Joe Clark

[Auberge Grand-Mère, May 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, in the Auberge Grand-Mère case the Prime Minister first denied any intervention, then admitted he called the president of a crown corporation on behalf of Yvon Duhaime.

Now it is clear there was a second call about a second hotel which has never been investigated or explained. That call was on behalf of the Auberge des Gouverneurs and Mr. Pierre Thibault who has just pled guilty to fraud.

Will the minister confirm that on February 20, 1997 the Prime Minister telephoned the then president of the BDC to intervene on behalf of Pierre Thibault and the Auberge des Gouverneurs?

[Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, May 26th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I regret the behaviour in the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources. I have been there part of this afternoon myself, and it will be raised in the House tomorrow. There has been a series of quite untoward decisions by the chair.

Let me take the opportunity to make one thing very clear. There has been the discovery of a very serious disease that has apparently been limited now to one cow. However what has also been demonstrated by this experience is the excellence of the Canadian inspection team, the excellence of our scientists and the very high standards that protect Canada's invaluable reputation as a provider of food to the world. That is as important a reality as this surprise discovery on a farm in northwestern Alberta.

Without diminishing at all the importance of a threat that surprise discovery has generated, we should not allow any panic about the very high standard of food safety and the very high and exacting standard of inspection. Had there not been an exacting standard of inspection, this cow would never have been identified in the first instance. That is the message that should be sent to the world.

[Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, May 26th, 2003]

moved:

That this House do now adjourn.

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time today with the member for Brandon—Souris.

I want to say how pleased we are that the Speaker granted my request, and I know there were requests by members of the Canadian Alliance and other parties, for the debate this evening on the threat to Canada posed by bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE, better known as mad cow disease.

The recent discovery of a cow infected with BSE in Alberta is troubling. However thus far it is, thankfully, only a single case. The evidence indicates that the animal never entered the food chain for human consumption. The number of farms in quarantine in Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia is so far not an indication of further cases but rather a testament to the speed with which officials are attempting to understand, decipher and deal with this one isolated case of BSE.

The very fact that the case was detected is a testament to the good work of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Province of Alberta. I commend the quick, efficient and dedicated work of all those officials involved in responding to this incident. Too often we forget and undervalue the tremendous work of people who work in the public interest and who are called to come forth in times of emergency. These people did that and they performed exceptionally well in this case.

However the reason so many members of the House sought an emergency debate is that we need to know precisely what the federal government intends to do now. It has the opportunity tonight to come and tell Parliament and the people.

Canada's beef industry is one of the largest in the world, second only to Australia and the United States, earning around $8 billion a year. Many individual Canadians face serious financial challenges as a result of the concerns generated by BSE.

No one here wants to play games of jurisdiction and I would implore the federal government not to get involved in any of those. Canada is a federal state and we have made that federalism work. We continue to be a world leader in health and safety standards. Canada's record of herd health is beyond reproach. We have earned a strong international reputation as the provider of the safest and highest quality beef in the world.

It is obvious that the magnitude of the threat posed by BSE is much bigger than simply one cow in one herd in Alberta. The Prime Minister--and I understand he did it to minimize to concern--runs the risk of minimizing the size of the problem by talking as though it is only one cow. What is at issue here is the highly valued and hard-earned international reputation of an essential multi-billion dollar Canadian industry.

The top five importers of Canadian beef, the United States, Mexico, Japan, South Korean and Taiwan, have now closed their borders to our exports. Other countries are following suit. These actions are costing the industry an estimated $6.3 million a day.

More broadly speaking, this case of BSE will have wide implications across the Canadian economy. Related food, transportation, hospitality and tourism industries are also threatened by potential damage from mad cow disease and the damaged reputation that this find has generated. Some estimates have placed that damage in many billions of dollars.

Quick action must be taken to protect our reputation and restore the much deserved confidence in the Canadian beef industry.

The first action that must be taken is to ensure that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has the resources and the capacities to conduct a timely and thorough investigation into this incident of BSE. The government must quickly trace any cattle or calves that may have come into contact with BSE and/or with feed made from the remains of cattle or calves.

