Stockwell Day

[Agriculture, February 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I advise you that I will be splitting my time with fellow opposition members.

I would like to take at face value the high sounding noises that we heard from across the way from the Secretary of State for Rural Development, but it is of grave concern to me that when we have a member asking the minister if he can ask some questions related to the dissertation which the minister just gave on agriculture, the minister says no. We cannot even ask some basic questions related to the crisis our farmers are facing.

I would have been more assured about the sincerity of the government if at some time between now and going back to last November or October we had heard some kind of assurance from the Prime Minister, from the secretary of state or from the minister of agriculture that their Liberal candidate in Regina was misspeaking when that candidate informed farmers who were waiting in Regina for the Prime Minister—and who would not meet with them—that because they would not vote properly they might not get the help they needed. We have never heard a denunciation of that particular comment.

I am trying to accept at face value the sincerity, but I have nothing to back it up. Questions will not be answered today and horrendous statements are not refuted or not reprimanded.

The Secretary of State for Rural Development has also said that the government is looking for strategies. I do appreciate his honesty from that point of view. The suggestion is that the government does not have the strategies but is looking for them. I appreciate that openness.

It is important to note, as we look at the immediate crisis upon us, that funding is needed. It is important to note that farmers in Canada from coast to coast, our producers, are able to do incredible things. They are able to feed the world. They are not simply asking for subsidization. They are not simply asking for more money.

The strategies that have been formulated by the Canadian Alliance have been based upon numerous meetings with producers from coast to coast. There were some 76 meetings with thousands of farmers, as compared to the government committee that trotted around some time ago. I think it had nine meetings. We are talking about 76 meetings with thousands of producers.

Those producers said some things in terms of direct strategies. They asked that their input costs be lowered. We have offered a number of ways to do that. There was a proposal in the House to lower costs of fuel, including diesel fuel. Liberal federal MPs voted against that. There was a strategy. We were offering some hope.

We have talked about the ability to lower user fees. Our estimations through Agriculture Canada are that user fees related to fertilizer purchases alone hit the farm community at something to the tune of $300 million. We have asked for a reduction of that to help with their input costs. The answer is no.

We have talked about value added. If we increase the value added areas of this part of our economy there will be more demand for the product, whether we are talking about the ethanol capabilities and possibilities that are there in Ontario or the pasta producing plants throughout the west. We have suggested that the government lower business taxes, lower costs of those businesses and increase the incentive to invest. We have offered that as very specific strategies. What do we get? No action.

I am having trouble with the sincerity in terms of wanting to help our agricultural sector. We have said that we should look aggressively at negotiating downward the horrendous subsidies faced by our farmers. Members know quite well that European grain farmers are subsidized to the tune of something like 56% of their income; U.S. farmers, something like 36% to 38%; and Canadians farmers, something like 8% to 9%. This is not a case of our producers saying that they simply need huge amounts of increased subsidies, but they do need some help now. We have offered some very specific strategies and we do not seem to be getting any.

We have offered the very clear strategy of giving producers, especially our grain producers, marketing choice related to the wheat board. These are specific strategies. We are not saying that we should crater the wheat board. There may be a place for it for those who choose it. Again we get no response. We have been asked for the strategies and we do not get them.

Our members have done significant detailed work in terms of improvements to the grain handling and transportation system. We have offered those as specific strategies. We are even willing to say that if members opposite in the Liberal government pick up those strategies we will applaud them. We will even give them credit. This has now gone beyond partisan concern. We have producers right now who are saying that they do not think they can get into the ground this spring. Something needs to happen now.

The AIDA program has been identified for two years. There is something like $1.7 billion sitting there on the cabinet table when it should be on the kitchen tables of our farmers. Almost half of that has been refused for those who are applying. In many cases it is on technicalities.

What is the problem with the federal Liberal government? We have farmers and producers who are saying they need those dollars now. They are sitting on the table. We approved those dollars to move ahead, and still we see no action. There are farmers who do not know if they can make it through this spring.

