Peter MacKay

[Supply, February 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the member opposite. I know he thinks in a very technical and reasonable way. He has given the example of a judge in this instance and I want to draw an example to his attention.

Let us take an individual named Jean who is to go before a judge to be judged. Before he goes before the trial judge on allegations he gets to pick and appoint the judge. Then Jean appears before the judge. While Jean is there, he is the only one who gets to present the evidence. Jean presents his case to the judge that he appointed and hired. After the judge has heard Jean's submissions he then retires. After making his decision on the evidence presented by Jean, he then reports back to Jean. He reports back to the person who hired him and then passes judgment.

The hon. member talks about the perception. I know he appreciates the nuance. The public should have confidence in the office of ethics counsellor which in and of itself includes the important distinction of ethics. Would he not agree that the perception here is wrong?

Would he not agree that the in this instance the Prime Minister is being judged by a person he has appointed and who reports only to him? Does the hon. member not see something wrong with the perception here?

[Supply, February 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the previous speaker. I know he is very sincere in his remarks and he brings the appropriate tone to this debate.

He began his remarks by speaking of the main issue being ethics. I think the majority of people who have participated in the debate would certainly agree. However, there has to be credibility behind those asking the questions as well. There has to be an element of accountability. That is to say that a person is on solid ground when he or she is asking the questions or, in this instance, that when the ethics counsellor is tasked with overseeing the activity of the Prime Minister or another member of the House, he or she has that credibility and that accountability to this place.

The member has honed in on the difficulty of that position here. It is not personal. It is not about Mr. Wilson. It is about the office and the position he holds. Would the member not agree that the intent was that he would report to the House, that he would do just that? Would the member not agree that was certainly the intent when the Prime Minister and his government went before the electorate representing to the public that this commissioner was going to report to parliament?

I want to quote from the backgrounder that was attached to the original release when it was announced that the position of ethics commissioner—counsellor at that time—would be created. It said “The ethics counsellor will be available to the Prime Minister to investigate allegations against his ministers and senior officials involving conflicts of interest or lobbying”.

The difficulty is that if he is available to the Prime Minister, he is not available to the House when he is investigating the Prime Minister. Would the hon. member comment on that suggestion?

[Supply, February 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate you for your wisdom in your first official ruling from the chair. It certainly breathes new hope and aspirations for your humble servants in this place.

I have listened to hon. members on both sides of the House trade barbs and attack each other's leaders. Fortunately in the Progressive Conservative Party we do not have to defend the ethical standard set by the right hon. member for Calgary Centre.

Let us turn back to the matter at hand, the matter of an ethics counsellor.

First, stripping away the rhetoric and passion that he brings to the debate, does the hon. member opposite not agree that it would be in the interest of Canadians to have the ethics counsellor report to parliament and to have an impartial committee of the House determine the appropriateness of the ethics counsellor so that there would be no question as to the person's arm's length attachment to any member, be it the Prime Minister or any member of this House who might be questioned about their behaviour? Would it also not benefit this Chamber, this institution, this parliament to allow all members of the House to have input on the appointment of that person?

Second, would it also not benefit the credibility of that individual, after going through that process of selection, to report directly to parliament and not to the Prime Minister or the cabinet or the executive branch?

Would it not also benefit the ethics counsellor's credibility to not appear after the fact before a committee, which is what has happened in this instance, and not to leak out in dribs and drabs correspondence and information that might have been exchanged between the PMO and this person?

Would Canadians not benefit if the government simply lived up to its red book promises? We know commitments have been broken. We can talk about that ad nauseam.

Would the hon. member not agree that this is a preferred option, which is the intent of this particular motion?

[Supply, February 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the thrust of the entire debate is how Canadians can have faith in an individual appointed by and reporting only to the same person who is the subject of the inquiry in terms of conduct. There is absolutely no credibility whatsoever.

I refer to a quote from Gordon Robertson, a widely respected retired clerk of the Privy Council, the head of the Public Service of Canada who served under Prime Ministers King, St. Laurent, Pearson and Trudeau. This is what he had to say about the ethical standards of the Prime Minister, as reported in the Toronto Star of January 6: “What happened in Shawinigan never would have met the standard set in Pearson's code of ethics. I should know. I drafted it. This Prime Minister has lowered the bar”.

Is the lasting legacy of the Prime Minister that he lowered the ethical standards and lowered the bar on how a prime minister conducts himself in office? If that is the legacy he wants, he has it right now.

