Mr. Speaker, again, all Treasury Board guidelines are being followed on this.
House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2015, with 43% of the vote.
Ethics December 3rd, 2013
Mr. Speaker, again, all Treasury Board guidelines are being followed on this.
Ethics December 3rd, 2013
Mr. Speaker, all Treasury Board rules are being followed in this case. With respect to how much, I am not sure. She is probably better to ask her own leader. He would have a better understanding of how much it would cost him to defend something. We, of course, know that he spent hundreds of thousands of his own party's dollars to defend him in a suit he had.
Ethics December 3rd, 2013
Mr. Speaker, with respect to that, all Treasury Board rules are being followed.
Ethics December 3rd, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I will read right from the same document the member is quoting. It says, “I am not aware of any evidence that the prime minister was involved in the repayment or reimbursement of money to Senator Duffy or his lawyer”. That is right in the exact same documents that the hon. member chooses to reference.
As the Prime Minister has said on a number of occasions, had he known that this plan was being undertaken in his office, he would have put an immediate stop to it.
Ethics December 3rd, 2013
Mr. Speaker, as we read through the exact same documents, it is quite clear that, as the RCMP has stated, on page 72 in these exact same documents, it could find no evidence that the Prime Minister knew anything of this.
The Prime Minister has said on a number of occasions that had he known that this scheme was being hatched, he would have of course put an end to it right away.
Ethics December 2nd, 2013
Mr. Speaker, the RCMP had been investigating this matter for some months now. At the same time, it is evident that the Conservative Party did not pay the expenses of Senator Duffy. The RCMP documents also clearly indicate that it is both Nigel Wright and Senator Duffy who are the subjects of the current investigation.
Ethics December 2nd, 2013
Mr. Speaker, again, the Senate is in control of its own affairs and will do what it deems important.
However, what we saw last week was the Senate Board of Internal Economy invite the three auditors who were in charge of this audit in front of it. It asked to ensure that the audit was done with complete confidentiality in that Canadians and, equally important, that the Senators could have confidence in the work they did. Those three auditors confirmed the same and it would appear the Senate was comfortable with that answer and has taken no further action.
Ethics December 2nd, 2013
Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that Ben Perrin left the Prime Minister's Office to seek a career as a professor at, I believe, the University of British Columbia. I would invite the hon. member to Google his name and see at which institution he is working.
Ethics December 2nd, 2013
Mr. Speaker, again, the assistant secretary to the cabinet was very clear with respect to the unfortunate error that occurred on this. There are of course Treasury Board guidelines in place that govern how emails are handled when employees leave. However, again, as soon as these emails were discovered, Privy Council contacted the RCMP to ensure it had access to these emails.
Ethics December 2nd, 2013
Obviously, Mr. Speaker, I would have no knowledge of when the Prime Minister last spoke to Mr. Perrin, but what is very clear also, again today, is the level of co-operation the Prime Minister's Office is providing to the RCMP. When the Privy Council followed up and found its mistake in not having previously released Ben Perrin's emails, the Prime Minister's Office immediately took the initiative to make sure that the RCMP had access to them.