Paul Dewar

[Questions on the Order Paper, September 18th, 2006]

With regard to the lease-purchase agreement between Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) and Minto Developments for the property at 3000 Merivale Road: (a) what financial details have gone to Treasury Board to support this agreement in principle; (b) was the search for a lease agreement publicly tendered; (c) what are the details of the tendering process for the relocation of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police headquarters from 1200 Vanier Parkway; (d) what are the details of the analysis for all of the options considered by PWGSC prior to the agreement in principle with Minto Developments; and (e) was the City of Ottawa’s 2001 policy of stimulating growth by encouraging the location of “future federal workplaces near Transitway Stations and give particular consideration to the east-end part of the City” considered in this decision and, if so, how?

[Federal Accountability Act, June 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, very quickly, simply elect more New Democrats and they will see the change.

[Federal Accountability Act, June 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my comments, there is more work to be done.

Clearly what we have heard from many learned people on public policy is that we can bring in bills and we can enact legislation, but unless there are good men and women working day to day to make sure those things are enforced, they are not worth much. I do not take issue with the member about the need for more work to be done in certain areas.

This place needs to do more work on looking at the books and looking at the estimates process.

Let us go back to the genesis of Bill C-2 and the ethics package that my predecessor put forward. It was the sponsorship scandal and some other areas that were of concern, such as lobbying, et cetera. With respect to oversight in Parliament, we should be taking more time, paying more attention and shining more light on the money before it is spent. When the estimates go through this place, it should not be done in a day. We should take more time and put them under the microscope. It is done in other jurisdictions.

It would mean having more resources for committees. We need to make sure that the people on those committees have more time to serve on the committees. The appointments need to be for longer periods. One way to do that is through electoral reform. The people who are in the third that we are proposing who are elected from the so-called list would be able to spend more time on committee work. A concern of people who have evaluated public policy for many years is that people do not spend enough time on committees.

Maybe we need to have a subcommittee of finance to look at the estimate process and take more time. It was not that long ago that it was a committee of the whole that looked at the estimates. I am not suggesting we go back to that practice, but that we spend more time at the front end examining every single line item that is being proposed. In the past, if we had caught some of the things such as what we saw with the sponsorship scandal, we would all be better off.

Those are some ideas for the future.

[Federal Accountability Act, June 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all members of the committee for working on this bill and providing Canadians with a bill which we can all be proud of. It is a large bill. There might be some kinks in the bill to work out as we move along, but because of the amendments that were put forward, the witnesses who came forward, and the debate that we had at committee, we have a bill that we can be proud of.

Certainly some people have concerns with some things in the bill. That is fair with a bill this size. There are things in the bill that we will want to keep an eye on and make sure that, as was pointed out by other members, there is not unintended consequence.

I want to start my remarks with a quote:

When they find themselves in the midst of wrongdoing, those with a vivid sense of right and wrong have feelings of remorse. On the other hand, the defining characteristic of corruption is that feelings of remorse have been lost, replaced by the impulse to deny, perpetuate and cover up. The Liberal Party is losing its sense of remorse.

That was said before the last election by my predecessor, Mr. Broadbent. It deserves applause because it was insightful. He was distinguishing between those who understand when they have done wrong and do something about it and those who do not. He was identifying the concerns about ethics and accountability. What did he do? He proposed something. That is what we did on the bill in committee and it is what we are doing as we speak right now. We are proposing a better way. Mr. Broadbent proposed an ethics package which dealt with many of the concerns we all had at the time.

The first concern he had was about floor crossing as was just mentioned. He believed, as I believe and many Canadians believe, that if a member crosses the floor and is vaulted into cabinet, perhaps the member should go to the Canadian people and see what they think about it. It is a pretty democratic idea. We hope that will come to fruition one day. In fact the good people of Manitoba will have that type of law in place soon. They will not have to deal with floor crossing.

