Scott Reid

[Election Campaign Financing, November 4th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, last year the Minister of Transport attended a gala where over $40,000 was raised. Since then, the Liberals have lost all trace of these funds.

The assistant campaign manager for the Liberals in that riding stated, “There is no longer anyone who knows where this money went. Our questions go unanswered. I wash my hands of those scumbags in Ottawa”. This person is now a member of the Conservative Party.

How can they lose $40,000?

[Yitzhak Rabin, November 4th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, today marks the 10th anniversary of one of the most tragic events in the history of the state of Israel. It was on November 4, 1994 that prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated after attending a peace rally. This came a year after Mr. Rabin had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Yitzhak Rabin was a champion of peace because he understood the cost of war. He had served in the Israeli military for 27 years, culminating as chief of staff.

It was under his command that the Israeli defence force defeated three belligerent armies during the six day war. It was under his political leadership that Israel conducted the brilliantly successful rescue of Air France passengers hijacked and held hostage at Entebbe airport.

To such a man skilled in the arts of war, the value of peace was painfully clear.

During his second term in office as prime minister, in 1993, Mr. Rabin signed the Oslo accords, which seemed to point the way to a historic peace with the Palestinians. It was for this effort that he was forced to pay the ultimate price.

His example of courage should never be forgotten.

[Question No. 182, November 3rd, 2005]

Since December 2003, how many removal orders have been issued by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration to detain and expel foreign citizens, providing: ( a ) the total number of removal orders issued in this period; and ( b ) the total number of removal orders issued in which the stated reason was that the individual is known to be a violent or sexual offender by his/her homeland authorities?

[Parliament of Canada Act, November 2nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-408 is a bill toward which my own party will be taking the approach of allowing a completely free vote, that is to say each of us will be voting as we see best.

I want to start by saying that I have a great deal of respect for the hon. member who proposed the bill and for his intentions, which I think are very reasonable ones. He has seen, as we all did earlier this year to our enormous surprise, the switching of parties by one member having the effect of causing the government to survive on a tie vote. This occurred after the government had arranged to delay the confidence vote long enough to give time for that member to be brought over from this side of the House to the other side of the House. That kind of spectacle dispirits all of us. It is hard not to sympathize with the goal of trying to prevent that kind of thing from occurring.

That being said, I do have some reservations that relate very much to the kinds of reservations already expressed by other members of the House. I have concerns about the increase in party discipline and the discipline of parties over individual members. I have concerns about the ability of members to leave their party and sit as independents, not merely crossing the floor to another party, nor indeed crossing the floor to another party and being rewarded with a ministerial post as is the case with the hon. member for Newmarket—Aurora, but also people leaving their party and sitting as independents, or as has happened in the past, leaving their party to create a new faction or group within the House of Commons.

This took place when the Bloc Québécois was created some years ago. This also took place with the Democratic Reform caucus when a number of people left the Canadian Alliance, of which I was a member, and formed a new group that worked with the Progressive Conservatives. Some people thought that was a very bad idea. I have to admit I did not think it was a great idea at the time and I did not join it. Others felt that it was a step that assisted us to bring together the two parties eventually to create one new party. That in itself involved a shift in labels.

One can argue whether or not the new Conservative Party of Canada was a successor party to the old PC and CA or was a new creation. Under the electoral law of the country, which is not relevant to standings in the House, the Chief Electoral Officer, when he was talking about the Canadian Alliance and its ancestry in the Reform Party, said that it is really the same party under a different name. That was his argument. Therefore, if we take his ruling outside and impose it on the House inside, which might or might not be permissible under the terms of this law and the privileges of Parliament to which my hon. colleague from Rouge River drew our attention a moment ago, it is conceivable that that was only a change in name. For the two predecessor parties to the current Conservative Party, it is a little harder to say what the exact rules were. This could potentially be a problem in this regard.

