Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to enter into the debate on this very important subject of lobbyists and the influence lobbyists have on our parliamentary democracy, which I believe is undue influence. If there is one good thing that comes out of the scandal involving Rahim Jaffer and the member for Simcoe—Grey, it may be that Parliament feels compelled to revisit the role lobbyists play in the Ottawa of 2010.
Hopefully, a strong outcome or resolve will be reached by the process of the debate we are having today, which may lead to meaningful change that would finally tie a bell around lobbyists' necks. Then we would know when lobbyists were skulking around in the corridors of power and with whom they were meeting, and we would have some fighting chance to take measures to uphold the democratic process and not fall victim to what we believe is undue influence by lobbyists in Ottawa.
We thought we were doing that with the Federal Accountability Act. I was a member of the committee that went through the whole process on the Federal Accountability Act. We were dealing with so many egregious failures of ethics on the part of the Liberal Party that we were consumed with their ethical shortcomings to the point where we were trying to do perhaps too much too fast.
In the bad old days of the Liberals, there was so much traffic between the offices of senior lobbyists and the PMO, they had to have a revolving door installed. In fact, it became a safety hazard. People were getting nose bleeds because the revolving door was spinning around so wildly between the offices of Earnscliffe and the Prime Minister's office. The same individuals did not know where they were half the time. They had to be reminded which hat they were wearing.
That is how ridiculous it was getting in the days of the Liberal regime, so we trusted the Conservatives. We believed that the Conservatives were as appalled about the Liberal lobbying influence in Ottawa as we were. We took it at face value that all the opposition parties were sincere in their abhorrence of the regime that was put in place so that well-connected Liberal lobbyists could gain privileged access to the corridors of power, to set up their friends to get not just one paw into the cookie jar but both paws at once.
We took extraordinary steps in the Federal Accountability Act and I supported the motions. Little did we know. It took Liberals 13 years to get so corrupt and arrogant. As I pointed out before, the virus seems to have mutated because it took the Conservatives only four years to reach that level of arrogance and deceit, to where they now are the ones who seem to have put in place a regime where well-connected Conservative lobbyists now rule the roost in Ottawa.
Lobbyists are like bats in an attic. They are very difficult to get rid of, they cannot stand the light of day and if they are left there long enough, they rot one's timbers. I find we are faced with this problem today.
I know you will probably agree with me, Mr. Speaker, because I know your reputation for cleaning up corruption in Ottawa in your long career here, but it is very worrisome to me that the most senior lobbyists in Ottawa are also the most senior operatives in the Conservative Party. They are the very same names, those talking heads we see on TV, Tim Powers, Geoff Norquay, John Reynolds, Ken Boessenkool, Yaroslav Baran, Monte Solberg. All these guys, the most senior characters in the lobbyist world, are the most senior characters in the Conservative Party, and there is no effort to even hide it.
We see a guy like Tim Powers on TV introduced as “Conservative Party spokesman, Tim Powers”. He is actually a lobbyist. He is another guy who is whirling around in the revolving door. He probably has to pinch himself or have one of his staffers remind him where he actually is, in the PMO or his lobbyist boardroom.
The problem is getting out of hand. It undermines the most fundamental tenets of our democracy, that we should all have equal access to the government's grand largesse and the services it offers. Some people should not have better access than others based on their ability to trade on their connections or trade on the experience they developed in public life and are now trying to sell to private or personal interests.
That is the whole principle here. When we are in private life, we are not supposed to dine out on the connections we made in public life, unless that information is publicly available. It offends the sensibilities of most Canadians. It offends the ethics standards, the code of conduct and the conflict of interest codes, and it offends the Criminal Code of Canada when it passes a certain point.
The difference between lobbying and influence peddling is about five years in prison. Influence peddling is a very serious offence under the Criminal Code of Canada. In fact, section 121 is right up there with high treason in terms of high crimes and misdemeanours. That is how seriously those who drafted the Criminal Code wanted to condemn the practice of influence peddling.
We only have to look south of the border to see how lobbying has bastardized democracy. Capitol Hill in Washington is riddled with lobbyists. Finally, the Obama administration is putting its foot down. Obama made a speech recently. As his administration's next project, after the health care bill is finally through, he is going to drive the lobbyists off Capitol Hill. He is going to drive the money lenders from the temple. It is his goal and stated objective to clean up Capitol Hill from the undue influence of lobbyists.
