Jim Prentice

[Aboriginal Affairs, June 1st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the House asked for immediate and urgent action, in consideration of the life expectancy of the former students at Indian residential schools. They are dying at a rate of five per day. Judge Iacobucci is a negotiator, not a mediator or an adjudicator. He is only required to make a recommendation next year. The former students deserve an immediate, fair and decent resolution.

Why is the government continuing to mismanage this file?

[Aboriginal Affairs, June 1st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, on April 11 of this year the House of Commons implored the Deputy Prime Minister to take immediate action on the residential schools file. The Deputy Prime Minister's response has been a political agreement and a year long study, no settlement money, no apology, no national truth and reconciliation commission, no budgetary envelope, and no changes to the ADR process.

After five years and $700 million, why is the government offering nothing more than empty promises and more delay?

[Aboriginal Affairs, May 31st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the government has spent $700 million not very expeditiously.

The Deputy Prime Minister has stood in this House for the past year defending her residential school program, telling us that her ADR system was working extraordinarily well. Yesterday she changed course and announced she needs another year and a justice to consult and study. Where was this admission of incompetence a year ago or five years ago?

[Aboriginal Affairs, May 31st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, since last September the Deputy Prime Minister has repeatedly told this House that her residential school file is under control. Canadians knew that it was not, because a government that spends $700 million settling 2% of the cases is not in control of much of anything.

Yesterday the Deputy Prime Minister abandoned course and announced a universal compensation plan that will cost in excess of $4 billion. I do not see any money in the government's budget. I would like to know where it is going to get the money. Is it going to cut services or raise taxes? Where will the money come from?

[Supply, May 31st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister received a letter from the national policy chair for the Liberal Party in 2002 warning him that there were persistent problems and growing rumours. In 2002, three years ago, the opposition in the House of Commons called for a public inquiry for the first time into the sponsorship program. The Minister of Finance at that time indicated that he did not think that was an appropriate way to deal with the issue and that the Auditor General should deal with the issue.

The Auditor General's report followed in 2004. It was not until then, five years after the facts were brought to the attention of the government, that it embraced the concept of a public inquiry. Only then was it prepared to buy into an inquiry that has the significant restrictions of the Gomery inquiry.

Do I believe that the Liberal government has made a serious attempt to get to the bottom of this quickly? Absolutely not. Everything it has done has been done reluctantly. At the end of the day, that speaks to the fact that this is not a national scandal; it is a Liberal scandal.

[Supply, May 31st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, as briefly as possible I will say no, I do not agree with that.

The Liberal government has played for time from the very beginning. Going right back to 1995, the Liberals were warned that the procurement program was not working. In 1999 the Treasury Board Secretariat warned the then minister. In 2000 a public works audit was brought forward saying that there were problems. In 2002 Paul Martin received a letter from a senior official in the Liberal Party warning him there were problems.

[Supply, May 31st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member opposite is an individual for whom I have the highest regard. I think he has perhaps clarified some of the comments of the Minister of Justice.

If I may just return to Krever, the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Krever summarizes very clearly what the authority of an inquiry officer is, and it summarizes the entire body of Canadian law. I will just refer members to paragraph 57 and the following three matters which are the law of Canada as summarized by the Supreme Court of Canada. This responds to my friend's question. The first item states:

A commissioner has the power to make all relevant findings of fact necessary to explain or support the recommendations, even if those findings reflect adversely upon individuals.

The second item states:

Further, a commissioner may make findings of misconduct based on the factual findings, provided that they are necessary to fulfill the purpose of the inquiry as it is described in the terms of reference.

The third and very important item states:

--a commissioner may make a finding that there has been a failure to comply with a certain standard of conduct, so long as it is clear that the standard is not a legally binding one such that the finding amounts to a conclusion of law pertaining to criminal or civil liability.

Therefore, it is as simple as this. Justice Gomery needs to have the flexibility to go about his important work and to make whatever factual findings he needs to make. He is not there to adjudicate either criminal liability or civil liability. That much is very clear. Nothing which has been proposed for the terms of reference today suggests that Justice Gomery would become a person empowered to assess criminal liability. That is not the suggestion which has been made, but rather that in fulfilling his requirements he can make findings of fact, name specific individuals, judge their standard of conduct and say they are responsible. Then the criminal process will take its course from there. I think the law is very clear.

[Supply, May 31st, 2005]

As an hon. member has said, Whose?

Moreover, and I have full respect for Justice Gomery, it would seem to me that a commission of inquiry that cannot name names and assign responsibility is somewhat pointless. Odd, is it not, that this is what the case authorities say and this is what the Supreme Court of Canada has said. Again I will quote the Krever decision at paragraph 38:

--the commissioners have the power to make findings of misconduct. In order to do so, commissioners must also have the necessary authority to set out the facts upon which the findings of misconduct are based, even if those facts reflect adversely on...parties. If this were not so, the inquiry process would be...pointless.

Further, at paragraph 39 of the Krever decision, and this is the Supreme Court of Canada in 1997 that I am referring to, it is stated:

These findings of fact may well indicate those individuals and organizations which were at fault.

Summarizing further in paragraph 39 of the same decision:

--a public inquiry into a tragedy would be quite pointless if it did not lead to the identification of the causes and players for fear of harming reputations...

The law of Canada is quite clear. I believe it is something which I hope the Minister of Justice will take the time to review.

There is no irreconcilable conflict between Justice Gomery having the capacity to name names and do his job on the one hand, and the civil and criminal process taking its natural course on the other. To suggest otherwise is to take this House in a direction that does not reflect the law of Canada.

Let us get to the bottom of this. Let us amend Justice Gomery's inquiry powers so that he can name names and assign responsibility.

