Peter Kent

[Business of Supply, October 23rd, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent.

I rise today regretfully to speak in support of the motion before us. I am regretful, not because I do not support the motion moved by the third party, which I certainly do, but because we find ourselves debating not only the finance minister's original deliberate violation of the spirit of the Conflict of Interest Act and his subsequent actions, which, by all accounts, have enriched the minister as a result of his original decisions, but as well, the minister's apparent inability and refusal to recognize his several lapses of judgment, his unwillingness to accept responsibility for his poor decisions and actions, his attempt to shift responsibility and to blame the Ethics Commissioner, and, as important, his refusal to apologize to Canadians.

When an adult faces choices, he or she exercises judgment. For decades, long before the Conflict of Interest Act, with its various provisions, was passed into law in 2004, ministers of the crown either placed their wealth, including those fortunate enough to have family fortunes, into blind trusts or divested themselves of those holdings, which otherwise might benefit from their actions as public office holders, that is, as ministers.

The Prime Minister's mandate letter to the finance minister, when he was sworn in two years ago, was not specific in these details, but the PM stated, “As Minister, you must ensure that you are aware of and fully compliant with the Conflict of Interest Act”. As well, the Prime Minister stressed that “you must uphold the highest standards of honesty and impartiality, and both the performance of your official duties and the arrangement of your private affairs should bear the closest public scrutiny.” I repeat, “closest public scrutiny”. “This is an obligation that is not fully discharged by simply acting within the law.”

The Prime Minister also pointed out:

If we want Canadians to trust their government, we need a government that trusts Canadians. It is important that we acknowledge mistakes when we make them. Canadians do not expect us to be perfect—they expect us to be honest, open, and sincere in our efforts to serve the public interest.

Canadians have learned very well that the Liberal government is far from perfect. In fact, in so many ways it is far from perfect, but we are here today because trust has been violated. We are talking about standards here, and because neither the finance minister nor the Prime Minister has been willing to acknowledge the many mistakes made by both in this sorry affair, this scandal is entirely of their own making. The finance minister has told us that the Ethics Commissioner advised him to choose a third choice between a blind trust or divestment, a choice not taken by any other minister of the Liberal government.

The Ethics Commissioner is on the public record saying that she informed the finance minister that there was that third way. We do not know whether she specifically red-flagged that third alternative in so many words as a loophole that she had already recommended the government should close, but I believe that any reasonable adult, certainly anyone with the business experience of the finance minister, not to mention the many financial advisors he has at his beck and call, would see that third way as a loophole that offends not only express intent of the Conflict of Interest Act but also the spirit of the law.

Then there is the matter of Bill C-27, the act tabled in the finance minister's name, that would make a number of significant amendments to the Pension Benefits Standards Act. The minister, in his previous life, spoke of the need for exactly these same sorts of amendments, amendments that his family firm, Morneau Shepell, would use to expand its client base and grow the company. We know that by not divesting all of his millions of shares in the family company, the minister had already seen his shares increase significantly in value. At the time of his election, shortly before being appointed finance minister, the shares of Morneau Shepell traded at around $15 a share. They have since increased to more than $20 a share.

However, worse than the basic violation of the spirit of the Conflict of Interest Act was the minister's sponsorship of Bill C-27, which would, as the motion before us states, “reasonably be expected to [further] profit Morneau Shepell and the Minister of Finance in light of his continued ownership of shares...through [a numbered] company he controls”, which he will continue to profit from until his belated decision to sell those shares in what he described as an “orderly” fashion. We see here a clear and evident example, a textbook example, of conflict when the minister is in charge of regulating an industry in which he has a significant personal interest.

I will reflect back on the Prime Minister's mandate letter to the Finance Minister, and the specific direction that he arrange his private affairs to bear the closest public scrutiny. Someone, the Finance Minister, and any who were aware of his choice two years ago, should have heard alarm bells, which brings me to questions that the Finance Minister and the Prime Minister have refused to answer in the House or anywhere else: When did the Finance Minister inform the Prime Minister? When did the Prime Minister learn that the Finance Minister had neither put his holdings into a blind trust or divested all of his shares two years ago?