The Progressive Conservative Party has long called for additional resources for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The government needs to respond quickly to the agency's request for more funding for tracing and containment efforts.

Federal coordination is essential to ensure that all the facts are known, the history of the animal in question has been traced, any other potential cases have been tracked down and the incident of BSE has been completely contained and eliminated.

Questions need to be asked as to whether there is any way to improve federal coordination.

Questions need to be asked as to whether there is any way to improve federal coordination. Are there any improvements that can be made to our national standards and the degree of consistency in food safety from jurisdiction to jurisdiction? Should there be further prohibitions on the use of animal remains from being used as animal feed or should high risk animal parts, such as brains or spinal cords, be banned from any human or animal consumption?

Questions should be asked about whether the current amount of inspectors and labs is sufficient. While some additional funding has been added in recent years, some labs have had their capacities reduced and pathologists are in shorter supply. Alberta agriculture's chief provincial veterinarian has estimated that between $6 million and $10 million are needed to fully restore inspection facilities.

Canada needs to examine whether our current food and agriculture emergency response system, known as FAERS, is as comprehensive and efficient as it should be. There are, however, no set criteria that need to be met in order to enact that response system and emergency actions remain up to the discretion of the minister. Under what specific criteria will the minister decide what emergency measures are necessary in this case? I hope he will be in the House tonight to spell those measures out.

I want to come to the question of compensation. In response to the ice storm that ravaged Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick in 1998, the federal government contributed more than $717 million to counteract more than $1 billion in damage. The federal government should be prepared to compensate and protect industries whose business is damaged and whose reputation is tarnished as a result of BSE.

I should make the point that existing programs will not be enough. Existing emergency assistance programs, apart from taking too long to kick in, will not in the aggregate deal with the concerns and the problems that this is bound to cause in the industry across the country. Certainly programs of support in agriculture itself are not enough. The Prime Minister and the government should stop pretending that there is some money out there waiting to be called upon by individuals. What they need to do instead is very clearly and quickly ante up for people whose livelihoods may be devastated and severely affected in these cases.

We have seen what happened in SARS. In SARS the economic victims are people largely in the greater Toronto area who are people often of low incomes, people often operating small businesses, people not able to deal with this sudden attack upon their livelihood that came from the SARS case. The same thing applies in the cattle industry.

Today my colleague from Perth made the point about the layoff of some 100 people in Guelph. There are problems of that kind across the country and those simply must be addressed. There can be no playing around on the question of compensation.

Once the situation is under control and the major immediate questions have been answered, the government must take the lead in securing the Canadian beef industry's access to foreign markets. A concerted effort must be made to counteract any damage that has been done to our reputation abroad.

Obviously one area where the government has to move immediately to restore confidence is the United States. As the largest client of our beef industry, 40% of Canadian beef exports go to the United States. Another large segment of our exports traverse the U.S. en route to Mexico, our second biggest client.

We should, by the way, speaking of the United States, not to be offensive or combative, we should note the intervention of Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota. His intervention demonstrates that some Americans are prepared to exploit a crisis and misrepresent the facts to promote their own interests. In that context it is worth noting that between 1996-2002 several states in the United States, including Colorado, Kansas, Montana, South Dakota, have faced the challenge of chronic wasting disease in wild deer and elk. The Americans have also faced their own interstate bans such as the recent Ohio ban on importing deer and elk from Wisconsin.

This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed seriously on both sides of the border and it should not be exploited by Senator Dorgan or by anyone else.

The United States and all of Canada's customers have a right to demand assurances that Canadian beef is safe and the highest of quality. We must prove those assurances on the facts. We can work with the Americans and our other trading partners to avoid further drawn out border disputes that threaten an essential Canadian industry.

The Prime Minister should be involved in this issue directly. He should be talking directly to the President of the United States and making it clear that it is in both countries' interests to deal with the concerns raised by this discovery.

The government must assure that the free flow of goods across the border will resume and that the restrictions on Canadian beef are removed as soon as possible.

