Pat Martin

[Privilege, June 17th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, that does raise an interesting point. As I understand the ruling from the Ethics Commissioner, she cautioned Parliament that she had no alternative but to rule in the way that she did, but she did make this point. I am going to refer to her words because I do not want to misquote her. She said on page 24 of her original report dated May 7:

Concerns have been raised about the use of lawsuits, more particularly libel suits, to prevent a Member from performing his or her duties in the House of Commons. I cannot predict whether this may indeed become a problem and I hope it does not. Should this become a serious concern for Members...the Code could be adjusted to except libel suits from the ambit of “private interest” for the purposes of sections 8 and 13.

In other words, she recognized that it could become a problem, and we have realized that it is a problem. If the liability associated with a slander suit puts one in a conflict of interest where one is trying to promote one's own private interests by asking questions about it, then we have been effectively muzzled and gagged.

I believe that pressure could come from outside the country. A lawsuit is a lawsuit in a jurisdiction that we recognize and that has the rule of law, such as the United States. My colleague raises a very interesting question. It would make MPs that much more vulnerable again and re-emphasizes the urgency for addressing this unacceptable situation.

[Privilege, June 17th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to finish at least one of the thoughts that I was trying to develop before I ran out of time.

Let me conclude the way I began. The whole purpose of this exercise is to deter and to stop this time honoured tradition of the corporate SLAPP suit from infiltrating into the House of Commons and into our parliamentary process. Libel chill should not silence members of Parliament. We cannot allow it to silence members of Parliament. It would be too easy. As I say, it costs $1,000 to file a statement of claim to begin the process of libel proceedings of a defamation lawsuit.

In this case, Brian Mulroney sued the people of Canada, not the Government of Canada, for $50 million for saying that he took money from Karlheinz Schreiber and the government paid him an out of court settlement of $2.1 million for the defamation lawsuit, claiming that he was defamed.

Therefore, he is no stranger to this practice. Believe me that did silence things. Back then when Brian Mulroney filed that first defamation lawsuit, the RCMP slammed shut their investigation, all avenues of investigation ended, the government issued letters of apology, it apologized to everybody under the sun for having implied even that he may have taken money from Karlheinz Schreiber and then paid him $2.1 million.

I guess he learned that trick so well, that he did it again. As soon as a member of Parliament became a nuisance, became too effective, he slapped another lawsuit on him. Then the rules of the House of Commons kicked in to do his dirty work for him. It was not even the courts necessarily that silenced him this time. He exploited a loophole, a weakness in the Conflict of Interest Code, which forms a part of the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, and that effectively silenced my colleague from West Nova.

I do not care from what party my colleague. It is fundamentally wrong. I will stand in this place and defend his right to speak even if I do not agree with what he says all the time. It is wrong when any one of us is attacked in this way by an outside force, especially when it is really in self-interest. The self-interest in this issue is not on the part of my colleague, the member for West Nova. It is on the part of the guy who sued him, who was watching his backside. We were getting too close to the truth about what happened between Brian Mulroney and Karlheinz Schreiber and he and his lawyers went into damage control and tried to silence MPs.

We cannot allow that to happen. I am proud that we are working hard today, in one of these final days of this session of the 39th Parliament, to correct this situation so it cannot happen again. By the time we resume in the fall, we hope it will be in the context of new rules where libel chill will not silence MPs and this whole notion of the corporate SLAPP suit will no longer affect my right to stand in this place and say the things that need to be said.

[Privilege, June 17th, 2008]

My colleague says, “Don't tempt me”, but what is worrisome to me is that I have some strongly held views on some subjects and I have, from time to time, felt compelled to speak out on those matters.

Let me use one example. The Liberal MP whom I beat was the chair of the committee that toured the country on the drug patent review to extend the drug patent laws for the pharmaceutical industry, which has been called the biggest corporate giveaway since the railway lands were afforded to the CPR in the 1880s. It was a multibillion dollar gift to extend the drug patent laws, so that they could high-grade year after year and ignore the generics or the fact that we could make drugs cheaper and get them into the hands of sick people. That did not matter. The Liberals delivered to big pharma in a big way and it was appalling.

I said some very strongly worded things about big pharma and its conspiracy to milk sick people and to squeeze every last ounce and every last nickel that it could from sick people. If it wanted to silence me, and I should not advertise this, but it could go down and file a statement of claim that I had said something that exceeded what I should. Even if I was being abundantly careful or cautious in my language, it could file that statement of claim and under these rules, as was interpreted by the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner of the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, I would not be able to raise big pharma in this House until that court case had gone down its tortuous route through every level of appeal. It could be three, four or five years that I would be silenced on that issue that I was passionate about.

