Mr. Speaker, this being my first speech of the 37th parliament I should like to make some brief introductory remarks. First I thank God for the privilege of being here. I thank my wife and family for their unending support over the last seven years of political life. I thank the voters of Kootenay—Columbia who returned me to the House with a 68% margin, but I am concerned about the other 32% and I commit to them my unwavering support.
I thank my dedicated campaign team. I also thank my staff who have consistently served me over the last two terms and who are continuing into the third term. If they are listening today I hope they do not give up on me yet.
On the topic at hand, I am going to be referring the Liberal members to a person who is a former provincial ombudsman. He was a former land use commissioner and a former deputy attorney general. I consider this person to be an expert.
Apparently the Prime Minister also considered this person to be an expert because he selected this man over the incumbent Ted McWhinney who was the sitting member for Vancouver Quadra. Ted McWhinney was a constitutional expert and a foreign affairs consultant with a broad range of contacts. He served two terms very honourably in the Chamber. He was well respected and just an all around decent guy.
If the Prime Minister is going dump a person like that, clearly he must have in mind the calibre of the individual that he is bringing in. The member who came in, as I say, is a former ombudsman, a former deputy attorney general and a former land use commissioner for the province of British Columbia. If the Prime Minister needs to know much more about the things that we have been discussing today, and how these things should be handled, all he needs to do is consult one of his newest MPs, the new member for Vancouver Quadra.
I give credit to Vaughn Palmer who is a reporter and who asked a number of questions of the new member for Vancouver Quadra. As he pointed out, the member needs little introduction to B.C. The positions he has held give him a unique perspective on the importance of independence and openness where elected office holders are accused of wrongdoing, as has been the issue with the Prime Minister.
The reporter said:
I interviewed (this person) recently on Voice of B.C. on the Shaw Cable. To his credit, he didn't shirk at the comparison between the way things are handled here in B.C. and the way things should be handled in the case involving the Prime Minister.
The member for Vancouver Quadra stated:
B.C. is often looked at as the neanderthal of politics but B.C. on a number of fronts is a leader in new government...We've led the country in conflict-of-interest legislation...Our special prosecutor legislation is unique in Canada and in the Commonwealth.
When questioned on what specifically could Ottawa learn from B.C., the new member for Vancouver Quadra answered:
One of them is a conflict-of-interest commissioner who is a legislative officer rather than part of the executive of the government and therefore independent of the executive. We've gained good experience, proud experience and the federal government may want to look at that.
He went on to say:
One of the most difficult things for politicians to understand and senior bureaucrats to understand is that there is a line between the political and the administrative. When a politician speaks across that line to a senior bureaucrat, there is a danger of miscommunication and what may, perhaps, look like urging on behalf of a constituent might be taken as political direction to deviate from the duty of administrative fairness.
He further stated:
The more senior the politician, the greater the need to be explicit about what the rules are and what the communication is about.
The most senior politician in Canada is the incumbent Prime Minister who hand-picked the member for Vancouver Quadra.
The reporter asked:
This case you are talking about where a senior person calls a public official on behalf of a constituent sounds an awful lot like the Prime Minister three times lobbying the federal business development bank on behalf of a constituent who wanted a loan.
The reply from the member for Vancouver Quadra in January of this year was “Yeah, I don't think any of us should be comfortable with the confusion and the public unease that it caused”.
This is a quotation and I want to underline this. He further stated:
This is something we've learned earlier in B.C., that you need to make the rules very explicit, that you need to make the review processes very transparent and independent. I think this is something I can take with experience to Ottawa.
That being the case, and with there being a number of speaking slots open for the balance of the afternoon, I would naturally assume that the federal Liberals would be happy to have this member in the speaking rotation.
I think he would be able to bring a lot of light to this issue and speak directly to the Liberal members across so that they could understand what the issue is about. Clearly to this point they have not understood.
Yesterday I asked the industry minister the following question:
Mr. Speaker, Justice Ted Hughes, the B.C. conflict of interest commissioner, has established this rule for the ministers of B.C.: “A minister must not make personal representations on behalf of a constituent to—a commissioner, board, agency, or other tribunal established by the government.”
The Prime Minister obviously violated this principle in lobbying the president of the Business Development Bank on behalf of Yvon Duhaime.
Rather than answering the question directly, the industry minister attempted to deflect it. He said:
Mr. Speaker, the ethics counsellor has written recently to the Leader of the Opposition and has responded to the most recent correspondence from the Leader of the Opposition. He has made crystal clear that all these matters, all the allegations being raised today, have been addressed. There were no private benefit by the Prime Minister whatsoever and no conflict of interest.
The issue is who does that ethics counsellor answer to. If the ethics counsellor answered to the House there is no possible way the House would ever permit the ethics counsellor to say “We don't have any rules about someone actually trying to take direct influence on a member of a crown corporation so, therefore, I am exonerating him”.
I am not questioning the ethics or the competence of the ethics counsellor. What I am questioning are the rules under which the federal ethics counsellor has been set up.
Under the British Columbia conflict of interest act, clause 14(1) says “There must be appointed a commissioner who is an officer of the Legislative Assembly”.
That is the most important part but it goes further in paragraph two. It says:
On the motion of the Premier in the Legislative Assembly and on the recommendation of 2/3 of the members present, the Lieutenant Governor in Council must appoint the person so recommended to the office of commissioner.
The point is that in the province of B.C., he not only answers to the legislature in terms of his reporting, but clearly two-thirds of the legislature, the majority, would also be involved in setting the terms and conditions under which he is actually operating.
If we are ever going to re-establish the whole concept of trust, we cannot allow this situation to continue where we have the ethics commissioner reporting to his boss. If the standards are established by the Prime Minister, we end up with the kind of answer we got from the industry minister that I just quoted.
If parliament is not supreme, then the prime minister is king, autocrat, dictator and supreme ruler. The issue here is accountability. It would be my hope that the member for Vancouver Quadra can get these people to wake up, smell the coffee and realize that it is an issue of accountability. Furthermore, it is an issue of the government keeping its word that it put down in black and white in the 1993 campaign.
