” That is also a very serious issue with respect to the trust that people have.

I would like to make a few comments about some of the issues in the motion. I took note of one of the things that it says in the definitions. In the definition for a common law partner in relation to the code, it states:

--with respect to a Member, means a person who is cohabiting with the Member in a conjugal relationship--

About 20 to 25 years ago then Prime Minister Trudeau said “The government has no place in the bedrooms of the nation”. I think most of us agree with that. That is very intrusive of the government. Here we are saying that if members are living at the same address with persons and not cohabiting in that sense, they are excluded. That is a fat joke.

Interestingly, this morning I got word in my office here in Ottawa that there are people who are separated, and sometimes even divorced, but because of financial necessity they must still live in the same house. Therefore, he lives in the basement and she lives upstairs. They have totally separate lives, but the income tax department is now saying that they are still spouses because they have the same address. It does not allow them to separate their income tax forms.

That came to my attention just this morning. It has nothing to do with this motion, but it shows how silly it is for us to define members who are cohabiting by including that term “conjugal relationship”. Who is ever going to tell whether they are conjugating? Members know what I mean.

The member's family is also wrapped into this and I mentioned this in a question to the parliamentary secretary earlier. It says that this includes all of the people. We really debated this in committee and we have come up with a reasonably good solution.

If members of Parliament receive personal gain through their spouse or through their underage children, that is offensive. But at the same time, many of us have children who are adults in their own right and they ought to and properly are excluded. It involves only members or common-law partners and dependent children in essence.

I would like to point out the fact that there are some useful exclusions of activities that are acceptable. One, for example, is that members of Parliament are not considered in a conflict of interest if they continue to carry on a business. We know that many members do and that would be an intrusion in their lives to require them, if they run for public office, to sell their little family business or whatever they have going.

Here is one. It states that a member shall not participate in debate on or vote on a question in which he or she has a private interest. I do not know whether the members present here recall, but not very long ago we had a motion when we had a conflict going between who was the real prime minister in this place. We had the previous prime minister, Mr. Chrétien, sitting there as the nominal prime minister and the prime minister in waiting at that time who had been or was about to be chosen by his party. They were both in control of certain aspects of government. We had a motion on when this transition should take place. I took note of the fact that in that vote the former prime minister and the former finance minister, the present Prime Minister, both voted on that.

According to this code, that would not be possible. What distresses me is that this was not permitted then, but they did it anyway, with impunity in my opinion. We need to be careful about this.

There is a whole issue on gifts; receiving, disclosure of them and travel. Those are all really good things because of the fact that this can influence members of Parliament and cabinet ministers.

I hope that on the adoption of this code and on the appointment of a new ethics commissioner that things improve around this place. I hope that we do not degenerate into partisan attacks using the commissioner now for partisan attacks, instead of as has been done in the past, using him as part of the damage control team. I can see this potential. We need to be warned about it.

One of the issues in this code is that when there is a complaint against a member, it will ultimately come to a vote right in this House. If we have a majority government, of say Conservative members over there next time, I hope that we will withhold our partisanship when voting on the outcome of such a debate. Let us be sure that as true parliamentarians we obey the rules of fairness.

In conclusion, to me personally, the whole code of conduct can be wrapped up in two short sentences. First, do not lie. Second, do not steal.