We should be doing the same on Parliament Hill today. We should minimize their influence, tie a bell around their necks so we know whose office they are meeting in and what they are talking about and curb their opportunities to get both hands into the cookie jar. That is what we should be doing in Parliament in this debate today.
Let me give an example of why the public has a right to know who has the minister's ear. Let us put it in the context of the BP offshore oil rig disaster, the terrible environmental disaster that is happening in the Gulf of Mexico today. We have a right to know if most of the people the Minister of the Environment is meeting with are oil executives.
If there have been 120 registered visits from BP, Exxon, Shell and all the big oil companies, and the minister has been willing to meet only once or twice with the David Suzuki Foundation or whoever the environmentalists are, the public can use that information. The public should have that information. They might not be there with their hand out for some kind of grant or contribution. They might be there trying to shape public policy or environmental policy.
It would be very useful information for the public to see who has the dominant advantage of the ear of the minister. Those guys show up with well-connected, brand-name, Conservative lobbyists to break through the gatekeepers and barriers in getting access to the minister. They are very good at it. They sell access.
We learned in the Rahim Jaffer case that there are people out there with a commodity to sell and that commodity is access to the public office holders who create public policy. Taking it a step further, they are selling as a commodity their influence over those public office holders in the decision making that takes place.
That is what is fundamentally wrong. The public should be outraged at this issue, and I believe it is. I believe the public gets it. The public is aware that this kind of influence is taking place. Ordinary Canadians would have to pack a lunch if they wanted to penetrate the red tape associated with a fund like the government's green infrastructure fund. They had better dig in, camp out and get ready for a long fight if they are going to figure out how that fund is being administered.
However, if we phone a well-connected Conservative lobbyist like a Rahim Jaffer, all of a sudden the doors open and public servants jump and things are done immediately.
I have a quote from an email, “Rahim wants an answer by Friday and by the way, we will see you at the golf tee-off time next month”. This is a correspondence between Rahim Jaffer and a senior public office holder getting information about the green infrastructure fund that I and ordinary Canadians would not have a hope in hell of actually getting any access to. It is a graphic illustration, a depiction, of everything that is wrong with Ottawa in 2010.
Again, if there is any positive outcome from our examination and investigation of the application and administration of the green infrastructure fund, it might be that parliamentarians are finally seized with the issue that we are ready to take back our democratic institutions from those who seem to have undue influence and undue control over those very institutions.
I am not overstating things to say that the undue influence of lobbyists undermines the most basic tenets of our parliamentary democracy. It is not an overstatement at all. In fact, we are sounding the alarm, blowing the whistle on these guys, that enough is enough. We do not want to follow the route of the United States where nothing happens without the undue influence of lobbyists.
One of the best points made today, that I am really grateful, was brought to the floor of the House of Commons was made by my colleague from Burnaby—Douglas who introduced into this debate a brand new element, one that is rarely discussed and I believe cannot be overstated. Not only should we be demanding that parliamentary secretaries fall under the category when they are under the lobbyist rules. And not only should the onus be on public office holders to declare the meetings as well as the lobbyists.
Those two things are important and we support them. But the one element my colleague brought to this debate was that we also have a right to know the amount of money involved and the budget of lobbyists on various campaigns. They should have to declare it.
It should have to be public because in the same spirit and principle that we should be getting big money out of politics, we should also then be making the case that big money should not be able to buy influence in terms of public policy, legislation, or crafting the direction we may take as a country. It is a glaring oversight.
The principle that was put in place that we should get big money out of politics is absolutely correct. We left a glaring oversight by mistake in place. Whether it is big pharma, big oil or whatever the lobbying group is, they can launch a $100 million campaign to change the minds of parliamentarians to get a certain bill passed. How does the ordinary Canadian compete with that kind of influence?
There are interests in Canada that would pay anything to put in place a regulatory framework that would advance their private or personal interests. We have to protect ourselves from that undue influence or else our democracy and all the work we do to uphold the greatest parliamentary democracy in the world is in jeopardy. Otherwise, we might as well pack up our tent and admit that big money can still buy influence in this country.