I see the signal that my time has expired. I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your attention and I thank the House for granting this emergency debate on what is undoubtedly a very serious problem that must be addressed in the country.

[Request for Emergency Debate, May 26th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, this is an application under Standing Order 52 for you to grant permission for the House to debate a matter that merits immediate and special consideration by the House of Commons. I am referring to the discovery of a case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE, in a cow in Alberta. This has resulted in the banning of importation of Canadian beef by the United States and a number of other countries.

International trade and food safety fall within the jurisdiction of the Government of Canada. The beef industry is a major contributor to the Canadian economy and to our balance of payments. Canadians have faith in our national food safety procedures.

A special debate will provide the government with the opportunity to inform the House of all the steps it has taken and will take to maintain and protect the integrity of our trade and ensure food safety, as well as advise the House of the measures it intends to adopt to reassure our trade partners so as to promote the re-opening of our international markets.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your consideration of this request.

[Liberal Leadership Campaign, May 26th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the minister certainly has nothing to add.

While the member for LaSalle—Émard was finance minister, money was being collected on his behalf to finance a leadership campaign. The former minister has refused to divulge the names of those secret contributors because he says that the Prime Minister would take vengeance on them.

Would the Prime Minister agree not to interfere in all ongoing business which these companies might have with the Government of Canada and in that way permit the member for LaSalle—Émard to stop the secrecy and identify the donors who are afraid to give their names?

[Auberge Grand-Mère, May 26th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, my question is about another intervention by the Prime Minister in the Business Development Bank.

In 1997, Pierre Thibault, a former owner of the Auberge des Gouverneurs in Shawinigan received a mortgage loan from the BDC valued at almost a million dollars. He has now pleaded guilty to fraud charges in a Montreal court.

Can the Prime Minister confirm whether he contacted, directly or indirectly, the then president of the Business Development Bank, François Beaudoin, to secure this loan for the Auberge des Gouverneurs?

[Ethics Counsellor, May 16th, 2003]

A member opposite from the Liberal Party is casting doubts about Her Majesty the Queen, but I will let that pass.

The next exemption relates to “papers relating to negotiations leading up to a contract until the contract has been executed or the negotiations have been concluded”. The contracts in this case with Holland College were executed and have been concluded, so that exception does not apply in this case.

Again there is an exception for “papers that are excluded from disclosure by statute”. These papers are not so excluded by statute.

But then there is item (l): “Cabinet documents and those documents which include a Privy Council confidence”. All we can say is, there must be the reason. A privy council confidence is what the Prime Minister determines it is. If he wants to keep something secret under this rule, that is the loophole through which he can drive his Mack truck. I would hope that the government, if it is going to claim that there is a legitimate privy council secret here, spells out precisely what that is and what damage would be done to the Canadian public interest if there were to be a release or an exemption under this rule.

The next exception relates to “any proceedings before a court of justice or a judicial inquiry of any sort”. That is not the case and no one could argue that the ethics counsellor is comparable in any way to either a court of justice or a judicial inquiry.

The next exception relates to “papers that are private or confidential and not of a public or official character”. These papers are of an official character. They relate to public business; they are of a public character.

There is then a prohibition against the release of “internal departmental memoranda”. Surely no one would say that the report of the ethics counsellor to the Prime Minister relating to whether or not the conflict of interest guidelines are respected is merely a memorandum. Of course it is not.

Finally, there are “papers requested, submitted or received in confidence by the Government from sources outside the Government”. That also does not apply in this case.

There is then a large exemption here, and I note that I have but a minute left, which has to do with consultant studies. That does not apply in this case.

The reason I went through this in detail is that the only possible grounds that the government could use to defend keeping this secret is that long list of exemptions that I have related. None of those exemptions apply. The government's own rules do not justify its keeping these documents secret.

And our rules are clear. We decide. Parliament has the power to decide what will be secret and what will be public. We can compel, by a vote in this House, this government to make public the documents named in my request for production of papers. That is our power and I very much urge this House to exercise that power in the name of democracy, in the name of transparency, and in the name of the integrity of our country and our reputation.

