Brian Murphy

[Standing up for Victims of White Collar Crime Act, October 4th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on this bill today, Bill C-21. I should have thought more clearly this morning when I got up. It seems that every speaker who has risen on this topic is wearing a white collar. I wish I had the good sense of the member for Yukon, who is sporting a lovely burgundy shirt.

I speak as a lawyer, as a member of Parliament, as a Canadian citizen, as a person who has known victims, organizations, and individuals who have been robbed by white collar criminals. White collar crime costs the Canadian economy dearly, and it costs the good, hard-working citizens who fall prey to fraudsters much more than members may know. They are common, everyday occurrences.

Bill C-21 sends the right message. There is no debate here in the House about this : to crack down on white collar crime is the right thing to do, and it sends the right message. This House and we parliamentarians within it are serious about keeping Canadians safe from fraud. That is perhaps where the non-partisan enjoyment and harmony ends. For fraud is not harmless. Nor is it victimless. It disproportionately preys upon the weak in our society and Canadians will not stand for it.

Bill C-21 recognizes the harm that fraud causes to innocent victims. This bill adds aggravating factors to the list of the judge's considerations during sentencing. In addition to the provisions regarding planning crimes and destroying documents, the provisions in this bill allow a judge to consider the personal circumstances of the victims, namely their age, health and financial situation. The bill includes a measure enabling communities to provide victim impact statements that can then be taken into consideration by judges. It is important to leave this to the consideration and discretion of the judges. Impact statements can include a description of how the fraud has devastated the entire community. For example, a church that has had its savings stolen or an after-school program that was defrauded can make its situation known to parishioners or students in the community. These are some of the good things in this bill.

The bill makes mandatory the consideration of an order for restitution, a chance for victims of fraud to recover some of their lost savings, a chance for reparations to be made. It permits a judge to prohibit offenders from taking any employment or volunteering services in any way that provides them access to, or authority over, the property, money, or financial security of others. In that world, there is no re-victimization by the same perpetrator. These are all good measures.

It is why the bill will go to committee for study. We hope that the committee will improve the bill, for these are good measures that will strengthen the Criminal Code and provide some comfort for the cheated and maligned. But, like many bills in the House, we would not want to leave the Canadian public, or those who have been victimized before by fraudsters, with the impressio that the bill will cure all the evils of the past, the present, and the future. It is woefully inadequate in that regard, and it raises some hopes that may not come to fruition.

I have a couple of categories that came up during some of the question and answer sessions. One of these has to do with restitution. It seems like a good step to provide for restitution. There are provisions in the Criminal Code that allow for victim impact statements. There are provisions in various parts of the country being enmeshed in the Criminal Code that give the authority to take over the assets of someone who has performed an economic crime. These things happen. But the provisions in this act do not, as the member for Scarborough—Rouge River mentioned, make it clear whose role it is, who will be driving the prosecution, and whether the prosecution's goal will be getting the wrongdoer to repay the money. It is unclear. We will hear testimony on this; perhaps it is something that can be worked on.

As has also been brought up, there is the continuing and lurking question of tax havens. We live in an Internet age, a digital age, an age where we cannot find addresses. We used to know what an address was. If they did not have an emergency response number on their box, at least we knew it was farmer Joe, next to farmer Bill, next to the fish market, in our case in eastern Canada. But addresses now may be static Internet addresses. They may be people in ether, people who do not really have a place where we can go and knock on their virtual or other door and get the money they have taken from other people. So tax havens follow that digital reality where fraudsters can hide money away, hard-earned money from Canadian citizens that now rests in foreign jurisdictions.

The bill is a step forward. But there is a question that is very much out there: in almost five years, what has the government done, what has this country done, about tax havens, about people who defraud other Canadians of money, packing it away in other jurisdictions from which it cannot be accessed and returned to its rightful owners?

What the bill lacks is a mechanism for prevention. As a country, as a Parliament, as a government, we are all in the same boat with respect to aims. How common is it that we all have the same aim? We want to prevent white-collar crime, prevent fraud perpetrated on the weakest in our society. The churches, the after-school kindergartens, the minor hockey associations, the women's institute groups, the Catholic Women's League, seniors, handicapped people: these groups are defrauded of millions of dollars every year. How can we as a Parliament strike together to prevent this?