I hope that as this debate concludes today one of the things we will take away from it is that we must put in place rules. We must put in place full disclosure requirements so that a lobbyist firms or lobbyists will have to post the amount of money they have spent on a campaign. In fact, there should be spending limits on how much they can spend because ordinary Canadians or the other side of that debate or argument should be on the same level playing field. Public policy should be shaped on the merits of the case and not on the depth of the pockets or the size of the chequebook.
This is one of the things that we have been so frustrated about. Really, the nub of the whole debate is that the public has a right to know who is influencing policy in this country, this Parliament and this government.
We would like to believe that our electoral process put 308 members of Parliament in this chamber and it is Parliament that decides the direction that this country will take in key important areas of public policy.
Let us not kid ourselves. There is another dynamic, another force at play here, that perhaps is shaping the direction Canada takes in the way that ordinary Canadians, all in good faith, cast their ballots in a way they would never have imagined.
One cannot swing a cat in Ottawa without hitting a lobbyist trudging up and down the hallways of this Parliament Building. They have access to the most privileged, senior offices in Parliament.
Another thing we should discuss today, and one of the things that has always bothered me, is that some of the most prominent lobbyists today on Parliament Hill are former members of Parliament. They wear their parliamentary pin, which gives them unlimited, exclusive access to virtually every corridor and office on Parliament Hill. They breeze by security with a wave of the hand and a “How are you”? and a “Thank you”.
I have waited many times for a machine in the member's gym because it is clogged up by some lobbyist who was a member of Parliament from 1984 to 1988 but forever wears that parliamentary pin in his lapel. Every time I want to use that machine there is a lobbyist on it. Then those lobbyists will be in the parliamentary dining room, brushing shoulders with decision makers and senior cabinet ministers. Somehow we have to curb the undue influence of these former members of Parliament who have been skulking around Parliament and get very privileged access.
I have seen lobbyists in our lobby. I think we should have a lobbyist alert. We should have a lobbyist watch. An alarm would go off whenever a lobbyist is in the lobby. We have to get the lobbyists out of our lobby. They should not be in there. Some of them get paid $600 an hour for every contact they make with a member of Parliament. All they have to do is walk through the opposition lobby and they are rich. It is wrong.
I would not want to name names in the context of a debate like this, but guys like Don Boudria are always under foot. We are always bumping into that guy in the wrong places.
Lobbyists should not be rattling around Parliament Hill unchecked. They should always be on a leash, and on a very tight leash so that they do not get into trouble and they do not make a mess in places where they are not supposed to be.
We have made big progress in this debate today. I want to challenge two of the government's responses. This really bothers me after all the questions in question period associated with the Jafferlena debate.
The Minister of Transport falls back on two patented responses now. I think he has a copyright on these things. The first response is that there is no harm, no foul, because Mr. Jaffer never received any money. This is almost laughable. I notice the Liberals are saying what I was saying. It is like the analogy of robbing a bank and the vault is empty, but that does not mean no offence took place.
It is still against the law to lobby illegally even if an individual is unsuccessful, even if an individual is a bad lobbyist. If someone is lobbying illegally, that individual is lobbying illegally. If someone is influence peddling, it does not matter if there was no benefit to peddling influence, it is still a criminal offence under section 121 of the Criminal Code.
The other thing that the Minister of Transport would have us believe is that the government has done nothing wrong because it is up to the lobbyist and the lobbyist alone to register.
We have established that there is an obligation on the part of ministers to uphold not only the letter but the spirit of the law, the very law that the government ran in to office on, the very law that was a centrepiece of its legislative agenda. It has a duty and a moral and ethical obligation if nothing else, to uphold both the letter and the spirit of the law.
The spirit of the law is that the public has a right to know if there is any illegal lobbying going on. That is why we crafted the Lobbyists Registration Act to begin with. It is almost laughable to hear the Minister of Transport and anybody else who answers questions on the Jaffer affair with, “We did nothing wrong. It is only up to the lobbyists”.
We hope to correct that today. We hope that Parliament speaks loudly and clearly when we vote on this particular resolution today, that the burden, the onus, and the obligation is on both parties.
It takes two to tango. It is not particularly difficult, on the part of a minister, to post, declare and disclose when a minister has met with a lobbyist and what the subject matter was any more than it is an onerous duty on the part of the lobbyist. That has to be fixed.
