Pat Martin

[Business of Supply, March 10th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from St. Paul's for making reference to Jim Travers who recently passed away. I will begin my speech where she left off in her remarks as to what Mr. Travers may think of the state of democracy as it is today.

I will remind members and all Canadians that our democracy is a fragile construct at best. If we are not vigilant in reinforcing it, buttressing it and strengthening it in everything we do, then the inverse is true. It begins to diminish, deteriorate and to be undermined incrementally. These incremental changes are sometimes so subtle that we hardly notice them, but when compiled they create a critical mass that, without overstating things, threatens the integrity of the democracy that we are duty bound to uphold in the House of Commons today.

In a seminal piece of political commentary that Jim Travers wrote on April 4, 2009, for which he won the 2009 National Newspaper Award, he pointed out that, as a foreign correspondent for many years, he witnessed democracy beginning to unfold in many of his postings in Africa and other places he lived. At the same time as he was watching the state of democracy in those underdeveloped nations, he thought of Canada, as he put it, as a cold but shimmering Camelot where ballots, not bullets, changed governments, where men and women in uniform were discreet servants of the state, where our institutions were structurally sound, where corruption was firmly enough in check that scandals were aberrations, demanding public scrutiny and sometimes even justice. He went on to lament that he was witnessing Canadians allowing their democracy slip.

I forgot to mention that I will be splitting my time with my colleague for Hamilton Centre.

My colleague from Hamilton Centre and I both attended Jim Travers' memorial on Tuesday night, along with about 1,000 well-wishers from all walks of life, but notably politicians, journalists and people in those industries, lamenting his loss.

Mr. Travers pointed out that our Camelot was under siege because, as I point out, incrementally, step by step, death by 1,000 cuts, we are witnessing the erosion and the deterioration of the institution that our fathers very proudly built up. He stated what his response would have been in the 1980s, by saying:

I would have rejected out of hand the suggestion that Parliament would become a largely ceremonial body incapable of performing its defining functions of safeguarding public spending and holding ministers to account. I would have treated as ridiculous any forecast that the senior bureaucracy would become politicized, that many of the powers of a monarch would flow from Parliament to the prime minister or that the authority of the Governor General, the de facto head of state, would be openly challenged.

Yet every one has happened and each has chipped away another brick of the democratic foundations underpinning Parliament. Incrementally and by stealth, Canada has become a situational democracy. What matters now is what works. Precedents, procedures and even laws have given way to the political doctrine of expediency.

That sets the framework for the debate we are having today on the Bloc Quebecois' opposition day motion that is blowing the whistle, sounding the alarm, sending an alert to Canadians that if we are not careful the very institutions by which we define ourselves as Canadians will be undermined, diminished and, in fact, will disappear.

There were a series of events leading up to the opposition day motion that outlines the threat to democracy. I will frame my remarks by citing the opening of this opposition day motion.

That this House denounce the conduct of the government, its disregard for democracy and its determination to go to any lengths to advance its partisan interests and impose its regressive ideology....

I will not go on, but I would say that it is at the expense of putting the best interests of Canadians first and the lofty ideals of accountability and transparency that the Conservatives promised Canadians when they took power five years ago.

I will begin with the in and out scandal itself, which is one of three offences that we are citing here today.

We want our government to fix health care, not elections. It offends the sensibilities of Canadians to see a systematic, deliberate, premeditated and well-orchestrated conspiracy to defraud the spending limits of the Canada Elections Act.

I would mention that the spending limits of the Canada Elections Act is one of the fundamental cornerstones of our democracy and, I believe, it is one of the things that differentiates us from the Americans. We believe big money in the United States has undermined democracy to a great extent. We believe in this country that nobody should be able to buy an election based on having deeper pockets or a fatter chequebook. Yet, that is exactly what the Conservatives have done by willingly and knowingly put in place a scheme to exceed the spending limits and gain an unfair competitive advantage over the other parties.

All we want is a level playing field so that Canadians can decide the merits of a party based on its policies, platform and promises, not based on being carpet bombed and blitzed by advertising campaigns that have little to do with what the government actually intends to do.

I will point out the echo effect of this offence. It is even more egregious that these riding associations that conspired with their party to defraud the Canada Elections Act enjoy an echo effect in that the ill-gotten gains from the first offence went on to bankroll the Conservatives' next election campaign in 2008, compounding the offence.

I point out as well that there is a whole second tier to the in and out scandal, which has been talked about very little. While 67 riding associations conspired to defraud the spending limits for advertising purposes, another 50 riding associations conspired to defraud the spending limits on polling. This is rarely talked about. Sixteen of those 50 riding associations conducted complete in and out transactions, such as the member for Essex I believe, where $20,000 were transferred into their bank accounts and within 24 hours or so that same $20,000 was transferred out. However, this time they said that it was for polling.