These are legitimate concerns to have when dealing with a bill such as this one. These changes that have gone on have not been judged illegitimate by the voters of Canada. The voters of Canada did not consider it illegitimate to create the Canadian Alliance out of the Reform Party. The fact is the first election the Canadian Alliance contested was the election in which I ran as a candidate in 2000, and we did substantially better than we had done in the 1997 election. We won many more seats.

In the first election contested by the new Conservative Party of Canada, once again there was a substantial increase in the number of seats over those won by either the old Canadian Alliance or the old PC Party, in fact more than both put together. That suggests these were not regarded as illegitimate actions.

Speaking for myself as someone who started off as a Canadian Alliance MP and became a Conservative MP, did I change parties? It all depends on a person's interpretation. The point is I went from winning in my riding by a margin of 1,800 votes to winning by a margin of 10,000 votes. Therefore, the voters ultimately did not think that was an unacceptable thing to do.

There are other things that concern me, for example, if a member crosses the floor shortly before an anticipated election, and a number of members moved around in the month or two prior to the 2004 election. One was the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, who is currently a parliamentary secretary. There was another member who is no longer a member, John Herron, from New Brunswick. There was yet another member from the Hamilton area who moved over from the Liberals to the new Conservative Party. None of those people were required to resign their seats, and here is what happened to those three individuals.

The hon. member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca ran as a Liberal and was re-elected. Formerly he had run as a Canadian Alliance candidate. The voters basically said that they agreed with what he did, but the point is they did it in the election and we did not have to have a byelection shortly before a general election.

The member from New Brunswick, John Herron, ran as a Liberal and was defeated by the Conservative. So the voters dealt with him, again without the need for recourse of this bill.

In the third example I cited, the member was defeated in a nomination and did not even get the chance to run.

There are number of ways to deal with the problem of members who cross the floor. We do not want it to be too automatic or invoke the kinds of costs that the hon. parliamentary secretary drew our attention to. I think he cited $14 million as a potential cost if all of these various changes had been regarded as requiring byelections. How do we allow people to say to their member of Parliament that they do not agree with the member's crossing the floor or the member's change of party affiliation, or alternatively that they do agree with it? We could potentially put something in a law to allow people in a riding to petition for a byelection if their member had left the party the member had been elected with. That might allow for some kind of compromise. It would not force a byelection automatically. I think that would be a good idea.

However, that is not contemplated in this particular piece of legislation. Notwithstanding its good intentions, that is a genuine flaw in this bill. I would like to see either an amendment of that sort made to the bill or ultimately I would have to vote against the bill.

[Official Languages Act, October 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the fact the minister was restrained today. When I brought this issue up last time, he said that my comments were verging on the despicable. I thank him for his self-restraint.

The problem is not that the minister divested himself of Grand Canadian Academy. We all agree that that occurred within a reasonable timeline and there is no dispute there.

The question is whether the value of Grand Canadian Academy at the time of its divestiture had been increased by the foreknowledge that the minister would be accompanying the future owners of that company to China and assisting them in signing a contract. If that were the case and it raised the price, then he was enriching himself at taxpayer expense. Canadians paid for that trip and that is a very serious conflict.

Alternatively, he may simply have caused the price to go up for the benefit of those partners, in which case they were being enriched.

As I cited under section 8 of the Conflict of Interest Code, both of those are conflicts of interest and are inappropriate in his position.

[Official Languages Act, October 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, in July last year, the multiculturalism minister joined the cabinet and was advised by the Ethics Commissioner to divest himself of Grand Canadian Academy, the school that he owned at that time in China. The divestiture did not take place until December. Fair enough, these things can take time, and in the interim there is nothing wrong if the minister tried to seek out the highest possible sale price for his school.

What is illegitimate is to engage in any action that puts the minister into a conflict of interest. Let me quote from section 8 of the House of Commons Conflict of Interest Code:

When performing parliamentary duties and functions, a Member shall not act in any way to further his or her private interests...or to improperly further another person’s private interests.

