Erin O'Toole

[Fisheries Act, February 13th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my friend, the MP for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa. There is perhaps nobody in this House who has his track record personally and in knowledge of conservation. I have learned a lot from the member.

He referenced the recreational fisheries community partnership program, which was an initiative of the Harper government that I saw the benefit of, in my riding of Durham, in the streams and in and around Lake Ontario. The changes the minister has introduced today, contrasted with the approach of the former Conservative government, show the philosophical differences: an Ottawa-knows-best, paternalistic, office-tower mentality from Ottawa; or partnering with conservation groups, recreational fisheries, and indigenous peoples on the ground that know their communities and their water sources, streams, and oceans better.

Could the member talk about the benefits of partnerships as opposed to an Ottawa-knows-best approach, which tends to be the Liberal way?

[Fisheries Act, February 13th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the minister, particularly for his evoking the memory of Roméo LeBlanc. I am proud to have his signature on my commission as an officer in the Canadian Forces in my office, and he is welcome to come see it. I had the privilege of serving on some fishery patrols when I was in the air force and on HMCS St. John's.

My question for the minister is on fishery patrols. In light of the fact that Canada lost its auxiliary oiler replenishment vessels, the Preserver and the Protecteur, we do not have the ability to replenish at sea for our navy or our Coast Guard vessels involved in fishery.

Fortunately, a plan to fix that gap was planned with the Asterix ship out of the Davie shipyard in Quebec. The minister has been rather silent with respect to the importance of this deal. The Asterix is now in sea trials.

Could the minister speak about how important it is for us to replenish our Coast Guard and our navy ships at sea to make sure we patrol the Flemish Cap and all our fishing zones in Canada?

[Veterans Affairs, February 7th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, since we are not getting any answers, my question will now be for the Minister of National Defence, the parliamentary secretary for U.S. relations or the parliamentary secretary for transport.

These veterans stood behind the Prime Minister when he promised two things: a return to lifetime pensions for all our injured; and to never force veterans back to court. How can the Liberals stay silent when those veterans now have to go to the Supreme Court of Canada and when he broke his promise on lifetime pensions?

[Veterans Affairs, February 6th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, in his first few months in office, the Prime Minister spent $4.3 billion on projects outside of Canada. He spent $10 million on Omar Khadr. He spent millions of dollars moving his staff to Ottawa, promoting his tweets, building an ice rink, and even cardboard cut-outs of himself. Last week we learned that the Prime Minister will spare no expense on self-promotion, but he thinks that veterans are asking for too much.

When will the Prime Minister apologize for making a promise to veterans he knew he would never keep?

[2018 Winter Olympics, February 6th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, we are three days away from the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, and Canada is getting excited. In the Durham region, we are very proud of our athletes who will be wearing the colours of Canada.

In hockey, Chris Kelly from Bowmanville, a father of three, will be wrapping up a stellar hockey career wearing Canada's colours.

Pickering's Jennifer Wakefield will be wearing the jersey on the women's hockey team as they play to bring home another gold for Canada.

Ben Donnelly from Oshawa will keep up that speed on the ice when he competes for Canada in long track, team pursuit.

Cam Stones will hurtle down an icy track when he competes for Team Canada in bobsleigh.

We are excited because 224 men and women from our country will be wearing the maple leaf and doing us proud, the largest Winter Olympic team we have ever sent.

I congratulate those Canadians for their hard work and I thank the parents, coaches, and communities for supporting them on their journey. I know I speak for all of us when I say, “Go Canada Go”.

[Business of Supply, February 6th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Kingston and the Islands for that great question, because he set it up with the premise that the Prime Minister would say, “You, you, you, let's go.” He did not pick the member. He picked the veterans minister to go.

How did this trip originate? I would invite the member to read page 19 of the report. Out of respect, I will leave the name out. It says that in mid-July 2016, the Prime Minister's spouse contacted the Aga Khan's daughter and inquired whether her family could come for Christmas. In that finding of fact, the Ethics Commissioner said that later on, she called to see if they could invite friends. That is how this trip originated. It was inappropriate from day one. Who were those friends? They were the veterans minister and the president of the Liberal Party. They should be hanging their heads in shame. It was a Liberal gala and junket. They should all go to their ridings this weekend and apologize to their constituents.

