Candice Bergen

[Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner's Report, April 17th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I think we have seen a pattern with the government. Its members seem to find every loophole they can so they can use them to their advantage. We saw them do this very early on after the election, when the ministers were doing fundraisers with stakeholders. They were raising hundreds of thousands of dollars with the very same people they were working with in their ministerial portfolios. This was after the Prime Minister had said that they should be arranging their affairs in a manner that could bear the strongest scrutiny. They said that there were no rules that forbade them from doing that. We asked why they were not obeying not just the letter of the law but the spirit of the law. Honestly, if the Liberals would just follow the spirit of the law of the Ethics Commissioner's request, we would not have this problem.

If we did not have a Prime Minister who thinks he is entitled to all the fancy holidays and everything paid for by taxpayers, and anyone else he can take advantage of, we would not have this problem. However, we have the same old Liberals in government who are constantly trying to advance their own interests. Yes, we have to close this loophole to ensure that the Liberals do not find ways to take advantage of these kinds of things.

[Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner's Report, April 17th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, what Canadians have seen for the last two years is a Prime Minister who continues to fail them. He made promises during the campaign, and when he was elected, he abdicated and reneged on every single one of those promises. We have never in the history of this Parliament seen a Prime Minister convicted of breaking four ethics laws.

The Prime Minister, and the Minister of Finance as well, are increasing taxes on Canadians, failing our energy sector, and failing the men and women in Canada who work in our natural resources sector who do not have Aga Khan billionaire friends to give them free island vacations worth $700,000. Canadians are working hard every day. They do not have two full-time nannies paid for by the taxpayers. They do not have trips abroad where, thankfully, they are being fools, like the Prime Minister made a fool of himself on the India trip.

The Prime Minister is using Canadian taxpayers' dollars. He is using his position to advance himself. He is using his position to promote himself. Canadians are saying that it is time the Prime Minister stopped acting like a fool.

[Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner's Report, April 17th, 2018]

moved:

That the report of the Ethics Commissioner, entitled “The Trudeau Report”, tabled on Monday, January 29, 2018, be concurred in.

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Calgary Shepard.

I am rising today to speak to the former ethics commissioner's report called “The Trudeau Report”, which found that the Prime Minister had breached the Conflict of Interest Act in four separate ways.

Regrettably, at this point, I have just 10 minutes to speak, even though there is so much to be said. Let me start by summarizing why we are here and what has happened to get us to this point.

Two Christmases ago, right after the election, Christmas holidays were here and the Prime Minister dropped off the radar. This was a Prime Minister who had just been elected on a campaign of openness and transparency, but he left for somewhere and would not tell anyone where he went. If he had just been away on a holiday, maybe on a beach somewhere, he probably would have told the media and Canadians that he was on a holiday with his family, but for some reason he was incredibly secretive and did not want anyone to know where he had gone on his Christmas holiday.

Some enterprising members of the parliamentary press gallery tracked down the Prime Minister and found out he was in the Bahamas. No doubt egged on by the Prime Minister's secrecy over the whole thing, these journalists kept digging. It turned out the Prime Minister was not just in the Bahamas at a resort somewhere that he had paid for, having a little holiday with his family. He was hanging out on a billionaire's beautiful island, a private Caribbean island owned by the Aga Khan.

The Aga Khan does some very good work. He presides over organizations such as the Global Centre for Pluralism, which has had associations and dealings, financial and otherwise, with the Government of Canada for decades. Again, the Aga Khan does very good work in Canada and around the world, but that is irrelevant to the point we are discussing today. The point is that the Aga Khan, a good individual who does very good work for Canadians, gets a whole lot of money from the Government of Canada to do this work, and the Prime Minister of Canada was on his island accepting a free vacation from him.