Therefore it is a conflict of interest to do what the minister did in January. Specifically, the minister went on a team Canada trade mission to China with Michael Lo and Queenie Tin, the partners to whom he had sold Grand Canadian Academy only a month earlier. While in China, performing his ministerial and parliamentary duties, he signed a contract that had the effect of boosting the school's value.

When I raised this issue twice in question period, the minister refused to deny that this is what he did. In fact, he refused to stand at all and answer questions on this subject, and I can see why he was reticent. The only rational explanation for what he did while on the team Canada mission is that he was using an official trade mission either to enrich his partners, by ensuring a boost in the value of the company he had just sold to them, or that he had used the trip to enrich himself.

This latter scenario could easily have been the case if, as seems plausible, the purchasers had known in December that in January the minister would be facilitating a new contract for the school that he was selling to them. This knowledge would have increased the value of the school to them, and hence would have increased the price that they would be willing to pay to the minister, which constitutes a conflict under the section that I cited. Both the actions of course are in fact prohibited under the provisions of the Conflict of Interest Code.

Up until now, the only defence that has been presented on behalf of the minister is that he complied with the Ethics Commissioner's instructions to divest himself of Grand Canadian Academy, but this is not a fact that is really in dispute here. What is significant is the manner of the divestiture.

I pause at this point to point out that this is almost a perfect parallel to what happened to Bill Vander Zalm. When Bill Vander Zalm was premier of British Columbia in 1990, he was caught using official hospitality as a way of securing a potential buyer for Fantasy Gardens, his company. Specifically, Mr. Vander Zalm was forced to resign after he had caused the Taiwanese buyer of Fantasy Gardens, Mr. Tan Yu, to be provided with VIP treatment and a lunch with the lieutenant-governor prior to the sale. The matter went to court and the court ruled that in providing this access, Mr. Vander Zalm had been using his position as premier to promote his own business transactions by providing access to cabinet ministers for Tan Yu.

The question I have today is this. Why is it that the action which cost Bill Vander Zalm his job as premier of British Columbia is just business as usual in the eyes of the government, when the same thing is being done by the Minister of State for Multiculturalism from British Columbia?

[Ethics, October 18th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the question is not whether the minister divested. The question is whether he divested in a manner that represents a conflict of interest.

The question is whether, a month after selling the business, the minister took the current owners on a trade mission to sign a contract with Beijing University as a way of boosting the value of his school and thereby raising the price that they would have been willing to pay for the school. If so, he was enriching himself at the public expense.

Surely the minister can speak for himself and demonstrate to Canadians that this was not the case.

[Ethics, October 18th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, in November last year the multiculturalism minister was the owner of a school in China. By April of this year he was not. In the interim, he went on a Team Canada mission to China, accompanied by the two people who had purchased the company. This could be construed as an effort to use an official trade mission to boost the value of the company, either before or after the sale, to ensure a higher sale value.

Yesterday the minister refused to answer my questions on this matter, so I ask him again: Is there an innocent explanation for his conduct, and if so, what is it?

[Campaign Financing, October 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, according to the Vancouver Sun , the minister failed to disclose to the Ethics Commissioner who owned the other 30% of his school at the time and the question is the interest of his partners.

The minister having failed to file a complete report leaves questions in our minds. The missing information which would either confirm that he has been using the trade missions inappropriately or clear his name could be presented to the House.

Will the minister tell this House whether or not investors in his own company have benefited from his recent trade trip to China?

[Campaign Financing, October 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the multiculturalism minister was accompanied on a Team Canada mission to China last January by Michael Lo and Queenie Tin, shareholders in the Kingston Education Group. Mr. Lo and Queenie Tin also appear to be investors in Grand Canadian Academy, the minister's own education company in China.

Is it not therefore the case that the minister has been using official Team Canada trade missions to promote deals which benefit his investment partners?