The final point I will make is that my friend across the House of Commons, the Minister of Justice, said, “Let us respect the process”. I say, let us respect Canadians. Canadians want to get to the bottom of this. They want to know who is responsible. The way the Gomery inquiry has been set up does not let Canadians get the answers they need.

[Supply, May 31st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Edmonton--Spruce Grove.

I listened with interest to the comments made by the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, and I intend to take full umbrage with his comments.

As I begin my remarks, let me point out that I have been a commissioner of the federal government. I have conducted personally over 25 public inquiries as a commissioner of the Government of Canada in the context of aboriginal land claims, so I am familiar with the statutory framework which applies to commissioners.

I would say to members of this House and to Canadians today that what we are seeing in the Gomery commission is a very clear attempt by the Government of Canada to abrogate the rules that apply normally to public inquiries and to commissioners to tie the hands of Justice Gomery so that he cannot fulfill his responsibility and name names and assign responsibility.

I intend to make that case and I intend to refer to some of the case authorities which the Minister of Justice referred to.

If I may, I would like to begin with what is specifically before the House today. The motion before the House states quite specifically:

That this House call on the Government to amend section (k) of the Gomery Commission's terms of reference to allow the Commissioner to name names and assign responsibility.

Section (k) at this point of the Gomery terms of reference reads as follows:

--the Commissioner be directed to perform his duties without expressing any conclusion or recommendation regarding the civil or criminal liability of any person or organization and to ensure that the conduct of the inquiry does not jeopardize any ongoing criminal investigation or criminal proceedings;....

How is this to be reconciled with the statements that the Prime Minister has made? The Prime Minister of Canada said on March 13, 2004, as reported the Windsor Star :

--I want to get to the bottom of this [sponsorship scandal]. I want every single fact to come out and I want every person who has been involved in this to pay the consequences for it...

How are the Prime Minister's statements and his much discussed telecast of several weeks ago to be reconciled with what has been implemented in section (k) of the Gomery commission mandate? They are irreconcilable. The truth of the matter is that this is a Liberal scandal and this Liberal government does not want to get to the bottom of it.

According to these proposed mandates, Justice Gomery can deliver a report but he cannot specifically name individuals. That is a very unusual mandate for a public inquiry. The point I would make is that one only need go as far as the federal Inquiries Act.

The federal Inquiries Act, chapter I-11 of the Statutes of Canada, deals very specifically with the powers of an inquiry officer: the power to subpoena witnesses; the power to subpoena documents; the power to conduct an inquiry; the power to direct others to assist him; and the power to deal with witnesses.

Nowhere in the federal Inquiries Act is there any sort of circumscription such as this one on the powers of an inquiry officer. It is unheard of. It is not part of the federal Inquiries Act.

The federal Inquiries Act says simply this in section 2:

The Governor in Council may, whenever the Governor in Council deems it expedient, cause inquiry to be made into and concerning any matter connected with the good government of Canada or the conduct of any part of the public business thereof.

This is unrestricted. There are no limitations on naming individuals. There are no limitations on assigning responsibility. There are no limitations on who a public inquiry officer operating in Canada may name.

Only one inquiry officer in Canada is limited and that is Mr. Justice Gomery. We have to ask ourselves, why is that? It is because the Liberals do not want to get to the bottom of it.

Why do they not want to get to the bottom of it? They do not want to get to the bottom of it because the basic fundamental of this is that $250 million was funnelled into Quebec through the sponsorship program, often with little or no paperwork. One hundred million dollars of that ended up directly in the hands of Liberal communications firms, many of whom did nothing more than pass on documents and cream off a percentage of the money.

Multiple witnesses have testified before Gomery with respect not to their allegations but their confessions. We have people confessing who gave the money. We have people confessing who received the money. In some cases, these are senior people in the Liberal Party confessing to corruption.

To put this in context, the type of corruption we are talking about involves theft of public money, the commission of fraud against the Government of Canada, public money laundering and conspiracy in respect of all of those items. This is the most serious scandal in Canadian political history. We have an inquiry which has been struck but which does not have the statutory authority to get to the bottom of that.

As I have said, I have conducted over 25 inquiries for the Government of Canada as a commissioner in the same sense that Mr. Justice Gomery is a commissioner. Not once did I face something such as section (k) which limited my capacity to make findings, not once. I am aware of no other federal commissioner who has been in that circumstance.

I was disappointed to listen to the comments of the Minister of Justice and the Attorney General in this House, because I believe and I say with all due respect that he has been selective in the comments he made and the case authorities he referred to. The leading authority in Canada on commissions of inquiry is in fact the Krever decision of 1997, which is a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. It deals very specifically with what an inquiry officer can do, what a commissioner of inquiry can do, what he or she may not do, how the rule of law is protected and the importance of a commission of inquiry having the capacity to get to the bottom of things without impeding either civil or criminal liability.

If I might return to the motion that has been put forward today, it in no way suggests that Mr. Justice Gomery would make findings of civil or criminal liability, but rather that he may be allowed to “name names and assign responsibility”. The law of Canada is very clear that this is quite appropriate.

First I will quote from the summary of the Krever case, where it is stated as follows:

A commissioner has the power to make all relevant findings of fact necessary to explain or support the recommendations, even if those findings reflect adversely upon individuals. Further, a commissioner may make findings of misconduct based on the factual findings, provided they are necessary to fulfill the purpose of the inquiry as it is described in the terms of reference.

There is no problem in law here. There is no reason in law why an inquiry officer cannot name names and assign responsibility.

[Aboriginal Affairs, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is terrible. The proposed settlement with the AFN should exceed $3 billion. Neither the February 2005 budget nor the budgetary fireworks since created by the Liberals and the NDP include any funding for this settlement.

Could the Minister of Finance explain to the House where this money will come from? Are we talking about an informal budget?