I think every member of Parliament here would concede that that would be fundamentally wrong because it would not stop there. As soon as it became known that it was that easy, anybody who is passionate about any issue could be silenced in the exact same modus operandi, the same methodology.

That is why it is so important that we interrupt the proceedings and the debate on bills today to take this one step back, a pause and reflect, and correct this unacceptable situation before we move forward.

We have to lay the foundation and the ground rules. We have to correct them and fix them, so that we can do our job effectively when we come back in the fall if and when Parliament is reconvened.

I was a witness to the remarks that triggered this whole incident to some degree because they stemmed from activity at the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. I have the honour of being the vice-chair of that committee and I know very well the member for West Nova, who found himself in hot water and really whose case triggered all the activity that flowed from it.

For our own protection, let us revisit what happened there because it could happen to any of us tomorrow. Let us review one simple fact.

Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney sued the people of Canada for $50 million for saying that he took money from Karlheinz Schreiber. We later learned that he did take money from Karlheinz Schreiber, but in the meantime, we settled that $50 million lawsuit and we gave him a $2.1 million settlement, something a lot of Canadians are still furious about. In fact, it makes my blood boil a little just talking about it.

Let us keep in mind that of that $2.1 million, only $1.3 million was for legal fees. Over $700,000 was paid to a PR firm to sell Canadians on his side of the story, so in fact the taxpayers of Canada ended up paying a PR firm, so that Brian Mulroney could sell us a cock-and-bull story that nobody in their right mind would believe, now that we know some of the details associated with sacks of money and secret hotel room meetings.

What got the member for West Nova into trouble was that he said something along the lines of retelling some of this story on a CTV news show, Mike Duffy Live. Immediately, Brian Mulroney's lawyers, no strangers to the corporate SLAPP suit, no strangers to manipulating the legal system and no strangers to parliamentary rights and privileges, having been a former member of Parliament and a former prime minister of Canada, came down with the hammer. Again, the classic, time honoured tradition of the corporate SLAPP suit reared its ugly head and the member for West Nova was served notice that a statement of claim had been filed for a libel suit against him. That is what triggered this whole mess.

In the context of an MP's right to speak freely in the House of Commons and in a parliamentary committee by extension of his rights in the House of Commons, no one is recommending that any MP can be irresponsible, go out and say wildly slanderous things and somehow be free of a libel suit. There is nothing in the context of any of the debate to date that advises we lighten up on what MPs can and cannot do outside of the realm of parliamentary privilege, even in the area of the scrum area, which is a grey area. It is not clearly defined what an MP can or cannot say. We are advised to be cautious. We are advised to be respectful, et cetera, or we may find ourselves sued.

What we are trying to clarify is that if a person is in fact named in a lawsuit, frivolous or warranted, that should not preclude the person from speaking about that subject in the House and in parliamentary committee during the period of time that the lawsuit winds its way through the legal system. This is the difference and that is what happened to my colleague from West Nova.

He could still speak about whether Brian Mulroney accepted any kickbacks in the Bear Head project or the Airbus scandal. He would be free to talk about those things outside, on TV, in the press, anywhere but in Parliament. However, the worst thing happened to him. He was one of the most effective members on our committee in dealing with these complicated subjects. He was barred and precluded from raising that subject at all at committee or in the House of Commons. We lost his voice as we moved forward in the study of whether Brian Mulroney accepted kickbacks and whether those bags of cash were in fact some kind of payment for services rendered other than to go off to sell tanks to China and other countries, where armaments are not supposed to be sold.

That is what got us into this whole mess. I was there. I think it is helpful and instructive in fact for members of Parliament to take note of how this happened. As I have said, what happened to my colleague from West Nova could happen to any of my colleagues in the House of Commons today at any moment.

To take it to a ridiculous extent, we could all be silenced. If the House of Commons was getting to be a real nuisance and pressing the nerves of too many outside interests, private individuals, businesses, corporations, anybody could silence us with a lawsuit tomorrow. That is why this had to be dealt with urgently.