[Ethics Counsellor, May 16th, 2003]

moved:

That an Order of the House do issue for the production of copies of all reports of the Ethics Counsellor concerning the former Solicitor General.

Madam Speaker, you have read the order to which I am addressing my remarks. The solicitor general and cabinet minister in question who was required to resign is now the member for Cardigan.

First, I want to deal with some questions of procedure and then I want to deal with questions of substance. It is important to understand that on issues with regard to the presentation of documents, the only limits upon Parliament are the limits that Parliament imposes itself. Parliament has imposed no limits on the papers or the documents which we are entitled to see and receive. Beauchesne's citation 447 states this in a rather negative way but makes the principle clear. It states:

The House itself has not laid down any criteria for Notices of Motion for the Production of Papers. Any determination of what constitutes “confidential documents” is not a matter for the Speaker to determine. It is up to the government to determine whether any “letters, papers, and studies” are of a confidential nature...

The government has the power to hide documents from Parliament, but the government has no right to hide those documents, and no right to decide what Parliament and the public will see.

The government has set out its own version of the so-called general principles it follows in trying to keep things secret. They are recorded in Beauchesne's citation 446 and I will review those so-called principles. But let it be clear, those are the government's rules for Parliament. They do not bind Parliament. We have the authority to decide by a vote here.

On October 22, 2002, the member for Cardigan, the then solicitor general, submitted his resignation from cabinet. In his letter to the Prime Minister, he said, among other things:

I met with the ethics counsellor and I have learned that he has found me in breach of some obligations.

It is important to remember and to underline that the member for Cardigan, the former solicitor general, disagreed with the finding of the ethics counsellor, at least so he said, but apparently the Prime Minister forced his resignation in any event.

If the member for Cardigan believed that he was wrongly judged, then it would be in his interest to have these documents published and to have the facts known, and certainly it would be in the public interest.

If we are to have rules, we need to know what they are. We need to know why a minister has been found in breach in a particular case and we need to know whether a resignation was triggered by a breach of the rules or by something else. In other words, was the member for Cardigan fired for a real breach of the rules? And, for that matter, was the member for York Centre, the former minister of defence, fired for a real breach of the rules? Or was it for something else, something unknown, and something the public should know?

The only way to know is for Parliament to see the actual documents. Documents that, I remind the House and the public, were prepared by a public official, the ethics counsellor, who is paid and maintained at public expense and whose clear duty is to investigate potential breaches of the code of conduct for ministers and secretaries of state.

What makes this matter so important, more important than simply the documents I am seeking today, is that we are not speaking here of just isolated individual behaviour. There is a pattern of abuse with the government. The tip of the iceberg that we see is the number of resignations or changes in portfolio. The present ambassador to Denmark was chased out of the House and out of the country. The current House leader was forced to change his portfolio. The members for Cardigan and York Centre were forced to resign. There was probably a breach with respect to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, but we have not seen the files. Certainly the Prime Minister was in breach in Shawinigate and it would be interesting to see those files. And we do not know what other ministers were involved because we do not know what the government has not told us.

But we do know that the government on its way to office in 1993 promised a much more independent watchdog than it delivered. Instead of the independent official it proposed, it created a mere illusion of independence by breaking its promise to have that officer report to Parliament and by making that officer subject instead to the Prime Minister. That can only feed the impression that the government seeks systematically to keep secret behaviour and information that should be public.

There is a related issue. Since the government relies regularly on the reports of the ethics counsellor, this Parliament has the right to know what that counsellor reports and we have the right to know what the Prime Minister does with those reports. Does he read them? Does he pay any attention to them? That is not just a question in the air, because the Prime Minister of Canada has a clear obligation, spelled out in his own guide for ministers and secretaries of state; he is the person, the Prime Minister is the officer who is obliged by his own guidelines to ensure that his own ministers follow the rules.