There is the penalty phase. But let us be clear: the bill is mostly about the penalty phase. I don't want to strain the analogy, but if we want to stop violence in hockey we might start with the young, the minor groups. We might talk about how it is not the right thing to do. Things are not always effected in the penalty phase. In the criminal justice world, it is the same.

This bill speaks only about the penalty phase of fraud being perpetrated. Are we going to prevent fraud from happening by a shell game of penalties for people who have already socked the money away? In other words, we are going to penalize people from whom we are not likely to get the money.

In this society of ours, we have a hierarchy of offences. It is recognized in the Criminal Code, which sets out crimes against the person, crimes against property, and even crimes against the state. We consider, and rightly so, that crimes against a person are of a higher magnitude than crimes against property. Crimes against property came from the old west days, when stealing a horse meant stealing someone's livelihood, and if they were stealing someone's livelihood, they were hurting a family. Horse thievery was a very important offence. It is right there in the modern Criminal Code. It came down to us from 1892. It is a very high-ranking offence.

However, people do not go around stealing horses as much anymore. Instead, they go around stealing nest eggs, people's lifelong hard-earned savings, through fraudulent means. How are we to give this offence more importance?

We should look at the whole Criminal Code and consider prevention, as we would with any other crime. How do we stop violent crime? We look at early childhood intervention, the social causes of crime, and the socio-economic milieu in which recidivism is rampant.

How do we get at the prevention of economic crimes? It seems to me that people who commit sophisticated economic crimes through fraud are people who are using electronic and social media as well as means of communication controlled by the Government of Canada through agencies.

Why does the government not come forward with modern methods to prevent the use of regulated tools of fraud? This would go a long way towards stopping fraud from happening in the first place.

The fourth general point in my remarks has to do with something I heard a lot about from this side of the House and in the communities across this country. At one time, I was a mayor, and I know what it is like to have a police force doing important work in a community. Police forces across this country are asking for more resources.

What has the government actually done to help the police? I don't mean on paper, in a speech, or on the five o'clock news. What are the police chiefs saying? What is the Canadian Police Association saying about actual boots on the street? They are saying they do not have enough resources. If we prioritize, however, they will take crimes against the person more seriously than economic crimes against the household income.

With more resources, the police who serve our communities will do more than they can now. The blame for failing to confront the growing elements of fraud lies with the government. After five years of talking about making Canada safe, they have done very little about it. Ask any policeperson who has not been bullied into saying nothing by the threat of withdrawing funds from the local force, city, community, region, or MP.

We are here as opposition members to stand up for good, hard-working policemen across this country who tell us they need more resources to combat fraud. That is what we would like to see.

As to Bill C-21, it has been said many times in this House, and by many members of every party, that there is no greater fraud than a promise not kept. This may sound like just another pithy phrase, but it rings true in the hearts of Canadians, and it has been said many times outside this House.

This bill is an example of a promise not kept. The promise was not kept because it had a different number, and we were prorogued and sent home. We could not do our work. The bill that was just the same as this one did not see the light of day, because the Conservatives prorogued Parliament and sent us home.

That is a fraud because it is a promise not kept. The Conservatives said that they would do something about fraud and white collar crime and then they pulled the plug on the bathtub of Parliament and we went home. This bill is not law because the House was prorogued and it died on the order paper. That was last year. We are talking about the bill as if it is something new.

Canadians who have fallen victim to fraud since prorogation should look across the way and ask this question. If the bill was not contentious and if the guys on the other side were going to let it go through, why did the government prorogue? Then maybe their aunt or daughter's hockey team would not have been defrauded of all that money because the bill would have been perfected, approved in committee and passed. It would be law now. That is the biggest fraud so far in the speech today. The Conservatives did not keep their promise. They did not do anything about white collar crime.

There are other aspects of the bill that hopefully will be tightened up in committee. However, there is an overriding element to the bill that surely we have debated this long enough and the government must see that it must question the insertion of mandatory minimums in the bill as well. The bill provides nothing for the prevention of crime, as I said, only punishments after the fact.

No jail sentence or restitution can make up for the sense of betrayal and hurt that follows a fraud perpetrated. No jail sentence or restitution can restore the confidence or livelihood of a Canadian cleaned out by someone the victim has grown to trust, a new parent without a nest egg, a dying grandparent without a bequest. Prevention keeps Canadians safe. Nothing is more important to the livelihoods of Canadians and nothing in the bill even gives a hint about it.