We tried at the access to information committee. I moved a motion that was not unlike the motion my colleague from Scarborough—Rouge River brought into the House as a Liberal opposition day motion. In fact, it was almost word for word. It was deemed to be out of order, that our committee could not deal with amending the Standing Orders, which has the conflict of interest code inherent in them. Only the procedure and House affairs committee could deal with the issue of amending the Standing Orders.

We all know that the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs has been in a logjam for months. It has been completely stonewalled by a filibuster triggered by the government side.

New things are happening in Parliament of which people should take note. First, there is the fact that we now have had an interpretation of the Standing Orders where being named in a lawsuit actually silences a member. The other thing is we have government side members using another time honoured tradition, filibustering, to stifle democracy at standing committees right across the parliamentary precinct. This is unprecedented. I hope perhaps when we come back in the fall, steps will be taken to address that as well, because that grinds democracy to a halt just as surely as silencing members of Parliament grinds democracy to a halt.

We were unable to refer this matter to its logical place of business, the procedure and House affairs committee. We tried urgently at the ethics committee, knowing full well it was beyond the mandate of the ethics committee, but in a sense of urgency, because we could not allow this situation to develop any further. Members' freedom of speech, a member's right to speak freely on subjects, was being jeopardized and challenged by the ruling of the Ethics Commissioner.

We should make it clear that our committee did not find fault with the ruling of the Ethics Commissioner. In fact, we have confidence in the Ethics Commissioner, but her hands were tied. Given the language of the Conflict of Interest Code, of the Standing Orders of the day, she made the only ruling she could, given the facts that were presented to her and the situation in which the member for West Nova found himself. No one is criticizing the member for West Nova. I found it very helpful because we owe the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner a debt of gratitude in a way. She quite rightly alerted Parliament to a set of circumstances that could not be allowed to continue or we would be unable to do our job properly.

It is useful to take note again of what happened at our ethics committee. That really led to the situation we find ourselves in now.

It was November 15 when the member for West Nova attended the committee as an acting member. There was a motion at that time that we investigate the Mulroney-Schreiber airbus scandal, as it came to be known, because Mr. Karlheinz Schreiber was on the verge of being extradited back to Germany, removed from Canada to face criminal charges in Germany for influence peddling, bribery and paying off politicians in that country, the same thing he is being accused of or that we believe happened in our country.

Therefore, there was a sense of urgency. We were trying to get this motion to the floor. As I moved the motion that we deal with it, we were interrupted by the member for Dufferin—Caledon, a Conservative member and a vice-chair of the committee. I am the one opposition vice-chair and he is the other vice-chair. He said:

The point of order, Mr. Chairman, is that I believe [the member for West Nova] should recuse himself from this committee. He cannot use this committee as an examination for discovery--or a question, as it is now known in the legal field--to further his personal action. Justice must appear to be done, whether it's in the courts or whether it's in this committee.

In other words, he was accusing the member for West Nova of trying to take advantage of his privileged position on a standing committee to interview the person who was suing him for libel, the argument being that the member for West Nova would have had an unfair competitive advantage over the citizen who was suing him if he were allowed to grill him in an aggressive manner with the cameras rolling in the public eye.

This took us all aback. No one had ever considered or contemplated that a member of Parliament was automatically deemed to be in a conflict of interest just because he or she was named in a libel lawsuit. This seems to be something that was cooked up with Mr. Mulroney's lawyers and the Conservative Party of Canada. The member for Dufferin—Caledon was sent in there with a pretty good set of notes, a binder and a set of facts to argue the case that the member should not be allowed to question Brian Mulroney.

Very suspicious as well was the fact that the member for Dufferin—Caledon knew about the lawsuit before the member for West Nova who was named in the lawsuit. Somehow the Conservative Party had some privileged information about the fact that Brian Mulroney's lawyers had traipsed down to a courthouse and filed a statement of claim.

This led us to another worrisome realization. By the interpretation of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, she determined that the very moment the statement of claim was filed, the person named in the statement of claim was in conflict of interest and had a personal interest in the case and therefore should be silenced. A gag order effectively would be placed on that person and he would not be allowed to ask questions or speak on that subject in the House of Commons.

I am very concerned this situation arose. I am grateful that we have had the opportunity to address it in an opposition day motion and I am urgently—

[Privilege, June 17th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I almost missed my speaking opportunity because of the outpouring of praise and affection for my colleague from Scarborough—Rouge River. We appreciate him making it possible for us to spend some time today reflecting on this important matter.

We do recognize and appreciate the contribution he has made not just now but throughout the years, especially on matters championing the privileges and the rights of members of Parliament to enable us to do our job thoroughly. He has made this his business. He has studied this and gained some expertise with great credibility.