That means that he needs to know what they are doing. The ethics counsellor has the duty to tell the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister has the duty to read and to heed the evidence the counsellor provides. Why is that germane? Because, and I will come to it in a moment, of the blind management trust arrangement that this government introduced despite the fact that it has never been part of any conflict of interest regime before. We have always before had absolutely blind trusts until this government, accommodating some of its richer ministers, decided it would change the rules for this regime. But even under these rules, the Prime Minister is required to come to his own decision about the conduct of his ministers. That is the clear responsibility of the Prime Minister of Canada.

I want to speak a little bit about the blind management trust. What we know about the blind management trust is that the member for LaSalle—Émard, the former minister of finance, was briefed 12 times on his private business affairs while he served as minister of finance. The Prime Minister refuses to answer, whether he, the Prime Minister, with a clear obligation under his own guidelines, has carried out his personal responsibility to find out whether his then minister of finance was acting improperly. One way to ensure that the Prime Minister reads the documents prepared by the ethics counsellor, one way to ensure that the Prime Minister acts on these documents, is to make them public in Parliament, because if we can read them, he will be required to read them.

If I may, I want to go through the arguments that may be used from Beauchesne's to defend secrecy on the part of the government. I want to go through point by point the elements in citation 446. Let me read those elements:

To enable Members of Parliament to secure factual information about the operations of Government to carry out their parliamentary duties and to make public as much factual information as possible--

Here are the “criteria to be applied in determining if the government papers or documents should be exempt from production”: first, “legal opinions or [legal] advice provided for the use of the government” would render a document secret. That is not the case with the matters here. There is no legal advice. There is no legal opinion. Second are papers “which would be detrimental to the security of the state”. There is no challenge to the security of the state to tell people what went on with the member for Cardigan when he was solicitor general. The third prohibition deals with “papers dealing with international relations”. That clearly does not apply in this case. The fourth relates to papers “received from the provinces”. That clearly does not apply in this case. The next item, (e), relates to “papers containing information, the release of which could allow or result in direct personal financial gain or loss by a person or a group of persons”.

All I can say is that I hope that is not the case. I hope the government is not keeping these documents secret to protect the financial position of some person unknown. If it is, it has an obligation to tell us who it is protecting by this secrecy. If it is going to cite that defence, it must make that information known.

The next exemption relates to “papers reflecting on the personal competence or character” of individuals. I think it is important to deal with that precise language. The word “reflecting”, I assume, was chosen with care. The language does not say “reporting facts which might lead third parties to conclusions about competence or character”. The only reasonable interpretation of the word “reflecting” would be that the documents contained a commentary that was a reflection on competence or character. What is intended here is a limitation upon publishing characterizations in documents, not a limitation upon publishing facts in a document.

The exception (g) is “papers of a voluminous character”. If there were such papers, that might be one reason why the Prime Minister had not read them, but there is no reason to believe that the documents prepared by the ethics counsellor were of voluminous character. The next exception is related to documents “relating to the business of the Senate”. There is no reason to believe that exemption applies.

The next exemption says that nothing can be released “which would be personally embarrassing to Her Majesty or the Royal Family”. I doubt strongly that there is anything in these documents that would be embarrassing to Her Majesty or to the royal family.

[Intergovernmental Affairs, May 16th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is not a professor any more. This is not an academic question. It is a real and growing issue.

Yesterday, a resolution was presented in Alberta to mandate that province to negotiate Senate reforms. Therefore, two different provinces on two different constitutional issues are following the court's advice.

The federal government actively sought the Supreme Court opinion in its reference. The court said, negotiate. It did not say, discuss. In the case of Newfoundland and Labrador, a formal resolution has been passed.

In this case, does the minister accept that Canada has a binding obligation, as the court says, to go to the negotiating table?

[Intergovernmental Affairs, May 16th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I asked the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs whether the government considered itself bound by the Supreme Court opinion that when “one participant in Confederation...seek[s] an amendment to the Constitution” there is “an obligation on all parties to come to the negotiating table”.

My question related of course to a resolution passed by the house of assembly, which mandates Newfoundland and Labrador to renegotiate the terms of union with Canada.

The minister evaded the question by talking about discussions. I ask him again. Does the government accept the Supreme Court's opinion that it has an obligation to come to the negotiating table on the resolution of Newfoundland and Labrador?