What a ludicrous notion. No one would ever conduct a public opinion poll in his or her riding in the middle of an election campaign. It would be a complete waste of money. However, the national party spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on daily national polls throughout an election campaign.

In this case, the second ridiculous thing is that one could not spend $20,000 on a local poll in one riding association. I do not think it can be done. I have had estimates and they range from $2,500 to $4,500 for a 400-person, 20-question survey. This was a way for the federal party to exceed its spending limits and call national expenses local expenses so that it could also get the rebate in its local riding association.

I look forward to the RCMP and the Director of Public Prosecutions expanding the charges laid to include this second polling scheme.

Let us not forget that when the Conservative government says that it is co-operating fully with the investigation, the RCMP had to kick down the doors of the Conservative Party headquarters with a search warrant and seize all of its records and documents. It did not do it co-operatively.

We also must not forget that 31 summons were issued by the ethics committee and the Conservatives advised 31 people to ignore the summons to the ethics committee. That is an erosion of parliamentary democracy.

[Business of Supply, March 10th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I want to recognize my colleague's reference in her speech to the late Jim Travers and what he might think if he were here to comment and write an editorial on the erosion of democracy as it is unfolding today under the guidance of the Conservative government. What does she think, as a close personal friend, his reaction would have been?

[Petitions, March 9th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of thousands of Canadians who have presented a petition calling upon Parliament to take note that asbestos is the greatest industrial killer that the world has ever known, and yet Canada remains one of the world's largest producers and exporters of asbestos in the world, even though more Canadians now die from asbestos than all other industrial causes combined.

The petitioners also point out that Canada spends millions of dollars subsidizing the asbestos industry and blocking international efforts to curb its use. Therefore, the petitioners call upon Parliament to ban asbestos in all of its forms, institute a just transition program for asbestos workers and the communities in which they live, end all government subsidies of asbestos both in Canada and abroad, and stop blocking international health and safety conventions designed to protect workers from asbestos, such as the Rotterdam Convention.

[Business of Supply, March 8th, 2011]

Villainy wears many masks, Mr. Speaker, and none so treacherous as the mask of virtue. So day after day to see the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister stand up pretending he is St. Sebastian with the arrows of accusations piercing his noble breast as if the Conservatives are the victims being persecuted by a bunch of crypto-Liberals and Elections Canada is almost laughable. Then they put up Little Bo Peep when the parliamentary secretary stands down. They do not know whether they are coming or going. One thing I do know, they should fix health care not elections. That is what we say in the province of Manitoba because we are familiar with this.

The genesis of the whole in and out scandal was actually the provincial Conservative Party in Manitoba in the 1999 election. Can members guess who was busted, charged, tried and convicted for this very thing? It was the current Minister of Public Safety when he was a provincial member of the Manitoba legislature. Can members guess who the architects of that scheme were? One of them is the current member for Portage—Lisgar who was just up in the House of Commons trying to defend the indefensible.

We had a motto in Manitoba--

[Business of Supply, March 8th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I know I have very little time, so I will try to raise a few points that I do not think have been raised thoroughly in this debate today.

First, what is really offensive to Canadians is the echo effect of the whole in and out scandal, this whole well-orchestrated premeditated conspiracy to defraud the spending limits of the Elections Act, in that the ill-gotten gains from the 2006 election were supposed to bankroll the 2008 and subsequent elections in these riding associations.

I would like to raise another point that I do not think has been raised. The in and out scheme had two levels. Tier one was for advertising, and 67 riding associations took part. Many more honest riding associations turned it down.

Tier two was for polling. People seem to forget this. Fully 50 riding associations orchestrated a second parallel in and out scheme with polling overspending in the amounts of $15,000 to $20,000 per riding association under the guise that they were polling locally. Let us remember, these were expensed as local expenses.

First, no one does a public opinion poll in the middle of an election campaign in a single riding. It is just not done. It is a waste of time and money.

Second, nobody could spend $20,000 on a public opinion poll in one riding association during the writ period. It would not happen. I have priced them out. Viewpoints Research will poll 400 people in my riding for roughly $4,000, $4,500. It does not cost $20,000. In some of these cases it was $28,000.

We have the in and out scandal for advertising. Clearly the national advertising buy was expensed at the local riding associations for two reasons: first, so they could exceed the limit nationally; and second, so the riding associations could use it as a cash cow and get the rebate.

Then there is a whole second tier on one of the other big expenses in a federal election campaign, the polling costs. They are busted dead to rights. As soon as they are finished prosecuting these four people, the two senators and Susan Kehoe and Mike Donison, they can go after the architects of the second tier, which is the polling scandal.