I am proud to speak to this motion briefly today. The member has called upon us:

That, for the purpose of better assuring the privileges of this House and its members, including our ancient and undoubted privilege of free speech, the subject matter of the Speaker's ruling today on these issues be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for its consideration, and if necessary, to study and/or consult with the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner and/or report to the House.

I compliment the member on the language that he has chosen. It is stirring, moving and almost romantic in its tone and content.

This is a very worthwhile motion and very worthy of our time, especially perhaps in the twilight days and hours of this session of this Parliament. It is fitting that we pause and reflect, and take note of what has caused us some difficulty in this session. This gives us an opportunity to see what we can do better in future sessions of this Parliament.

It is especially important that this member and others have seized on this issue because in the last few weeks we have been dealing with a really troubling matter. We have been wresting with something that I am no stranger to and that is the time honoured tradition of the corporate SLAPP suit being used as an instrument to silence dissidents and to silence opponents.

This became a great speciality of corporate America and corporate Canada in the sixties, the seventies, and the eighties, when environmentalists and other protest groups were starting to become a nuisance to the corporate sector in many ways.

One effective way to silence critics is to slap them with a lawsuit, even if it has no merit whatsoever. Even if it is frivolous, it is going to tie up opponents, cost them a fortune, slow them down, and scare the pants off them because they could lose their home and their security. In all likelihood, the corporate entity has a lot more ability to fight a protracted court battle than the persons being sued.

That is the corporate SLAPP suit as I know it and it has raised its ugly head around here in recent weeks and months. It seems as though the Conservatives have stumbled upon a valuable tool, an instrument that they can use to silence their opponents. Members should not just take my word for it, but if we do not do something about this and nip it in the bud, there will be so much paper flying around here in terms of corporate SLAPP suits and libel chill we will think we are in a snowstorm.

All someone would have to do in the context of the Conflict of Interest Code that forms a part of our Standing Orders is go down to the local convenience courtroom, as in convenience store, and file a frivolous lawsuit. A statement of claim will cost $1,000. At that very moment, under the rules that we are seeking to amend today, the member being sued would be silenced and barred, and prohibited from raising that subject in any way, shape or form in the House of Commons or at a standing committee. Members would not be stopped from speaking outside the House if they choose to risk digging themselves in deeper. They would still be free to talk.

In the very place where it matters, in the very place where we have privilege, not absolute privilege but pretty darn close to absolute free speech, that member of Parliament would have effectively been silenced. In fact, a lawsuit is about the only tool that could effectively silence an MP because we rigidly cling to the ancient parliamentary privilege of free speech. That is why I said I appreciated the language my colleague chose.

It is an ancient and time-honoured tradition, but by this fairly simple action, anybody with $1,000 could shut me up.

[Privilege, June 17th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Windsor for pointing out some of the aspects of this that have been troubling to many of us, especially those of us who were present at the ethics committee, which was the genesis of the whole incident.

Two things trouble me and it may be helpful to ask him because of his legal background. One is the ruling by the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner when she made the statement that members are in fact in a conflict of interest if they are named as a defendant in a lawsuit.

As this concerns a legal question, it would be helpful guidance for those of us who are not lawyers if those members in the House who do have a legal background could explain how just being named in a lawsuit is seen as a liability, even before we know the outcome of that lawsuit or any blame is assigned by the courts of law, and the untenable situation in which it puts a member of Parliament.

I would ask the member to dwell somewhat on the concept of liability. Just because someone is being sued is that already a liability, a pending a liability, an unfunded liability or whatever, and when would that take effect?

One of the worrisome things about this case is that as soon as the papers were served, even before the defendant knew he was being sued, the Ethics Commissioner ruled that the person was in a conflict the day the papers were filed at a courtroom in another city somewhere else without his knowledge. Actually, the member for West Nova learned from the newspaper that he was being sued and it seemed the Conservative Party member who found fault with the situation knew about it already. Somebody told the Conservative Party that this lawsuit had been initiated even before the defendant knew about it.

How can members be barred from speaking at a committee if we do not even know we are being sued but we find ourselves deemed to be in a conflict of interest because papers have been filed somewhere? Could the member speak to the untenable situation that puts members in as well?

[Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985, June 16th, 2008]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-567, An Act to amend the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985 (protection of the assets).

