House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2021, with 62% of the vote.
Justice February 20th, 2019
Mr. Speaker, the media reported this morning that the director of public prosecutions informed SNC-Lavalin on September 4, 2018, that the company would not be getting a special deal that would allow it to avoid prosecution. The Prime Minister has denied having met with the former attorney general two weeks later on September 17, 2018, to discuss this matter.
Who asked for this meeting?
Prime Minister’s Office February 19th, 2019
Mr. Speaker, the unintended consequences he is worried about are losing more key staff in the Prime Minister's Office as the truth comes out on this. It is clear that we are just going to get the rehashed talking points and the Prime Minister's rhetoric, trying to convince Canadians that there is nothing to see here.
I will ask a specific question that should be easy for him to answer. The Budget Implementation Act became law on June 21, 2018, which means that is when deferred prosecution agreements became possible. Can the Prime Minister tell the House how many times since June 21 of last year Gerald Butts met with the former attorney general?
Justice February 19th, 2019
Mr. Speaker, when these allegations were first raised, the Prime Minister tried to dismiss them as being completely false. His story then changed multiple times. He has blamed several individuals, and now his principal adviser has quit.
However, there is one person who could clear up a lot of the issues around this situation, and that is the one person the Prime Minister will not allow to speak. He continually speaks for the former attorney general, but I believe Canadians would like to hear directly from her.
Will the Prime Minister do the right thing, waive the attorney-client privilege that he claims to have, and let the former attorney general speak?
Prime Minister's Office February 19th, 2019
Mr. Speaker, Canadians are losing confidence in the government because every single day the story changes. Now the explanation is that Gerald Butts was so good at his job that he just had to resign amid scandal, but it is a continuation of a theme we have seen for days now.
First, the Prime Minister tried to blame the former attorney general. Then he tried to blame Scott Brison, all the while he was directing Liberals on the justice committee to block attempts at inviting key officials to testify.
Do these sound like the actions of a man who has nothing to hide?
Prime Minister's Office February 19th, 2019
Mr. Speaker, if that is the case, then why did Mr. Butts resign? The Prime Minister's story on this has changed multiple times since the scandal was first brought to light. Now we find out that the key strategist in the Liberal Prime Minister's Office, the architect of the Liberal government policy, has resigned. However, in so doing, he is pretending that he has done nothing wrong.
If the Prime Minister is so sure that these allegations are false, and if Mr. Butts did nothing wrong, why did the Prime Minister accept his resignation?
Prime Minister's Office February 19th, 2019
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's principal secretary resigned yesterday. We know that it is because of the corruption scandal involving the Prime Minister's Office, but his trusted adviser and confidant claims that he has done nothing wrong.
If the principal secretary is innocent, why did the Prime Minister accept his resignation?
Business of Supply February 19th, 2019
Madam Speaker, we are talking about an extremely serious allegation of potential criminal interference in an ongoing court case. This is about powerful people protecting their powerful friends. This is about one set of rules for some and one set of rules for everyone else. Apparently, the former attorney general took a stand, and we would like to hear from her as to what went on. I would like to hear her version of events.
The member described this as a he-said-she-said situation. I would say it is even worse than that. It is “he said, and he is saying what she said”. That is not right. It is completely unacceptable that the Prime Minister would allow this to continue. He has the power to raise the attorney general to the same level that he has been on for the past few weeks. He is putting words in her mouth and asking Canadians to take his word for his version of events. I am tired of that. I know Canadians are frustrated at the cover-up and the stonewalling. It is time he let her speak.
Business of Supply February 19th, 2019
Madam Speaker, this motion is clearly necessary because, just last week, the Liberal members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights blocked the measures we wanted to take to get to the truth.
We invited people at the centre of the scandal to appear before the committee to talk about their version of events. Every Liberal member of the committee voted against the motion. What a coincidence.
This motion is extremely necessary, because we saw what Liberals did when they had a majority on a committee. We wanted to invite the key figures at the centre of the scandal, those individuals who had meetings with SNC-Lavalin and those individuals who then went on to have meetings with the former attorney general.
Instead, the Liberals used their majority on that committee to invite three people who had no knowledge of the events at the time. In fact, the current Attorney General told the House that he was not privy to any of those discussions. Why would the committee need to hear from people who do not have any knowledge of what went on?
When Liberals have majorities on committees, they play their partisan games. They thwart the course of justice. That is why this motion to have an inquiry in full public light is so important.
Business of Supply February 19th, 2019
Madam Speaker, that is true, but my team and I have always been transparent about that meeting.
That being said, in the case before us, the Prime Minister failed to monitor the discussions his team was having with SNC-Lavalin. We are very curious to know whether the government met its obligations.