On the question of mandatory minimums, it is an experiment that has failed in the United States and will not have an effect on white collar crime in our country. The bill provides for a mandatory minimum sentence for a commission of a fraud over $1 million.

One of the early criticisms of Bill C-52, the predecessor, and this bill was that it did not hit the financial institutions hard enough. It seemed to be cherry picking over the smaller crimes that were committed on a smaller basis. We all know in our country already, dare I mention Earl Jones in the province of Quebec, that there are large-scale crimes occurring that take people for more than $1 million either individually or cumulatively. It is not clear to us on this side, and we will see in committee, whether this is cumulative, large enough or why the Department of Justice came up with this amount, but we shall see. We do not want to exclude the larger frauds from a bill that is purported to stop white collar crime.

We will do our best on this side to ensure the bill is wider in scope, more effective and pushes the government to key in on aspects of prevention and tax havens. We on this side, by doing so responsibly, will keep a promise that the people on the other side, known now as the government, failed to keep, which has been the biggest fraud committed in the area of white collar crime in the last five years.

[Combating Terrorism Act, September 21st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I was here in the chamber when the minister gave his speech. I looked at the provisions in the law. He put his reasons forward. My understanding is that it is not much different from the legislation that existed, which the Conservatives at the time, the member will recall, in 2007, wanted to renew without any changes.

It even, in fact, picks up some of the recommendations in Bill S-3. The two major provisions are still in the same order.

In fact, if I read the minister's speech, he appears, subject to the test at committee, to be adopting some of the improvements that were suggested, ultimately, by the Senate when it passed the bill before we were prorogued into another election.

[Combating Terrorism Act, September 21st, 2010]

In the legislative history of the bill, there were improvements made along the way. With respect to his preliminary concerns about where the party is, the party generally accepted the Senate's view in its Bill S-3 improvements.

We have to examine what the minister means with respect to the right to instruct and retain counsel, which I think is key to the member's point on self-incrimination.

I challenge the member to show me where the right against self-incrimination, which is from the section 10 and section 11 rights of individuals in the legal process, is not at all times in collision with, say, section 1 of the Charter, which is the override provision, or with the general sense of the need for national security.

I said in my remarks that there is always a collision between these. They cannot be compatible. There has to be a collision between the rights. No one right is alone, sacrosanct, and overpowering.

For the member to say that to the public belies his training, I think, as a lawyer and also as a public official.

[Combating Terrorism Act, September 21st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak this morning to this important bill. I also am pleased to be back in the Chamber after a summer recess that was very successful in terms of democracy, of hearing from the public and of coming back here, as I think all parliamentarians have, with a joint sense that we must make this place work. We must make it more co-operative, more intelligent and more reasonable and open.

With that in mind, I am drawn to the comments of Andrew Cohen in this morning's Ottawa Citizen who said that backbench MPs and individual MPs have no power, have no independence, do not think, do not debate and pretty much are the stuff found under rocks. However, I beg to differ in a non-partisan moment.

In two days we will be voting on a backbencher's bill that has engaged all of the public one way or another in debate. Many current members in the House and those in past Parliaments have worked very hard and quietly on issues of importance to them and their constituents. Overall, with all due respect to question period and the reforms therein proposed and the highlights on the news every night from this Chamber during that time, it bears repeating that most of the serious work in Parliament is done in committee and in cross party, cross the aisle negotiations with respect to laws that hopefully make this country a better place and, as I bring it back to this debate, a safer place.

Bill C-17 is a perfect example of a bill that has been bandied about in various incarnations dealing with the security of the public, which is one issue that does not divide anybody in the House. We all want the public to be safe and we all want public security. We may differ, however, on the means to achieve public security.

The debate itself has been discussing two important tools. Whether we agree they are needed is the hub of the debate but it bears repeating as to what they are.

In response to threats of terrorism and in the period just after 9/11, there was much debate about what we would do if we were faced with future terrorist threats, attacks or rumours of attacks or threats to our country and to our people. It was not a unilateral decision but it was felt by this Parliament that two inclusions should be made to our over 100-year-old Criminal Code. For the people who wrote and enacted the Criminal Code in the 1890s, probably the nearest thing to a terrorist attack was the War of 1812 or the raid in St. Albans, Vermont in 1865. That was probably in the psyche of most of the people who wrote the code way back when.