The second part of Mr. Broadbent's ethics package was to have fixed election dates. I am pleased that we will have fixed election dates soon. That was a smart thing for the government to introduce.

The third thing he put forward was transparent leadership contests. This is still a concern. In committee we said that we wanted to make sure that these outlandish, ridiculous, opulent, unaccountable leadership contests did not take place. In the last Liberal leadership contest, the former prime minister who was running for leader at the time had $12 million in the kitty. That is a little over the top. The $2.7 million that was spent for the present Prime Minister on his leadership may be a little more than is necessary.

Mr. Broadbent was proposing to have transparent leadership contests. The money trail would be followed. We would see from where it was coming. There would be some oversight. It would be regulated. We do not want to see influence being pedalled because the leader of one political party one day might become our prime minister the next. The process deserves accountability. It deserves a window of access to information.

The fourth thing that Mr. Broadbent proposed in the ethics package was electoral reform. We are still fighting for that and will continue to do so. We proposed a model which was very sensible and reasonable. The Law Reform Commission studied it and believes it to be a sensible model. We will carry on with that.

The fifth proposal was to end the unregulated lobbying that was going on because it was way out of hand. We saw what was happening. I will give an example, and we still have not heard the final details. It was the sale of Petro-Canada. It was interesting to follow the money on that one. It was the biggest sell-off of a Canadian asset. The New Democratic Party believes Petro-Canada should have been transformed into a crown corporation to deal with renewable energy, but alas, it was sold off. If we follow the money to see who was involved in selling it off, it is a very interesting story of influence and lobbying.

Look at what happened on the satellite radio file. Initially the cabinet believed that certain satellite radio companies should not have a licence. The lobbyists got to members of the cabinet and turned it around and there were contingency fees all around.

We saw that with the previous government. We have heard the entitlement to entitlements quote. I think that was exacted by my predecessor, Mr. Broadbent, in committee as a matter of fact. We believe that the unregulated lobbying had to end and Bill C-2 deals with it.

We still have a concern that someone who is lobbying government can get contracts. We will continue to keep an eye on it. What is really important is that the regulations for lobbyists have been strengthened. Contingency fees will be banned to get the money out of this really spurious kind of business. There are good, credible people who do credible lobbying in this town and they were being sideswiped by the people who were making money in, I believe, an ill-gotten way.

The sixth thing Mr. Broadbent had proposed was ethical appointments. I am delighted that because of the hard work of my colleague from Winnipeg Centre, the committee adopted an amendment to the bill. We finally have a process that will ensure there will be ethical appointments with oversight. That is no small gain. That is absolutely huge.

We only have to go back to 1867 and Sir John A. Macdonald, or to the 1984 election and the statement, “You had an option, sir”. We know this has been a problem for every single administration in Canadian history. We have seen people being appointed based on their party card, not on their merit card. I am hopeful that will finally end.

The last one was on access to information. I am glad to see there were some gains made. At the beginning of the debate on the bill there were some concerns that we would not have changes to the Access to Information Act. There are amendments. There is more to do and that work will be taken up in the fall.

To paraphrase what my colleague from Winnipeg Centre said, the oxygen of democracy is the access to information in the work we do here. If we are unable to hold the government to account by accessing the information through ministries, crown corporations and agencies, then we will have difficulty doing the job which citizens have sent us to this place to do, and that is to hold the government to account.

Those were the seven points of Mr. Broadbent's and our party's platform, our ethical package. When I look at Bill C-2, we are there in many ways, but there is more work to do for sure. I have already mentioned the need to deal with floor crossing. We need electoral reform. We need a little more work on access to information. The transparent leadership question still needs to be tweaked. We have come a long way.

We have been able to deal with the question of holding government to account and the accountability of government to Parliament and Parliament to government. We need to take into consideration the accountability to citizens. That is what electoral reform is all about. That is the next stage. That is the next area of reform. Our work is not finished. We will have to focus on that.