[Supply, February 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, let me deal with the facts. Someone in the Prime Minister's Office denied that he in fact spoke to Mr. Beaudoin, president of the Business Development Bank. We know that happened. I may have characterized what took place, but we know that conversation happened. Only two people know what happened between those individuals, what transpired in that conversation.

The Prime Minister should come forward and tell us. He should be completely frank and open with Canadians. He has an opportunity to do that. There is nothing stopping the Prime Minister from telling us what transpired in his living room. If he has nothing to hide, if there is nothing that he is ashamed of as he so vehemently states outside the House, let him come forward and table what took place in his living room. Then we will have trust and we might have faith.

Excuse me if I am not completely enamoured with the argument that we should trust the Liberals. We have heard time and time again about the GST, about free trade and about what they would not do if they were elected to office. They have swallowed themselves whole on their promises time and time again.

[Supply, February 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am always honoured to rise in the Chamber to take part in a debate such as this one.

What has happened in this instance is that a cloud has descended over the Prime Minister and over his behaviour. This debate is very much focused on the ethical behaviour of the Prime Minister. As a result it broadens to how parliament operates and how we should hold elected officials and their conduct to a certain standard.

It is only through an independent and impartial examination of circumstances that we can arrive at the truth. This should be a truth seeking exercise.

The tragedy in all of this is that the government and the Prime Minister are hiding behind this office they have created. They are holding it up to Canadians and saying that they have been cleared by this individual, this individual who is appointed by the Prime Minister and reports to the Prime Minister.

They are telling Canadians that the Prime Minister makes the rules, is the judge and appoints the referee. However the referee only reports to him. How can Canadians have any faith in what that referee might say, let alone know the standard or the guidelines that the referee is operating by?

We have asked the Prime Minister to, at the very least, put forward the guidelines and the framework within which the counsellor is to work. This is not a reflection on the counsellor himself but the office. Sadly, what may emerge from this is that the office itself has been so denigrated by the process that Canadians will never have faith in that particular form of office. That is why we should explore other avenues, such as the one in British Columbia. Perhaps we do need an independent special prosecutor who can be arm's length and can help to gather evidence in order to shed light on these types of circumstances.

There are many, particularly the supporters of the Prime Minister, who want him to be exonerated and want him to clear the air on what has taken place in these circumstances. That can only happen with a credible examination of all the facts, not the blurred facts, the fuzzy facts, the special words, the nuances and the treatment that we might tend to put in this Chamber, but done by an impartial examiner. It can only happen if, and only if, there is an office created that will allow an individual or group of individuals with staff to examine facts.

The whole substance of the motion before the House was originated by the Prime Minister and his government. This is not the creation of the opposition. This is not something that came out of thin blue air. This motion came directly from that now infamous fairy tale called the red book. This was an example of a promise that the Liberals put before the Canadian electorate on the eve of an election because they new the electorate wanted it. However, as we have seen time and time again from the government, it was pulled back and put on a shelf when the election was over. When the votes were counted those words no longer rang true. They had no validity whatsoever.

What we hope to do in the brief time that we have as members of the opposition is to pose the important questions that come from this particular circumstance. This standard of behaviour coming from the Prime Minister should be something that is particularly troubling to Canadians.

I would like to refer to a member of the current government's own backbench, the newly elected member for Vancouver Quadra in British Columbia, who has quite a storied past with respect to the justice system and to examinations of these types of questions. He is a former land use commissioner and deputy attorney general, positions that would give a unique perspective on ethical performance of government. He said that one of the things we needed was a conflict of interest commissioner who would be a legislature officer rather than a part of the executive of government and therefore independent of the executive. There is a lot of wisdom in those words. He went on to say that the more senior the politician, the greater the need to be explicit about what the rules are and what the communication is about. This is in the context of a communication between a senior member of government, in this case the head of the country, and an appointed official, and what the communication between those individuals is meant to bring about.

What we now know is that the Prime Minister of Canada, acting in his capacity, so he says, of a simple and humble member of the House, called the head of the Business Development Bank and said that there was an individual, a constituent who was in need of a loan, and that he would like the bank to look favourably upon.

It did not stop there. There was another phone call. It was an invitation to come to 24 Sussex, which again, I dare say, no member of the House, short of the Prime Minister, has unfettered access to. We cannot say what took place during that conversation in the cozy confines of the living room of the Prime Minister, but lo and behold we do know the result. The loan was approved against previous recommendations by individuals in the Business Development Bank.