I know the parliamentary secretary would very much like to distract Canadians and this House from aspects of these types of things. Parliament is free to set whatever law it likes. It is free to set whatever penalties it likes.
However, what Parliament and the government are not free to do is pick up the phone and interfere with an ongoing criminal proceeding. That is the crux of this matter. That is what the Prime Minister stands accused of.
Business of Supply February 19th, 2019
Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Milton.
I thank the member for Timmins—James Bay for moving this motion today. I am proud to say that the official opposition will support it unanimously.
Before speaking to the importance of holding a public inquiry, I would like to talk about why this issue matters to us, as a country. We are and must always be a country governed by the rule of law. This essentially means that when we, as parliamentarians, pass a law on behalf of those who elected us, we are not above that law.
We are all subject to the rule of law. We are all equal under it. We are bound by its conventions, and our political or societal status does not entitle any one of us to special treatment under it. These core principles of the rule of law must be upheld for any democracy to function. As history tells us, whenever the rule of law is impeded or subverted or corrupted, the consequences can be extreme. We cannot claim to be a country under the rule of law when political agendas can dictate the course of justice, and that is precisely what the Prime Minister and his office stand accused of.
To understand the severity of these allegations, which the Prime Minister has yet to credibly refute, we have to go back to 2015. SNC-Lavalin, a major Canadian construction firm, was charged with bribing the Libyan government under dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Eager to avoid prosecution, the company launched a massive two-year campaign to lobby the new Liberal government for a special judicial proceeding that would get it off the hook. The lobbying worked. The mechanism to secure that ruling was wedged into an 800-page omnibus budget bill and became the law of the land.
Up until this point, no laws had been broken. The aggressive lobbying and legislative manoeuvres that followed were certainly suspicious, but not illegal. However, that all changed when the push to cut SNC-Lavalin a special deal met resistance inside the justice department.
After carefully examining the SNC-Lavalin case, the director of public prosecutions decided to move forward with criminal prosecution. That is when the political operatives of the Prime Minister's Office sprung into action.
According to the Globe and Mail, the Prime Minister's Office pressured the then attorney general to overrule the decision by the director of public prosecutions and to grant SNC-Lavalin the special deal that the company had sought for some time.
When the justice minister did not do it, presumably out of devotion to the rule of law she was duty bound to protect, the Prime Minister fired her. At the time, she said in a written statement, “It is a pillar of our democracy that our system of justice be free from even the perception of political interference and uphold the highest levels of public confidence.”
We did not know it at the time, but that statement foreshadowed what would later come to light: the alarming possibility that the Prime Minister's Office exerted its power to influence the administration of justice, or to put it another way, when the justice department said no to SNC-Lavalin, the Prime Minister's Office would not take no for an answer.
Many have attempted to describe the profound seriousness of these allegations, but none have done so better than the former Ontario Liberal attorney general, Michael Bryant, who said that when he was prosecuting cases, if a politician had ever called him up, he would have put down the phone and called the police.
Since these allegations have surfaced, the Prime Minister and his office have engaged in an obvious cover-up. He refuses to waive solicitor-client privilege, as prime ministers before him have done when the public interest has demanded it. Doing so would allow the former attorney general to speak to tell Canadians her side of the story, but the Prime Minister has kept her silent to protect himself.
Last week, the Liberals on the justice committee voted in lockstep to keep the truth from coming out, defeating a motion calling on several key PMO and government officials, including the former attorney general, to testify in front of all Canadians.
The Prime Minister continues to change his version of the facts and to hide behind others. He blames everyone, from his own office's staff to Scott Brison, and even the former attorney general, for the mess in which he finds himself. Those are not the actions of a prime minister with nothing to hide. He is mistaken if he thinks that the resignation of his closest advisor is going to make this go away.
Thus, I will request once again that the Prime Minister immediately waive solicitor-client privilege and allow the former attorney general to speak.
The way in which the story has unfolded, with almost daily changes to the Prime Minister's version of events, high-profile resignations, anonymously sourced smear campaigns, and coordinated cover-up manoeuvring, suggests this is not an ordinary political scandal. Something more sinister is at play here.
Section 139 of the Criminal Code deals with obstruction of justice. I draw the attention of the House to subsection (2), which reads:
Every one who wilfully attempts in any manner other than a manner described in subsection (1) to obstruct, pervert or defeat the course of justice is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years.
It would be up to the police to decide whether what transpired between the Prime Minister's Office and the former attorney general of Canada was criminal. I expect this matter to be brought to their attention shortly, if it has not already.
I have always said that all options were possible. If a crime has been committed, then those responsible have to be punished accordingly.
Today I am proud to stand with my colleagues to support this motion urging the Prime Minister to waive privilege in this case. Canadians are tired of hearing him speak for the former attorney general. It is time Canadians heard from the former attorney general herself.