What the report told us is that this was not the first time the Prime Minister had taken a free vacation from the Aga Khan on the island. In fact, during Christmas 2014, prior to being Prime Minister, he was there for a holiday. In March 2016, family members were there for a holiday. Then during Christmas 2016, there was the private island holiday yet again. Wow, what an amazing so-called friendship to have. That is the other interesting thing about the report. For a year, the Prime Minister was saying that this was a holiday accepted from a very good friend, but the Ethics Commissioner's report told us that in fact they had not had contact for 30 years. He just seemed to be a wonderful, long-lost old friend whom the Prime Minister was somehow reacquainted with after he became Prime Minister, while the Aga Khan was doing a whole bunch of business with the Government of Canada.

The point is, and that is most likely why the Prime Minister and his staff took such a posture of great secrecy, that we have ethics rules in place that are meant to prevent prime ministers, ministers, or even parliamentarians without executive responsibilities from doing things that put them in a conflict of interest. These are things like accepting free vacations from those who do multi-million dollar transactions with the government, accepting free rides in their private helicopters, not recusing oneself from discussions where the opportunity exists to improperly further the other person's interests, and failing to arrange one's own affairs in a manner to avoid those conflicts of interest. Those were the exact four areas where the Prime Minister broke the ethics rules. These rules are in place to stop a prime minister from doing this, but in a very shameful, historic ruling, we have seen our own Prime Minister break these four specific rules.

That is why my hon. friend the leader of the official opposition wrote to Mary Dawson, the then Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, asking for an investigation of the Prime Minister's conduct. That is why the Ethics Commissioner in turn conducted an investigation and produced a thorough 66-page report called “The Trudeau Report” on the Prime Minister's vacation. That is why the Ethics Commissioner reported her findings that the Conflict of Interest Act had been violated in four separate ways.

Let us keep in mind that the Conflict of Interest Act is a law. For anybody who said that the Prime Minister did not break the law, he did in fact break the law. The Conflict of Interest Act is a piece of legislation that our government brought into effect. It was passed here in the House of Commons. It is in law, and the Prime Minister broke that law. There is no way to sugarcoat or whitewash it. Mary Dawson's investigation confirmed what any sensible and reasonable observer would have said, that the Prime Minister's free luxury vacation on a private Caribbean island owned by someone with dealings with the federal government simply did not pass the sniff test.

Many have looked at the value of these three vacations. They are probably valued at close to $700,000. When we look at the value of not only the vacation itself but the RCMP time that was used for this vacation, which the Prime Minister has refused to pay back, it is close to $700,000. Can members imagine a minister of the crown receiving an envelope of cash with $700,000 in it from somebody who is dealing with that minister? It is like that individual saying, “Here is a free gift of $700,000 cash”, when that minister is making decisions regarding the work this individual was doing. The fact that this is basically what our Prime Minister did is reprehensible. The fact that he refuses to take responsibility for it is even more irresponsible. It goes to show how the Prime Minister has failed Canadians in his dealings. He has been unethical and has shown such horrendous judgment time and time again.

The Ethics Commissioner also unearthed that the Prime Minister and his family accepted similar vacations when he was the leader of the third party, and that his wife, children, and their whole host of friends accepted a third vacation in March 2016.

We thank the former Ethics Commissioner for her work and her analysis on this serious issue. The report and the public discussions about it have exposed a serious concern for us as Conservatives and I think for the entire House of Commons.

When we read the report that addressed the unethical and illegal vacation, we learned that during this Caribbean sojourn, the Prime Minister and the Aga Khan exchanged gifts. He received a present during a gifted vacation. Talk about piling it on. It is kind of like the nesting dolls that get piled on one after the other. We keep opening up the doll and there is another doll and then another. However, this is not very dollish at all; in fact, it is probably the opposite.

What kind of gifts are we talking about? My colleague, the hon. member for Saskatoon—Grasswood, himself a skilled journalist, sought to get to the bottom of the mystery and placed a question on the Order Paper to find out what kind of gifts the Prime Minister received from the Aga Khan. It would seem that the same PMO staff who first handled the communication of the Bahamas trip fielded this question. This is what we heard back from the government: basically, no disclosure. The Prime Minister said that he had disclosed all gifts to the Ethics Commissioner as part of the examination.