I was very delighted to see the changes to the whistleblower legislation. It has been referenced by members of the other parties that Bill C-11 was fine if we just put it in place. As someone who was in contact and worked with many whistleblowers in this town, I can say that it was not fine. The oversight was a board that had over 8,000 cases presented to it in a year. It took over 18 months to hear cases. We needed to have a parallel stream. We have it with the tribunal. The fact that Bill C-11 was there was not good enough for the people I worked with.

We have improved the whistleblower legislation. We and other members of the committee we able to make sure there was no reward for whistleblowers. I thought that was anti-ethical. In fact, it is not ethical to provide cash for people to do the right thing. Every single whistleblower that I know was clear about this, they did not want to be rewarded in cash for doing the right thing.

I will end my comments by thanking everyone in the committee for their hard work. We need to be proud of this work and to carry on with our work to be accountable to Canadians through electoral reform.

[Federal Accountability Act, June 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of important points I would like to make.

Before the election, my predecessor, Mr. Broadbent, put forward an ethics package that talked about public appointments and the need to deal with lobbying. I am glad to see this in the bill because there was a lot of malfeasance there. There were contingency fees, people entitled to entitlements, et cetera.

One of the things we need to take pride in, as he mentioned, is the public appointments process. That is something we laid down as a marker.

Does my hon. colleague believe our work is finished? There are a couple of areas that I think we still need to move on, such as access to information and more transparency. I would like to get my colleague's feedback as someone who participated each day on the committee on Bill C-2 and knows it fairly well. Are there other areas he believes we can go further?

[Petitions, June 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition I have is on behalf of those Canadians who would like to see the elimination of the administration fee, also known as the head tax. They would like to see not just the fact that it has been recently reduced but that it should be eliminated.

[Petitions, June 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to present two petitions. One is presented on behalf of Vietnamese Canadians who are calling on our government to recognize those brave Vietnamese who stood up for freedom and democracy in Vietnam. They ask for the same rights that we are able to have and freedom of expression to join a labour union, freedom of association and religion.

I would be honoured to present this petition on their behalf today.

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is a superb idea and I know some kids who could help with that. Just down the way there are some kids at York Street Public School who could do that. The first day of school they do outlines of their friends.

In fact, now that I think of it, the Senate has a budget for its members and we could get the money from the senator himself to help us with this. Then we could have at least a one dimensional minister. We certainly do not have a three dimensional minister. We are not hearing anything from the minister. Maybe we could get a ventriloquist to help us out as well and we could hear what the minister had to say.

That is an excellent idea.

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I touched on this question at the beginning of my comments when I talked about Bill C-2 and what the NDP has proposed. I will read from our own NDP proposal, “The head of a government institution” or an agent of the government “shall not...refuse to disclose a record or a part thereof if that record or part contains...details of a contract or a bid for a contract with a government institution.

When the member talks about a public tender, he is quite right. The criteria need to be public so that people can see what it is about and make sure it is not a backroom deal. Those who are in the business of land sale and have assets will have not only equal opportunity but equal knowledge, which is so critical.

I have to say, though, that the other part of this equation that is missing is the minister responsible. That has been more than frustrating. He has been a phantom minister. When we ask a question, there is no one there.

Not only do we have a process that does not allow us to have a window in with regard to the public disclosure piece or the fact that this should be a public tendering, we cannot even ask the minister the question because he is down the hall. That door, as they say in Spanish, is cerrado. It is closed. We are not allowed in.

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2006]

I am not sure if he was on the list, but perhaps. Maybe the kids at Minto.

Let us look at how much money this developer invested, we will say, in the political parties. Then we turn around and we have a developer pick up, scoop up, a property for $30 million and say, “Hi, would you like to buy it for $625 million over 25 years?” I have to say that I do not criticize Minto Developments for that. We have to give them credit. If they can make that kind of money, the shareholders and the family firm will be very happy. It will be a good year for them.