Last week, the latest revelations from investigative journalists, the Ethic Commissioner herself in media interviews, and finally the Finance Minister himself, confirmed that he had been informed by the commissioner of a technical gap in the Conflict of Interest Act, a capital “L” loophole, if you will, that no other member of the current Liberal cabinet, and no other member of previous governments, to my knowledge, exploited. However, he used it again, in clear and deliberate violation of the spirit of the act, to push his considerable stock holdings in the company that bears his name through that loophole. This is in stark contrast to the months of hollow, so-called consultations on tax reform proposals dropped on Canadians in the middle of the summer, which were aimed at alleged loopholes too long exploited, it was said, by hard-working, middle-class small businesses, in effect characterizing Canada's hardscrabble, hard-working, middle-class small business owners as tax cheats.

It is important to remember that this is an attack on plumbers, pizza shop owners, farmers, dentists, and doctors. These so-called reforms have been pitched by bureaucrats, academics, and theoreticians inside the Finance Department for years. It is also important to remember that these reforms have been pitched to a succession of previous finance ministers, both Conservative and Liberal, and flatly rejected for all of the reasons put forward now by practising tax and pension management experts, and the thousands of middle-class self-employed entrepreneurs who see this as an unfair and destructive attack on family businesses and their employees.

There was a way that the Finance Minister might have avoided the deepening outrage and protest across the country. He might have responded by saying that he was surprised by the tens of thousands of responses, and that he needed to extend the so-called consultation period, with real consultations across the country, to familiarize himself with the multitude of different ways his reforms would negatively impact hard-working taxpayers. Instead, the Finance Minister and the Prime Minister doubled down and framed their refusal to amend or scrap the worst of the proposals in language that came dangerously close to the divisive characterizations of class war.

The Finance Minister, as has been previously quoted, has described the nation-wide opposition and our criticism of his clumsily proposed tax reforms as a distraction. It is a distraction, and a day-to-day still-deepening distraction of his own making. Now, the Prime Minister seems to have lost confidence in the Finance Minister. The PM's bigfooting of the Finance Minister at a press conference last week, saying that he would answer the minister's question, sent an ominous, not to mention arrogant message to the minister and to Canadians.

The motion before us calls on the government to immediately close these loopholes and apologize to the House and to all Canadians.

[Ethics, October 19th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the minister least capable of relating to the hardscrabble realities of middle-class small business, the Liberal's chief tax loophole closer, is finally closing a loophole through which he moved his great wealth, in clear violation of the spirit of ethical guidelines and the law. However, there is still the minister's unreported private corporation in France.

Could the finance minister tell us whether he has been served notice by the Ethics Commissioner of his violation of the Conflict of Interest Act?

[Business of Supply, October 19th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his heartfelt speech on behalf of the forestry industry.

We know today that the Prime Minister is in Lac Saint-Jean, Quebec, attempting to persuade voters there that the Liberal government stands, unqualified, in support of the forestry industry. However, at the same time, we have learned that he refuses to condemn Greenpeace or any of the other organizations the member mentioned, which spread so much misinformation and disinformation about the industry.

Could the member speak to the government's inconsistency?

[Ethics, October 18th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, a question through you to the Minister of Finance, though we know the Prime Minister is speaking for the Minister of Finance again today. It is a simple question, which I hope the Minister of Finance will make himself available to the House to answer, sooner than later.

When did the Minister of Finance advise the Prime Minister—when did the Prime Minister learn that Canada's chief financial officer so deliberately offended the spirit of the ethics law?

[Ethics, October 16th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the government is guilty of any number of lapses of judgment, but the finance minister's violation of the straightforward requirements of the Ethics Commissioner's disclosure declaration for all members of cabinet raises serious questions, not only of ethics, conflict of interest, and credibility, but of the confidence that Canadians have lost in the government.

When will the minister come clean with the Ethics Commissioner and Canadians?

[Ethics, October 16th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the finance minister's apparent wilful disregard of the Conflict of Interest Act raises some serious questions. Did the minister intentionally mislead the Ethics Commissioner about the nature of his private interests in France? Why did he withhold details of his private corporation in France? Why does this extremely wealthy minister believe he is above conflict of interest and ethics reporting rules?