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to introduce this bill on behalf of many members of pension plans. This bill would ensure members have guaranteed representation on boards of trustees so that members and beneficiaries are represented on trustee boards, pension committees and pension councils.

It would also provide, and this is what we call the Enron clause, that not more than 10% of the total value of assets in a pension plan may be held in securities issued by the company where the employees work or by a corporation associated with the company.

It also would prevent pension plan administrators and beneficiaries from being restricted in the sale of the employer's securities unless the directors and officers of the employer are similarly limited and, in any event, for not more than year.

Finally, to ensure that pension benefits are adequately cared for, it would require that information that affects or is likely to affect the value of the security be provided to pension plan administrators at the same time as it is provided to anyone other than the directors, officers, managers, et cetera, to prevent insider trading problems.

This is very important legislation to ensure that what happened to Enron employees in the United States does not happen to employees working for Canadian firms in this country.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Canada Elections Act, June 13th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, in the little time that is left today, I want to say that we cannot allow another federal election under the current election financing rules, because the loans loophole that we seek to plug by this bill is big enough to drive a Mazda truck through.

That is what I heard earlier in this debate. That is a graphic illustration of how the current regime can be abused by those who would seek to abuse it.

I would ask my colleague another very simple question. When is a loan not a loan? I will help him with the answer. A loan is not loan if it never gets repaid. It ceases to be a loan and becomes a donation, and it is an illegal donation if it is larger than $1,100.

We are seeking to rub that out. It has to be eliminated before the next federal election or we will allow the same kind of abuse, but it will even be more widespread, I would suggest, than the abuse that has already taken place in this loans loophole regime and scenario that exist now.

I cannot understand for the life of me how he fails to see that we have to take big money out of politics. Big money in election financing undermines democracies. It bastardizes democracy, so to speak, and makes it less fair for those who want to seek political office on a fair and level playing field.

[Garment Industry, June 13th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the garment industry in Winnipeg Centre is in crisis. We are hemorrhaging jobs, good union jobs with pensions and benefits that offered a good start to generations of new Canadians.

Now the duty remission orders that offered some relief to unfair global competition are set to expire. It is another nail in the coffin of this struggling industry.

Will the government commit today that it will extend the duty remission orders so our struggling garment industry in Winnipeg has at least a fighting chance to survive?

[Garment Industry, June 13th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, when I was first elected in 1997, there were 43 garment manufacturers in my riding. They employed some 7,000 skilled craftspeople. These were good jobs: union jobs with pensions, benefits and dental plans.

Since then, established companies in this industry have suffered terribly. Major established companies such as Gemini, Western Glove and Nygard are dropping like flies, one by one yielding to insurmountable forces with virtually no assistance from the federal government.

The government has abandoned the garment industry. I cannot understand why.

It is almost impossible any more to find anything that is made in Canada. When China was allowed into the WTO, Canada could have put quotas on imports so our domestic employers would have a fighting chance. The government did nothing.

Duty remission orders now are sunsetting, from 50% to 25% to zero in 2010. If the government cares about the garment industry at all, it needs to extend the duty remission orders to 2016, and at 100%, not 50%.

The government has failed to act in any meaningful way. The duty remission orders are one last chance so that these employers can keep hiring Canadians to make clothes in Canada that we can all be proud of.

[Canada Elections Act, June 13th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleague from Scarborough—Rouge River that the whole principle behind the bill is to take big money out of politics so there is no unfair competitive advantage to any person running for politics because of who he or she knows.

I want to challenge my colleague on this idea and ask him to elaborate on it. Where does he get the idea that it would be better to have the loan loophole come from individuals rather than from financial institutions? The whole premise of that clause in the bill is to avoid the “good ol' boy” connections as well as the connections with business and unions, where they are not allowed to donate a single penny to an election campaign.

Under the current loophole, my union, the carpenters union, could loan me $100,000 and not push me to pay it back. That would be fundamentally wrong. It would give me an inside competitive advantage over other people running in the same election campaign who may not have connections with a union, or a business, or a rich uncle or an individual lending it to themselves. For example, it is fundamentally wrong for a guy who owns a car dealership to have his dealership loan him $250,000. However, it is perfectly legitimate for that same individual to get a $30,000 or $50,000 start-up loan from a bank or a credit union. In fact, it is necessary if we are to give equal access to the electoral system to all people who want to seek office.

My colleague has a convoluted, pretzel logic. He is a complicated man and an intellectual, but this reasoning is so convoluted that it does not hold water.