The bottom line is that the Prime Minister did not disclose the illegal gifts. He said he received a bag. We do not know if it was a duffle bag that one might get at Winners or a Louis Vuitton bag worth many thousands of dollars. We do not know because the Prime Minister will not tell us. The Prime Minister has to disclose gifts under a certain amount, but these illegal gifts that he received he has not had to disclose. When we have asked him time and time again, he has refused to.

The concern in this legal gap is not Mary Dawson's fault and it is something that needs to be addressed in the Conflict of Interest Code. With that, we need to get to the bottom of the gift exchange, and we need to close the loophole so that this does not continue.

[Natural Resources, April 16th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, we have been warning the Liberal government that its policies are hurting Canada's energy sector, killing competitiveness and jobs. Its carbon tax, its tanker ban, and its disastrous approval process has killed projects like Petronas LNG, northern gateway, energy east. Now we see Trans Mountain dying a slow death. Investment and jobs are leaving Canada as we speak.

When will the Liberals get their heads out of the sand and realize their policies are disastrous for Canada's energy sector?

[Natural Resources, April 16th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, nine weeks ago, when talking about Trans Mountain pipeline and our motion supporting it, the natural resources minister said “There is simply no need for a motion today that attempts to manufacture a crisis where one does not exist....”

Well, there is a crisis. If that minister spent half the time recognizing the crisis going on in the energy sector as he does compiling the list of interviews that he clearly spent a whole bunch of time doing, he would know that this is a crisis not only on pipelines but jobs. It is the Liberals' abdication of responsibility to the energy sector that has caused this. When—

[Business of the House, March 29th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, we were not quite sure if we were going to get a Thursday question. We know today is seen as a Friday but it actually is Thursday. I am thankful for the opportunity.

While I am on my feet, I want to wish all my colleagues and everyone a good two-week constituency break and a happy and joyous Easter.

I would like to ask the government House leader if she could let us know what we will be doing when we return after the April break.

[Ethics, March 29th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, let us be clear. It was the opposition that referred this to the conflict of interest office. It was not the Liberal member.

Yet again, we have another questionable person travelling with the Prime Minister on his disastrous trip to India and no one on the Liberal side who is willing to take responsibility. So much for transparency and accountability. All we get from the Liberals is denial and deflection.

What is next? Is the Prime Minister going to blame India for this new debacle?

[Ethics, March 29th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, what is clear is that the Liberals always seem to want to benefit their friends who are helping them and giving them money. The MP for Brampton East arranged for the person who is paying him to get access to the Prime Minister in India. We have a Conflict of Interest Act to avoid this exact type of behaviour, but the Liberals seem to have no regard for the Conflict of Interest Act. They are under constant investigation for these breaches.

Again, who in the PMO authorized the attendance of this individual on the trip to India?

[Ethics, March 29th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, after being elected in 2015, the Liberal MP for Brampton East entered into a business relationship with a local businessman, receiving pay from him. Even though there is a clear conflict of interest, the Brampton East member arranged to give his business partner privileged access to the Prime Minister and members of his cabinet while on the Prime Minister's disastrous trip to India.

Why did the Prime Minister's Office invite this individual on the trip to India when there is a such a clear conflict of interest?

[Firearms Act, March 28th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, we have numerous gun shows in my riding too. They are put on by incredibly responsible and respected people. The firearms that are purchased are not firearms being used in a crime.

Licences are already being checked, because in rural Canada people are responsible. They would never want to sell a firearm to someone who would not legally be able to own that firearm. It is the bureaucracy. We are going back to bureaucracy. We are going back to seeing law-abiding Canadians being bogged down in bureaucracy. Again, the problem is that nothing is happening to combat real gun crime in Canada.