In terms of reducing downward these subsidies, there is great capability on behalf of our government to do that if it had a will to do it. It could marshal the power of other trading nations and use that collective buying power in terms of being significant on these reductions.

This is not simply a western problem or an Ontario problem. Let us look at the situation with P.E.I. with the potato shipments shut out at the border. We know through the people who had done the research related to the potato wart that this was not a problem. We understand the minister was globetrotting somewhere when these issues should have been dealt with. We had P.E.I. farmers either putting their product into the bins or ploughing them into the ground.

We need to do something and we need to do something now. They have asked for strategies and we have given those strategies. My colleagues will go into these in even more detail.

This is not a time for partisan positioning. It was only a few weeks ago that I met a group of farmers. One farmer held his hand out and as I shook his hand he held on to mine. He said that he was holding on but that he did not know if he could hold on through the spring. He said that they needed those dollars to be released to them now, the dollars that were on the table.

Politics aside, we are talking about enabling and empowering our agriculture community to do what it does best, which is to be the most innovative in the world. Canadian producers and farmers have proven that they can be the hardest working and most constructive in the world. Our agriculture community has proven that it can be number one in the world when it comes to conservation policies. It is time they had the support of a government that would clear the obstacles and allow them to be that.

It is time we had a federal government that set and maintained a vision for agriculture, a vision for our agriculture community to literally be able to feed the world and, at the same time, feed their own families while they are doing it. That is the position of the Canadian Alliance, the official opposition. The government has asked for strategies and we have given them strategies.

We are asking the government to act on those strategies because time is running out for too many farmers. It is time to move for the family farm.

[Ethics Counsellor, February 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, he should consult yesterday's and today's confirmation from the ethics counsellor.

The official opposition continues to bring forward ideas that will bring democracy and freedom to the House of Commons which will be good for all Canadians.

Tonight there will be a vote on a motion that I tabled last week, a vote asking for support for a promise from the red book that we would have an ethics counsellor who reports to this House. That was a Liberal promise, but we understand that the Liberal members of parliament will be whipped into opposing their own promise.

What is it about this motion that the Prime Minister thinks will hurt the country?

[Ethics Counsellor, February 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the ethics counsellor finally confirmed that the Prime Minister had a personal interest in the value of the Auberge Grand-Mère remaining high.

Rather than treating taxpayers like so much baggage, why is the Prime Minister not acknowledging that the whole Auberge Grand-Mère is nothing less than a conflict of interest?

[Ethics Counsellor, February 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, we have before us today a confirmation from the ethics counsellor that the Prime Minister indeed did have a stake in the golf course next to the Auberge Grand-Mère during the time that it received millions of dollars. It is called a conflict of interest.

The ethics counsellor has now confirmed what we have been maintaining all along, that the Prime Minister stood to lose money if the value of that golf course dropped.

Why does the Prime Minister continue to deny that he had an interest in those shares during that time?

[Ethics Counsellor, February 12th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the ethics counsellor was just out last week saying that he did own those. The Prime Minister had better take up that point with the ethics counsellor.

As regards the regulations for selecting immigrant investors, I cite the Government of Quebec document entitled “Le courtier gérera le placement de l'investisseur”.

And the broker and not the Government of Quebec manages the funds. Why did the Prime Minister wrongly try to transfer responsibility onto the back of the government—

[Ethics Counsellor, February 12th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the documents are here and now I am able to give him the information. The information we have here is that the Quebec government was not in the direct management and control of these funds. The Prime Minister stood here on February 7 and said “the investment fund is managed by the province government”, and yet he knows very well these funds are not.

When he met with those investment brokers, some of whom had criminal records or charges pending, he was aware of that fact at the time. Was it because of the apparent conflict of interest that he was trying to hide these facts?

[Ethics Counsellor, February 12th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, last week we asked the Prime Minister to explain the apparent conflict of interest between his meeting with the immigrant investment brokers and then the flow of funds that began just days after that to the Auberge Grand-Mère Hotel, which of course was attached to the golf course that he still had shares in, contrary to what the Minister of Industry tried to tell us last week.

The Prime Minister said that he had nothing to do with this, that in fact this was all controlled by the Quebec government.