[Government Spending, September 27th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, here is another question on the Liberals' wastage of hard-earned tax dollars in trying to cover up political problems. There was $10 million in an attempted secret payoff to Omar Khadr, millions to fight indigenous children and women in court, and almost half a million dollars to a defeated Liberal candidate for a PR campaign to fight a tribunal ruling in favour of indigenous children.

Why is the Prime Minister robbing the middle class to pay for Liberal profligacy?

[Venezuela, September 26th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, when I tabled brought Motion No. 128 with the House in the spring it was to urge the government to respond more actively to the ever-deepening crisis in Venezuela. This is a continuing crisis, not only in terms of the brutal denial of democratic process, free speech, free assembly, and the rule of law, but also because of the humanitarian tragedy that worsens by the day.

Let me offer congratulations to the government for finally acting to impose targeted sanctions against some of the worst abusers of human and democratic rights in the Maduro regime, starting with President Nicolás Maduro himself. The Canadian sanctions have been properly hailed by Venezuelans living under Maduro's increasingly violent oppression, and by the thousands of Venezuelans living in Canada who contribute so much to our society while dreaming of a day when democracy will return to their homeland.

I will come back to Canada's newest sanctions and the challenge of enforcing them in a few moments. First, I remind members that the extreme socialist policies, corruption, and cruelty of President Nicolás Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez have imposed incredible suffering on the people of Venezuela, once the richest nation in Latin America but now overwhelmed by inflation that the International Monetary Fund predicts will hit 721% by the end of this year, and 2,000% by the end of next year if this tragedy continues.

Extreme shortages of food and medicines, the result of the Maduro regime's imposition of extreme and often contradictory socialist policies, have resulted in chronic malnutrition among children and adults. At least 125 people have died in five months of increasingly deadly street protests in the capital of Caracas and in communities across the country.

The people have been demanding a new presidential and national election that would be internationally observed, freedom for jailed politicians and pro-democracy advocates, and humanitarian aid from the international community for the sick and hungry masses.

OAS Secretary General Almagro has announced the creation of a panel to evaluate ways of taking Venezuela to the International Criminal Court. It is worth noting that our former colleague and human rights champion Irwin Cotler is one of those panel members. As noted earlier by my colleague, the United Nations potentially has the clout to intervene, but so far the democracies among its members have limited themselves to verbal concerns and calls for reconciliation.

The United States imposed targeted sanctions against individuals identified with the Maduro regime repression some months ago. The Liberals, while saying then that it was impossible to follow suit under our existing dysfunctional sanctions regime, finally announced that they could. They did so late on Friday afternoon last week, though a day after the missed opportunity for the Prime Minister to tell the world at the United Nations.

It is true that Canada's new Magnitsky legislation will soon make it easier to designate and enforce sanctions against gross individual abusers of human rights, not only in Venezuela but around the world. However, first the Liberal government needs to heed the recommendations of the foreign affairs committee's report on much needed sanctions reform and not only name sanctioned individuals but also specify the reasons they are listed, and direct government departments and agencies to devote much greater effort and resources to monitor and enforce sanctions.

With regard to potential additions to the new list of sanctioned Venezuelans, I respectfully suggest to the government that it direct responsible agencies to investigate allegations made in testimony before the foreign affairs committee of the House last November 2 of the alleged movement and laundering of many millions of dollars of fraudulently obtained Venezuelan funds through an American company Derwick Associates, and a Canadian entity known as The O'Hara Group. The testimony, along with the names of alleged perpetrators, can be found in the foreign affairs committee transcript of November 2 last year and in testimony before the U.S. Senate judiciary committee in July this year.

In conclusion, I call on all members to support Motion No. 128 calling on the government to actively work to develop a plan with our democratic allies in the Americas and around the world to provide urgently needed humanitarian aid and to support and demand free and fair elections in Venezuela.

[Venezuela, September 26th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I give my consent with enthusiasm.

[Justice, September 26th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government is very selective in its approach to the economics of justice. The Liberals spend millions fighting clearly losing battles in court against indigenous children and women, but the Liberals abandoned a principled defence of Omar Khadr's extravagant claim with a $10-million payoff they tried to keep secret. The public safety minister blithely claims that, by caving on Khadr, he saved taxpayers millions. That is an unacceptable answer while the government moves to tax Canadian small businesses literally to death. How is that fair?