[Business of Supply, February 6th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my friend from Fredericton for his remarks, which are a continued diversion from responsibility that the Liberals are playing for the Prime Minister.

I would invite him to read the document from the Conflict of Interest Commissioner with her findings. As I have said, her objective standard is a reasonable-person test.

I like a lot of those Liberal members. I would suggest that most of them are reasonable people. Therefore, they have to agree that the Prime Minister violated the act. What the Ethics Commissioner did not provide, because as an officer of Parliament it was not her mandate, was an appropriate sanction or penalty. That was left to the members of this place.

If the Prime Minister wants to lead by example, he should send the message that a finding on four counts of violations should be met, at an absolute minimum, with a reimbursement of inappropriate expenditures of taxpayers' money. That is what Canadians expect. That is why we are here today.

[Business of Supply, February 6th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I am proud to say I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Beauport—Limoilou.

We are having a debate today because of truly unparalleled circumstances in our parliamentary democracy. Within two years of forming government, the Liberal government, led by the Prime Minister, is the subject of multiple investigations by officers of Parliament for inappropriate lobbying and conflicts of interest. Canadians who tuned in to the political debate in the fall saw the hon. member for Toronto Centre, the finance minister, plagued by questions of conflict of interest with respect to his dealings and legislation he brought into the chamber that he had lobbied for in the private sector ahead of time without recusing himself from that process. That investigation is still to come.

Within months of forming government, the Prime Minister was engaged in cash for access fundraising events. The Lobbying Commissioner is investigating that. That report is yet to come. Today's debate comes from the report we do have before us and it is the reason we are debating the conflict of interest of the Prime Minister today. That was the report in the name of the Prime Minister released by the Ethics Commissioner just before Christmas last year.

What is unparalleled is that the Prime Minister was found to violate the Conflict of Interest Act in four separate ways. Despite the repeated rhetoric from my friends on the Liberal side of the House saying the Prime Minister has accepted responsibility and is accountable, there is nothing in the report that levies a punishment, an administrative fine, or any type of accountability measure on the Prime Minister. True accountability for a leader would be, at an absolute minimum, to apologize and reimburse Canadians for expenditures that should never have been spent with respect to his trip.

Liberals are suggesting Conservatives are being unreasonable. We are not suggesting the Prime Minister face jail time for this. We are not suggesting that an administrative monetary penalty, a fine, be levied. We are suggesting a basic form of accountability that most parents teach their children when it comes to accepting responsibility for their actions. The Prime Minister is famous for saying sorry, including in this House for several good reasons in the past, but sorry with respect to four ethical violations on his own conduct is unacceptable. He needs to show leadership to show that other members in his caucus need to be accountable for their conduct.

That is why we are here. Liberals do not want to talk about that, but they have yet to provide one example of how the Prime Minister is being accountable. Saying he was found guilty on four counts under the act is one thing. What is the Prime Minister prepared to do to show contrition, to show he understands the severity of the decision of the Ethics Commissioner, and to send a signal that both the Prime Minister and his caucus find that conduct unacceptable?

We all remember, after the lovely stroll up to Rideau Hall, #RealChange, and all of that language, the Prime Minister, to great fanfare, released the mandate letters for his ministers, in which he said their conduct not only needed to be free from conflict of interest but, to the highest standards, needed to be free from perceptions of conflict of interest. Even the appearance that something was inappropriate was the standard he set. He has not met that standard himself, and it is being suggested that Conservatives are being unreasonable by saying the only true way he can show contrition, to show Canadians and the Ethics Commissioner that he understands the message of this report, is to reimburse taxpayers for the cost of a trip that never should have occurred.

I will highlight how ridiculous his defence is. Because there is an exception to receiving gifts from friends, the Prime Minister of Canada has turned himself into a pretzel suggesting that the Aga Khan is a friend.