In fact we have now obtained documents from the Quebec government showing that these funds were not managed by the Quebec government but by the brokers themselves.

Will the Prime Minister please try to explain why he denied that these funds were in fact controlled by the brokers.

[Supply, February 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Fraser Valley.

We find the motion fascinating because it is a motion that was brought forward by the Liberals in their so-called red book one. I have indicated that it is our honour to support the government on initiatives that we feel are positive and that will serve the country well. We are here to help members opposite recognize that this is a good motion.

We do not mind giving the Liberals full credit for their idea. It is contained in their red book one. I have it in front of me and it is fabulous.

This motion was part of the first red book in 1993. It was part of the Liberal election platform. Here is a description of the remarks of the Prime Minister during the 1993 election campaign.

During the election campaign the Prime Minister said, and it was picked up by the Canadian Press, “It's time to elect politicians that serve the public rather than serve themselves.” We agree with that.

I think Liberal members will remember the months leading up to the 1993 election, but if not I hope to refresh their memories in about three or four years from now. However, on February 17, 1993, when the Liberals were in opposition, the present House Leader, the hon. member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, tabled the following motion:

That this House condemns the government for its continued failure to establish and to adhere to a clear and high standard of public sector ethics, for its incessant inability to function within the framework of existing legislation, guidelines and standards, and for its reluctance to bring forward strict new codes and legislation with regard to conflicts and other public ethic matters.

Again we hear a wonderful motion coming from the Liberals. Motions and words are one thing, but we are looking for action.

During the 1993 election the present House leader went on to quote the promises of the then Prime Minister, Mr. Mulroney. He denigrated the Conservatives as the “orgy of patronage”, as he called it, and demanded other things. He demanded an independent commission to scrutinize the contracting process. He demanded that a member of parliament be excluded from involvement in the awarding of contracts. Today they are allowed to award grants. He also demanded a non-partisan process of review of cabinet appointments. These were Liberal motions from seven years ago.

Eight months later the Liberals actually ran their campaign on the image of being squeaky clean compared with the then Mulroney government.

Canadians at the time put their trust in today's Prime Minister thinking that the Liberals would “scrap, kill and abolish the GST”. The Liberals were also opposed to free trade at the time. The historic reality is that before an election the Liberals will say one thing and after an election they will say almost anything.

Another forgotten promise was the appointment of an ethics counsellor who would report to parliament. We are reminding the Liberals of that promise with their own motion. The Liberals refused to deliver the very legislation that they called for while they were in opposition. The hypocrisy is astounding. It has resulted in a situation where we have an ethics counsellor who actually has no powers of investigation.

Any comments that I am making today related to the present ethics counsellor are in no way a reflection on the integrity of that gentleman. However, the straitjacket within which he operates keeps him from doing what the people of Canada would like him to do and what the Liberals at one time said they wanted him to do. He is appointed by the Prime Minister, has no powers of investigation and, amazingly, reports directly to the Prime Minister not to the House.

When someone hires me, gives me a job and a salary and then tells me to report to him and to let him know if I like him, human nature kicks in. I am not questioning the ethics counsellor's abilities but he has been put in a straitjacket. We are asking for that straitjacket to be removed.

The Liberals say that they have ethical guidelines for ministers. We have never even seen them. The Prime Minister can call the ethics counsellor any time to say hello and to remind him that he is the guy who hired him and who pays his salary. He can ask him to read the secret list of guidelines, which nobody knows about, because he has been accused of some bad behaviour, and to let him know that everything he has done is okay. That is presently how it works and it is just not acceptable. We need a public servant who reports to the House, not one who defends the Prime Minister at every turn no matter how outrageous the incident.

During the election, there was an experience that demonstrated the restrictions that are placed on the ethics counsellor. It was brought to our attention, through some very significant investigations, that there was in place a secret and parallel political process for the granting of HRDC grants. It was brought out, accepted and realized by the Liberals. They admitted it and did not challenge it.