Let us look back to 2001 to the communities like Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador, Moncton and Halifax that welcomed plane loads of people diverted by the terrorist attacks in New York, which we recently commemorated earlier this month. What was the mentality of the Canadian public and parliamentarians with respect to public security? Something needed to be done. As Canadians and parliamentarians, we felt under attack. We felt ill-equipped to handle the next perhaps imminent threat of terrorist activity. We as Canadians felt, because of concerns made known at the time, that our border was porous and that somehow we had something to do collectively in a remote guilt sense for the occurrences in New York and other places on that day.

Parliament, therefore, decided to inculcate the Criminal Code with two tools to be used if necessary, one being the investigative hearing. In the Criminal Code of Canada an investigative hearing would allow authorities to compel the testimony of an individual without the right to decline to answer questions on the basis of self-incrimination.

The intent would be to call in those on the periphery of an alleged plot who may have vital information, rather than the core suspects. These are the people on the periphery, who would have an overwhelming incentive to lie to protect themselves, the actual accused. It was an attempt, working in concert with CSIS and our investigative security-based individuals, to find out more information to prevent terrorist attacks and terrorist incidents. That was to be inserted into the Criminal Code of Canada, a very new provision.

The second new provision was the preventive arrest provision, allowing police to arrest and hold an individual, in some cases without warrant, provided they have reasonable grounds to believe that the arrest would prevent future terrorist activity. Those were introduced in 2004. In the context of 2001, the context seemed reasonable. The context was that we were protecting our community. We were protecting our nation.

There were many safeguards built in to those provisions, and I might add that it was a Liberal government that brought in these provisions, so I do not think it lies in anyone's mouth on any side to say that Liberals are not concerned with terrorism. This was Liberal legislation, and like all legislation that was new and that dealt with the collision between the need for public safety and the primacy of individual rights, it is the collective versus the individual. Like all of those debates and all those pieces of legislation, the collision always results in imperfection because no one goes home completely satisfied with the result.

The key part of the legislation was the so-called sunset clause. At the end of five years, the legislation would sunset and would be no more. The provision was put in place clearly because parliamentarians, particularly members of the Liberal caucus and members of the government, and committee reports and minutes are replete with speeches to this effect, realized that this collision between the public security goal and the private rights goal would result, potentially, into an intrusion into the latter, so they said, “Let us sunset it. Let us see if it is needed, if it is used wantonly, without regard for personal rights, if it is used at all, and if it can be interpreted by the courts or refined through practice”.

Many times we lob a ball into the air called legislation and really hope that the courts get a chance to interpret it, to get it right, one might say, but we do try to make legislation work. In this case, the sunset clause was allowed to sunset, despite attempts to bring the debate back to Parliament. At the very end of the time for the period to run out, a debate was held and the sunset clause was not removed, or the legislation was not permitted to continue, so we are without these tools. This is where we are today. This is the debate today, whether we should have these tools in our Criminal Code with respect to terrorism or suspected terrorism.

A bill which eventually worked its way through the Senate of Canada, with good recommendations from senators and Commons committees before that, a bill known as Bill S-3, correctly and accurately assessed the situation since the original enactment of these provisions. These provisions are found in the Criminal Code in sections 83.28, 83.29 and 83.3. These are the conditions for investigative hearings, which define at some length the modalities as well as recognizance with conditions and arrest warrants for the anti-terrorism legislation.

It is not just these three sections. It is a misnomer to think that we just put these three sections in. There are some 25 pages in section 83 dealing with terrorism. They deal with seizure of property and all sections that have not been challenged or rescinded. It is only these sections dealing with individual liberties that have been touched.

Bill S-3 made some improvements to the regime as it was. There was an increased emphasis on the need for the judge to be satisfied that law enforcement has taken all reasonable steps to obtain information by other legal means before resorting to this.

There was one key consideration: the ability for any person ordered to attend an investigative hearing to retain and instruct counsel. A person so apprehended should have the right to counsel of their choice. There were new reporting requirements for the Attorney General and the Minister of Public Safety who then must now both submit annual reports which not only list the uses of these provisions but also provide opinions supported by reasons as to whether the powers needed to be retained.

There should be flexibility to have any provincial court judge hear a case regarding a preventive arrest.

And, finally, the five-year end date, unless both Houses of Parliament resolve to extend the provisions further, would be put in; that is, another sunset clause.