What did the ethics commissioner say about whether this exception applied? She applied an objective standard, which is, in law, what a reasonable person would take from this defence. I quote from page 36:

The evidence shows that, but for the Aga Khan's attendance at [the Prime Minister's] father's funeral in 2000, [the Prime Minister] had no private or personal interactions with the Aga Khan between 1983 and fall of 2013, a span of 30 years.

I think it is hard to suggest that one has a lifelong friendship with a person because one met that person once or twice when young. When trying to pin a legal and ethical defence on a friendship, a person will bend over backwards to suggest that this is a lifetime friend. The Prime Minister certainly did not maintain that friendship very well, if three decades passed with no interaction.

The report goes on to say that on several visits the Aga Khan made to Canada, there was no attempt on either's part to connect. There was no correspondence.

This was a Hail Mary pass defence to suggest that this was a friendship with Uncle K. It is not befitting the Prime Minister of Canada to make ridiculous defences when he should be accepting responsibility.

The Prime Minister had his health minister, when she was in that role, accept responsibility for some inappropriate expenditures. I respect her for that. I think she got the respect of the House for taking responsibility. The Prime Minister has not. To say he accepts the findings is not enough.

This is an administrative law, a parliamentary matter. We are not talking about criminal law. We are not talking about imposing sanctions or monetary penalties on the Prime Minister. In the civil context or the administrative context, reimbursement is the appropriate measure. A press conference held days before Christmas, when the Prime Minister stumbled through an apology in the most embarrassing fashion possible, does not cut it.

I was a cabinet minister at the tail end of the Harper government, which lasted for almost a decade. There are no reports entitled the Harper report. This is occurring within months of the Prime Minister forming government.

As I said the other day, it took over a decade for entitlement, helping friends, and avoiding responsibility to creep in under the Chrétien Liberals. It took a decade for that government to become tired and in conflict. It has taken the present Liberal government mere months.

Would I today like to be talking about the Prime Minister's trip to China, where he secretly promised a free trade deal before being sent home with his tail between his legs by the Chinese? Would I prefer to be talking about NAFTA? Would I prefer to be talking about the shameful display the Prime Minister made in front of veterans in Edmonton last week, when he suggested that despite his extravagant spending, hundreds of thousands of dollars on tweets alone, veterans are asking for too much? I would prefer to have an opposition day debate on that.

The Prime Minister needs to show accountability for his ethics breaches. Leadership by example should mean that the Prime Minister holds himself to an even higher standard than he expects from his team. That is leadership by example. We saw the health minister do that. The Prime Minister should take some lessons from her on accountability. Certainly the amounts are slightly larger than the minister repaid, but then again, it is hard to take a limousine to a private island in the Caribbean.

What was even more inappropriate was the fact that later on, the Prime Minister's family asked for additional trips. This is the level of entitlement and expectation they have.

At a time when we have debated the difficult circumstances families in Alberta have faced and the threat and imposition on Sears employees, Canadians do not accept this high-wheeling, high-flying Prime Minister who will not accept responsibility for his actions. We are here today to ask for it, and I only hope that his own members of caucus will pressure him to lead by example and repay the amount of money.

[Veterans Affairs, February 5th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, many members of the House talk about the sacred obligation we have to veterans, and I think we would all agree that we have that. Those words were first used by Sir Robert Borden before the fight at Vimy.

Our biggest obligation to our veterans is to be truthful with them. If they are injured physically or mentally from service to Canada, they look to their government to provide service and support to them and their families.

Last week, the Prime Minister of Canada said that an injured veteran was asking for too much. It was shameful. Why is that? It is because in the last election the Prime Minister, along with the member for Orléans, the now defence minister, and other veterans in that caucus, made a promise to return to the Pension Act and lifetime pensions for our ill and injured veterans. They have broken that promise. No matter how they try to spin it, they have broken it. They have broken the sacred obligation to our veterans.

[Canada Elections Act, February 2nd, 2018]

Thank you very much for your clarity, Mr. Speaker, and for the time and interventions from other members of this House.

Certainly, when I raised it in question period, there was not disorder caused by it, but clearly in this debate there was disorder caused by it. In light of your reading of the rules, I will withdraw that word. It remains that I would still like a wider answer to the issue, but I will try to use better language, more parliamentary language, when I ask about the issue.