Where it again became very blurred was the personal connection of the Prime Minister to the particular deal. He was the former owner of the hotel and owned lands adjacent to the particular hotel that was partitioned some time previous. This element of personal connection to the property for which the loan was secured is troubling because it was the personal benefit that might flow by having a loan approved that would improve and enhance the value of the hotel and therefore vicariously enhance the value of the adjoining lands.

There is much speculation as to when the Prime Minister actually disavowed himself, when he actually sold that property. That is very unclear. All of that examination, were it actually done by the ethics counsellor, is not available to the general public or to members of the House. It is exempt from public examination.

These are parts of the factual background of the situation which highlight the need for independence from counsellors if, most important, they are to have any credibility in the eye of the public or any credibility in the way members of the House conduct themselves and conduct their personal business affairs.

The Prime Minister made many promises to Canadians during his tenures as official opposition leader and Prime Minister, and during his ongoing attempt to build a legacy for himself.

As reported in a 1994 edition of the Ottawa Citizen the Prime Minister said that there could be no substitute for responsibility at the top. He indicated that he set the moral tone for the government and must make the ultimate decisions when issues of integrity and trust are raised.

Those words ring hollow today. When simple questions are posed to the Prime Minister in the Chamber he will not even dignify them with a response. He is completely backing away from his previous words, as we have seen him do on many occasions.

By appointing an ethics counsellor and then having that counsellor report only to him, the Prime Minister is so shallow and denigrates so much the entire idea of having an ethics counsellor that it further undermines public confidence. It drives even further underground the ability of the public to respect and have faith in public officials. That is perhaps what is most troubling of all about the subject matter.

There is a unique opportunity here for the Prime Minister not only to fulfil an electoral promise but to signal to Canadians that the Chamber can create a change and the public can once again have confidence in elected members. These are basic principles that should and could guide the Chamber in our future attempts to govern the country.

The ethics code and the ethics counsellor have lost credibility for reasons now very apparent to the Canadian public. The counsellor has lost the ability to report directly to the House and to report to the public on how the Prime Minister and ministers of the government conduct themselves. A higher standard has to be applied.

The argument of the Prime Minister and the government House leader that ultimately the Prime Minister reports directly to the House falls short. They left out important detail. The Prime Minister has to be responsible to the House. We have seen an utter and complete failure of the Prime Minister to be accountable and to be respectful of the House in the way he has conducted himself in these affairs.

[Supply, February 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is enlightening to see you in the chair. I know the impartiality you bring to this place.

I want to pose a question to the hon. member with respect to his comments about the credibility and importance of an ethics counsellor. Reference has been made throughout this debate to various parties and to which party did what first. The hon. member's own party is not devoid of indiscretion or discrepancies.

I remind him of the former premier of British Columbia, Mr. Vander Zalm, who found himself in some difficulty. It resulted in a report published by Ted Hughes, a former deputy attorney general and superior court judge in Saskatchewan.

The report dealt with public land transactions and money that was then returned for a promise of a speculator acquiring adjacent properties. Federally owned oil companies were involved. All of this resulted in another premier from British Columbia resigning, Premier Harcourt. Although he was not personally implicated in the wrongdoing, he resigned after a forensic audit by an auditor he had appointed who found that party officials during the eighties had concocted a scheme to divert funds legally designed for charity into NDP coffers.

This demonstrates that the independent counsellors, the independent auditors, and in this case a former judge, were able to flesh out a situation that obviously was wrong.

Is the office of the ethics counsellor tainted by what has occurred in this situation? Should we be looking at a separate judge or special prosecutor to be assigned to cases like this one? He would be at arm's length from government. Perhaps he would be appointed by government but would not have that connection and therefore could credibly come before the Canadian people and lay out the facts so that there would be a credibility process.

[Supply, February 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to add some comments to the debate and perhaps bring some focus back to what we are here to discuss, that is, the ethics counsellor, the integrity of government and the ability of the government to portray itself with confidence to the Canadian people.

It troubles me greatly when I hear the government House Leader get up and speak of the pristine ethics of the government and, in particular, of the Prime Minister. I know the hon. member who just spoke will recall what occurred in his province with respect to a Liberal fundraiser who, armed with lists of persons from HRDC and ACOA who had applied for grants, went far afield with that information and attempted to raise funds for the Liberal Party of Canada. I also know the member from Chicoutimi would recall that incident.