These amendments made their way through Parliament and, at the risk of not having a completely happy audience, then the P word intervened and we were sent home to go through yet another election. That is sad. That is too bad. But that has been debated before. We know that we do not like prorogation, it interrupts our business, but we were on our way.

Remember now these provisions were put in and as I said, we often want to hear what the courts have to say about them.

Well, an important decision of the Supreme Court of Canada took place in 2003 and 2004. The hearing was December 2003 and the decision was in the middle of the year 2004. The court, made up of the current chief justice and almost all the existing judges now, with the exception of New Mr. Brunswick's Mr. Justice Bastarache, who has since retired, concluded that the provisions put in, particularly 83.28, investigative hearings, were constitutional, but there were a number of comments made in that decision which no one could take as a complete endorsement of the legislation.

While they upheld it, it is important, I think, to note that three justices of the Supreme Court, remember, one has left the court, dissented and found, for instance, using their language:

The Crown's resort to s. 83.28 [which was an investigative hearing] of the Criminal Code in this case was at least in part for an inappropriate purpose, namely, to bootstrap the prosecution's case in the Air India trial by subjecting an uncooperative witness, the Named Person, to a mid-trial examination for discovery before a judge other than the Air India trial judge.

They went on to say:

The Named Person was scheduled to testify for the prosecution in the Air India trial, but because the Crown proceeded by [a different method known as the] direct indictment, neither the prosecution nor the defence had a preliminary look at this witness [who was detained from the investigative hearing]. Section 83.28 was not designed to serve as a sort of half-way house between a preliminary hearing and a direct indictment.

What we have here are the players and the justice system ending up using a tool that was there for, quite frankly, maybe a different purpose. The players and the system had used a certain way of proceeding in a criminal case. They saw this tool lying on the shelf and they used it.

The court, in its majority, said, sure, we can do that because public security is the number one aim here. However, it did lead to the feeling that we, as parliamentarians, in sort of a renvoi or a send-back, have been told by the court that we did not draft perfect legislation when we drafted these pieces and it had been used somewhat indirectly for the purpose in question because of a prosecutor's choice to go a certain way, which I cannot second guess because the Air India trial was a very complicated matter, involving numerous informants of high publicity content throughout Canada. So, I cannot second guess the prosecutors, but they used it for a purpose that led three justices of the Supreme Court to say that is not what this was intended for.

The majority of the court, however, went on to say it is allowable, that section 83.28 does not violate section 7 of the charter and it does not violate section 11(b) with respect to counsel.

I find that a bit strange and I allow for the fact that because the person was not a person under arrest but a witness, by the clear letter of the law the individual would not have a right to counsel. I like the changes that have been submitted by the Senate, by members of the committee and the House that say yes, counsel of the choice of the detained person should be permitted.

We went further in the House and in the Senate than the majority of the Supreme Court that would have allowed such a use of section 83.28. In other words, we have improved, through the recommendations and now the bill being presented, what the Supreme Court thought was allowable with respect at least to the right to counsel.

The court said:

--a judicial investigative hearing remains procedural even though it may generate information pertaining to an offence...the presumption of immediate effect of s. 83.28 has not been rebutted.

It took the law of Canada to be serious. It took the tools in the tool box regarding anti-terrorism as serious and upheld the use of it, and we are down to numbers almost with respect to the Supreme Court, even when good, smart thinking, and now three members of the Supreme Court said it was misused, essentially.

Where are we, then, with the need for this legislation? There are opinions on either side, but let us remember the legislation originally introduced was to combat terrorism. Besides 9/11, which was traumatic for everyone in North America and the world, the prime instance of terrorism and trying to combat it resulted in or came out of the crash of Air India flight 182 and the following study of it by John Major, who was a former Supreme Court justice.

I know Liberals want to send it to committee and examine what was done with Bill S-3, the precursor acts. We want to put safeguards into any proposed legislation and keep the balance right between the need for public security and the primacy of individual rights. That is a given.

I told a little story about how we are interpreting laws based on the one instance of a prosecutor using a certain tool, which led the Supreme Court to say in a divided way, “Yes, it's okay, but you should be more careful than the committee improving the act”. The bigger picture that has been missing in the debate so far is what use is this if our security services do not talk to our police services and our police services are not in sync with the court officers who ultimately direct that this tool be used?

The report of John Major is very instructive in that regard because he says terrorism is both a serious security threat and a serious crime. Secret intelligence collected by Canadian and foreign intelligence agencies can warn the government about threats and help prevent terrorist attacks. Intelligence can also serve as evidence for prosecuting offences.