We found out about that grant two years ago when we had asked the ethics counsellor for documents regarding Pierre Corbeil and his conviction for influence peddling related to the HRDC grants. In that particular process, the ethics counsellor had conducted an investigation but refused to give us the information. We then had to appeal to the information commissioner. We could not get the documents because the ethics counsellor was in a straitjacket.

The information commissioner had to fight the office of the ethics counsellor for two years in order to get the documents. The few pages that were finally released to us just before the election were the very pages that showed that there was a highly unethical parallel political process in the approving of these grants. That is not acceptable and it must change. We demand the Liberals live up to their word and make these changes.

Further to that, and a subject of much attention to Canadians, when it became public during the election that the Prime Minister had demanded loans from the president of the Business Development Bank and possibly even forced the president to resign when he wanted to call those loans, I wrote to the ethics counsellor and asked him eight very straight questions.

He replied to me, and I appreciate the reply only took two days. Whether that was a reflection of the gravity of my letter or the straitjacket that the counsellor was in, I am not sure. However he did reply and I appreciated that. He said that there was no rule preventing a minister, including the Prime Minister, from having direct contact on behalf of a constituent with a crown corporation.

To support that, he quoted as his authority the independent B.C. conflict of interest commissioner. The ethics counsellor had replied in terms of protecting the Prime Minister from any wrongdoing, saying that there had been no wrongdoing. The B.C. conflict of interest commissioner concluded that constituency assistance in a minister's office could give advocacy assistance to constituents, provided it was not before a commission, board, agency or other tribunal within the sphere of the minister's responsibility.

He quoted from that to say he thought the Prime Minister was okay. However in quoting from the report he neglected to quote the preceding paragraph, and that was a very significant omission, which indicated that the B.C. conflict of interest commissioner had ruled that a minister must not make personal representation on behalf of a constituent in such a forum, commission, board, agency or other tribunal established by the government, regardless of the ministry under which the commission, board, agency or other tribunal operated.

It went on to say that a minister acting in such a way would always be seen as a minister of government, which is a position of responsibility that he or she cannot shed at will, and that it would be improper to appear in an advocacy role of this kind. Those were the words in the preceding paragraph. If he is going to quote this citation, let us have the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

The Business Development Bank of Canada is a crown corporation as we know. The BDC president is a cabinet appointee. These things need to be dealt with. He also did not refer to the Ontario integrity commissioner who said that parliamentary convention prohibits all ministers from personally appearing or advocating on behalf of a private party with an agency, board or commission.

Since coming to the House, I have heard Liberal members say from time to time that they think provincial legislatures are the minor leagues and that this is the major league. That is not true. In many provinces, the standards are higher than those of the federal government.

That is simply the case that has to be recognized. We want to look at this issue. We recognize that one of the most important ways of ensuring that politicians serve the public rather than themselves is by ensuring the integrity and independence of the ethics counsellor's office.

One of the main ways of making sure that politicians serve public interest and not their own interest is by ensuring the integrity and the autonomy of the office of the counsellor, who is in charge of these standards.

This is absolutely necessary. I close by quoting the Prime Minister's own words, as we now give the Liberals the great opportunity to clear their name. People are suggesting that they are being less than honest, less than straightforward. I would like to help the Liberals clear their name by getting them to support their own motion. In the 1993 campaign the Prime Minister said “It is time to elect politicians that serve the public rather than serve themselves”.

[Supply, February 8th, 2001]

moved:

That this House adopt the following policy from Liberal Redbook 1 and call for its implementation by the government: “A Liberal Government will appoint an independent Ethics Counsellor to advise both public officials and lobbyists in the day-to-day application of the Code of Conduct for Public Officials. The Ethics Counsellor will be appointed after consultation with the leaders of all parties in the House of Commons and will report directly to Parliament.”

[Grants And Contributions, February 7th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, we have proof right here that the Prime Minister is not out of the woods as regards the auberge. He hosted meetings that allowed Auberge Grand-Mère to get close to $3 million. Worse still, two of the participants in these meetings were people who had previously been convicted of criminal activities.

Does the Prime Minister realize that he used his office to collect money that benefited a business of which he is a beneficiary? Does he realize that?