We have to examine it and make sure that it sees the light that Canadians want illuminating it. I am going to go over a couple of the questions that I put to the government. Perhaps it is Waiting for Godot on these answers, and we know what happens there, where Godot never comes, but I am optimistic that we will eventually hear. Here are the questions I put to the government.

What financial details have gone to Treasury Board to support the agreement in principle? It is a very straightforward question.

I put a second question forward. Was the search for a lease agreement publicly tendered? I think we know the answer to that, but it is important to have it for the record.

What are the details of the tendering process for the relocation of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police headquarters from 1200 Vanier Parkway?

Next, what are the details of the analysis for all of the options considered by public works prior to the agreement in principle with Minto Developments?

Last, was the City of Ottawa's 2001 policy of stimulating growth by encouraging the location of future federal workplaces near transitway stations, giving particular consideration to the east end of the city, considered in this decision? I have to say that this is not my riding. This is something I am putting forward because this was a consensus of smart growth that the City of Ottawa put forward to make sure that we would have some balance in our development.

I think those questions deserve answers. They deserve answers before the deal is announced. I think we need to have more transparency, particularly when we are talking about this amount of money. Part of the evidence that was brought forward to me was that there was to be a $5 million down payment to Minto Developments just to be able to discuss the deal. I am wondering if that money was exchanged. What happens if we do not have a deal? They keep the money, I presume.

Again, this is a shady deal. I have spoken to members of the RCMP, as recently as last weekend. I was at a community event and had the opportunity to speak to some RCMP members. I asked them what they thought about this. They were not keen. I dare say that they have not been consulted about this. We are talking about a workplace that is fairly central to the east, in the riding of my colleague from Ottawa—Vanier. We are talking about moving it to the other side of the city.

I think this is important these days when we are looking at planning and future proposals: we might want to consider talking to the men and women who work there. It means that we are talking about disruption of life. The fact is that their lives will be affected. Does it make sense for them, not just in the community but from a safety point of view? Does it make sense to consolidate all of those services in one area? I do not know. Maybe it does and maybe it does not, but that kind of thought process has not been put into play here. That is an issue of safety.

I have to say that there is another issue when we look at how much land is available. Recently, Algonquin College by the Queensway, which my colleague from Ottawa—Vanier will know, is available. Was that a parcel of land that has been known as being available for quite a while? Was it considered? What is the inventory of all the public holdings? Let us have a full analysis of what the options are. Again, we do not know. Maybe that has been discussed, but it has been kept from members of Parliament and therefore kept from Canadians.

The Auditor General recently referenced the fact that there have been some rather ill-informed, and some would say dubious, kinds of arrangements made with a lease to buy. What happens in these arrangements is that when one actually buys a piece of property it is possible to put off the books the money one would normally spend at the front end. It is possible to string it out over a period of time, much like what is done by many of the P3 operations we are seeing. What happens is that we pay for the building four or five times when we could have bought it once.

This arrangement is similar to that. In other words, would we rather own a home or rent? I know that most people would love to own their own homes. What the government is deciding to do is rent, the landlord in this case being Minto Developments, and we will pay for the building hundreds of times over before we own it. It does not make sense. The men and women who do their accounting at the kitchen table would not sign off on a deal like this. They would be very disgusted that this kind of financing is going on in this government or any other government.

In summary, what we need to do is make sure this does not happen again. We need to make sure there is some transparency, understanding that when there are competitive bids that process can be honoured, so there is no tipping, so to speak, of one company over another. It is done all the time.

We need to have competitive bidding. We need to make sure that we do not get into lease to buy arrangements. We need to make sure that we take out of the arrangement those who have given to political parties, particularly as we have found out that more than $70,000 was given to both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party by the developer. We need to make sure that the government is taking into account all of its holdings. We need to make sure the government is looking at the local municipality, in this case Ottawa, and is looking at its designs, its plans and its future. That is not being done here.

Finally, I must say that if this is the first test of the government for transparency and accountability, as a former teacher I have to say that it would get an F.