There is a delicate balance between openness and secrecy and that is what this debate is all about. We have to focus more on terrorism threats from the national security level than this tool, which the Supreme Court of Canada has already said is allowed.

Finally, I would close by saying that the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, on behalf of this party, said we do not need this because we have not used it. I have a sump pump in my basement and I may never use it, but if I have a flood I want to have that sump pump there. I want to be ready for something that may happen in the future.

For my dollar's worth, I think this should go to committee and we should look seriously at what the dissent in that Supreme Court judgment said, what the majority said and this time, with the benefit of its advice and the advice of John Major, we should get it right. We should have those tools on the shelf.

The members who say we do not need them should be happy that we do not need them because it means that we have not had a terrorist threat. However, if we have a terrorist threat, I want those tools to be on the shelf for prosecutors to use, if needed, to keep our country safe, which is the goal we are all here to pursue.

[Questions on the Order Paper, September 20th, 2010]

With respect to the First Report of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs from the 2nd Session of the 40th Parliament and recommendation number nine found therein: (a) what criteria did the government use in its decision to not implement this recommendation; (b) what was the policy rationale for the decision; and (c) is the government considering any similar information sharing arrangements to better identify veterans and their families?

[Questions on the Order Paper, September 20th, 2010]

With respect to Free Trade Agreements: (a) how many negotiators, if any, have been retained from outside of the government to represent Canada in current trade negotiations; and (b) has the government considered or implemented plans to undertake a review of the Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement in 2014 to evaluate the trade implications for Canada?

[Questions on the Order Paper, September 20th, 2010]

With respect to tax evasion: (a) after receiving the names of Canadians with bank accounts in Liechtenstein from German authorities, what action has been taken by Canadian officials to recover unpaid taxes associated with undeclared bank accounts in Liechtenstein; (b) how many Canadians have been identified as having undeclared bank accounts in Liechtenstein; (c) how many identified Canadians with accounts in Liechtenstein have availed of the voluntary disclosure program with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA); (d) how many identified Canadians with accounts in Liechtenstein have settled with the CRA; (e) how many Canadian account holders have been charged with tax evasion; and (f) how much money, including unpaid taxes, fines, etc., has the CRA recovered as a result of investigating these secret bank accounts in Liechtenstein?

[Combating Terrorism Act, September 20th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, my friend goes back to the annals of history with the War Measures Act. He did not quite go back to the War of 1812, with which he may be personally acquainted, but does he not concede that the War Measures Act, when it was applied in the second world war and again in 1970, was in the pre-charter era and that there is no danger whatsoever that any of the ATA provisions would not be reviewed within the scope of the charter?

Surely the member is aware of court decisions that were very adamant in ensuring that the right to counsel of the choice of the detainee would be inserted in the law. Surely he thinks that could be either made by way of amendment at committee or perhaps even be proposed by the government.

With that provision, which is the salient point that the courts have opined upon, would the member not be comfortable with the charter in place, with the right to counsel and finally his statement that these are fundamental rights, right to counsel and right against self-incrimination? Does he not concede that section 1 of the charter, which overrides, in the case of national security, certain fundamental rights exist and has been held by the courts, the Supreme Court of Canada in fact, to have been applied?

In other words, does the member not concede that even though we have not used these provisions we may need these provisions and that it is prudent government to look at legislation that takes into account the modern laws, not the laws of the 1940s, which his speech was, with all due respect, replete with?

[Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, June 17th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the mayor of Moncton was here yesterday. He was asking for a lot more.

There are allegations of the transport minister meddling in the Ottawa mayor's race. We had the Conservatives breaking election rules in the in and out scandal. Now the Prime Minister is withholding building Canada funding in New Brunswick Southwest until his former director of communications, John Williamson, has the riding nomination and can take credit on his own.

What is wrong with the member for New Brunswick Southwest? Will the prime minister of prorogation admit and confirm that funding for the St. George civic project, which the member for New Brunswick Southwest wanted, will be confirmed and will be paid?

[Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, June 17th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, in the House, the ACOA minister attacked the credibility of the member for New Brunswick Southwest. However, the member took it one step further that evening, confirming the very damaging discussions he had had with the Prime Minister.

When will this government stop trying to interfere in New Brunswick's provincial politics? And when will the Prime Minister reprimand the ACOA minister?