I wonder how the government reconciles that with its position of pliable ethics that it is so proudly clinging to today. I wonder if the hon. member would comment.

[Supply, February 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is with some amusement that I join the discussion. The newfound friendliness and fondness that the opposition House leader had for the government House leader just a few short days ago seem to be crumbling.

With that aside, I find that what is taking place here is obviously an attempt by the government to hijack an opposition motion that is very legitimate in its intent and has opened up a discussion which is very fruitful and favourable to democracy.

The government House leader, as has been stated by the previous speaker, is very much trying to change the entire intent and spirit of what is being discussed in the motion.

As a long time defender of adhering to the rules of procedure, Mr. Speaker, you will know that is not supposed to take place on a supply day amendment. We are not to change the entire spirit and intent of the motion as the government is doing in the self-congratulatory way to which we are accustomed.

The motion is very serious. It once again raises the ire of the government because of its sensitivity of the particular subject matter. This day we have embarked upon will be very important and very interesting as we delve into discussions of the Prime Minister's activities in the Auberge Grand-Mère situation.

On a broader scale it is a discussion of the credibility of offices like the ethics counsellor, and the importance of what we say prior to elections and what we do after elections, which is a lesson for all of us. It is a lesson that Canadians are waiting for us to listen to.

I strongly urge you, Mr. Speaker, in your discretion not to allow the subamendment. I urge you to accept the submissions that other members have put forward in opposition to what the government House leader has suggested, which is obviously an attempt to hijack and reverse the intent of the motion before the House.

[Privilege, February 6th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to follow that direction. Since this is an issue that really strikes at some of the grander issues and those that flow from parliamentary privilege that were discussed in the context of the committee, there is a tendency to go far afield.

However I think the member from Sarnia—Lambton is speaking specifically of two individuals whose careers have been sacrificed on the altar.

Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Board of Internal Economy, you will recall some of the specifics of this issue, so there is little need to delve into its history. However those individuals were given a false sense of security when they testified before committee. This perhaps touches on the larger issue of protecting the integrity of witnesses who appear before a committee.

Although the individuals were there on a personal matter, the issue was of great importance to the House as it bore directly upon the ability of individuals to draft private members' business and partake in matters of a legal nature. Those employees of the House provided a very valuable service, and that department provides, I would submit, a crucial service to members of parliament.

We realize, Mr. Speaker, that the matter was dealt with at committee in the last parliament. While some would argue that it may be administrative and reserved for the Board of Internal Economy, I would suggest that a broader issue must be examined here. When House employees are subject to reprisals for providing valuable information that may affect them or others, or members of the House, it creates an intimidating atmosphere.

Many have suggested that we should be looking at whistle blower legislation. Many internal, and some would deem labour, matters come before us as members of parliament, members of the board and on committees. We should be concerned about the atmosphere of intimidation and the fear that heads will roll. No one should feel that while seeking the truth about a matter, whether a personal labour matter or one pertaining to privileges of members, that there will be reprisals.

I believe there is such an air about this matter. Two longstanding public servants, valued members of the legal counsel, were dismissed and there does not appear to be a forum in which to settle this.

I would suggest, given some of the circumstances here, that this should go back to committee. We should perhaps examine all the circumstances and bring all the facts forward because the fear is there. The fear is in the ranks.

I spoke to employees of parliament as recently as today who are embarking on similar exercises and trying to have matters addressed. I will be very frank. Members of the language staff provide services in terms of helping individuals to become bilingual. It is a very important service that is available to members. They are not satisfied, yet there appears to be no forum to address their issues.

I suggest that what has happened here was born out of frustration. It was a matter that had festered for some time. We must be concerned about the ability to get at the truth and the ability to get at the facts.

The hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton has raised the issue now. The Speaker has the prerogative to delve further into what has occurred. If in your wisdom you deem it appropriate, I suggest there are grounds for the matter to go back before committee so that there could be a proper resolution. At the very least members and the individuals affected would have peace of mind as to what took place so that we might avoid such situations in future.

When it comes to labour matters and the treatment of employees of the House of Commons, we should set a higher standard. We should set a standard for all Canadians to look at as a model. We should not be mired or back away from situations that arise because of the connotations or the potential personalities that are often involved. We should be very prudent and proactive when approaching these matters.