Let me remind members what precipitated, and I hope the member for Mississauga South hears this, the 2008 federal election. It was the work that the chair of the ethics committee at the time did, the member for Mississauga South, in issuing 31 summons to 31 principals of the in and out scandal because the witnesses refused to come otherwise.

Very wisely, the member exercised his parliamentary rights and issued summons. These 31 witnesses were told not to come to the parliamentary committee, which was meeting during the hot days of summer, during August. The Conservatives advised their own official agents and officers of their party to not attend.

Some of those people were Patrick Muttart, the Prime Minister's closest aide in the Prime Minister's office. Another was the current senator, Doug Finley, and Mike Donison and Irving Gerstein. These are some of the people who refused to attend the parliamentary committee.

Just before the chair of the committee called the police to have these people dragged before committee, in a paddy wagon if they had to, guess what happened? The writ was dropped. We are talking about August 18, August 20. Parliament was going to resume, and the committee would start sitting again September 5, September 6. On September 6, the Conservatives dropped the writ to avoid this very issue, the in and out scandal.

We are getting very close to that point again. The Conservatives are running and hiding and cannot take the heat. They are busted dead to rights. They are probably going to find some way to weasel out of facing justice in this regard as well. “Villainy wears many masks, none of which so dangerous as virtue”. That was a Johnny Depp quote.

[Business of Supply, March 8th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I want to ask my colleague from Portage—Lisgar this. The first position that her party took was the paranoid delusion that Elections Canada was somehow full of crypto-Liberals and they were persecuting the Conservative Party and nobody else because of what they did. This attitude that everybody does it has been disproved time and time again.

However, the Conservatives switched from that original stance of the delusions of persecution, where they had the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs channelling Saint Sebastian with the arrows in his noble chest as if they were being persecuted by Elections Canada, to an almost as ridiculous notion that everybody else is just as bad as they are.

We have a saying in Manitoba that they should fix health care, not elections, and that is—

[Political Financing, March 4th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know where Conservatives are burying the bodies of all the political staffers they are throwing under the bus. It is a good thing Skippy is practising his mortician routine because the Conservative lobbyists like Tim Powers could only absorb so many of these guys.

The minister of immigration is abusing his office. He is exploiting the hopes and dreams of the very people he is sworn to serve. There is an implied quid pro quo when the minister of immigration is the one heading up the outreach to new Canadian voters and he knows it.

The minister of immigration—

[Political Financing, March 4th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, that director of multicultural affairs did not get fired for an ethical breach. He was fired because he was dumb enough to get caught. It is the minister's head that should roll for breaking faith with the Canadian people, for using his office and the weight of his title to orchestrate the Conservative Party's ethnic outreach strategy at the taxpayer's expense. Conservatives cannot pass this off on some overzealous flunky. The buck stops with the guy whose name is on the masthead.

Mulroney used to fire ministers who stepped in a cow-pie. Whatever happened to ministerial accountability for the current Conservative government?

[Jim Travers, March 3rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, members of the NDP caucus were shocked and profoundly saddened to learn today of the most untimely death of our friend and colleague on the Hill, Jim Travers.

Jim was a seasoned, veteran journalist and a consummate professional who was an inspiration and a mentor to many. “The kind of journalist I aspire to be”, one press gallery member said today. He was an old-school guy who would never burn a source, never pull a punch and never hesitate to speak truth to power in the finest tradition of his honourable craft, and he did so with a sense of humour and a turn of phrase that was always pithy, unique, clever and memorable. The man could really write.

In all of his many roles in an illustrious career, Jim represented the very best of journalistic integrity. His colleagues at The Toronto Star have lost a dear friend and an inspirational leader.

Our deepest heartfelt condolences go to Jim's family. His many friends on Parliament Hill will miss him profoundly, and I am proud to have been one of them.

[Petitions, March 2nd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise today to introduce a petition from thousands of Canadians from all across the prairie region, and even Ottawa, Ontario.

The petitioners call upon the House of Commons to take note that asbestos is the greatest industrial killer that the world has never known. They also point out that Canada remains one of the largest producers and exporters of asbestos in the world, dumping nearly 200,000 tonnes of asbestos into third world and developing nations.

They also point out that more Canadians now die from asbestos than all other industrial causes combined and that Canada spends millions of dollars subsidizing the asbestos industry by sending teams of Department of Justice lawyers gallivanting around the world like globe-trotting propagandists for the industry, blocking international efforts to curb its use, such as the Rotterdam convention.

These petitioners are calling on the Government of Canada to ban asbestos in all of its forms and institute a just transition program for asbestos workers and the communities they live in, to end all government subsidies of asbestos, both in Canada and abroad, and to stop blocking international health and safety conventions designed to protect workers from asbestos, such as the Rotterdam convention.