Thomas Mulcair

[Ethics, May 13th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, how much information did it give to the court in the case of Carolyn Stewart Olsen?

This all started when the Prime Minister appointed Mike Duffy to the Senate to represent Prince Edward Island, even though everyone, including the Prime Minister, knew that Duffy actually lived in Ontario. The Prime Minister claimed that Duffy had signed a declaration stating that he was a resident of Prince Edward Island before he was sworn in.

If that is true and if these declarations exist, why is the Prime Minister refusing to show them to Canadians? He certainly would not want people to think that he was not telling the truth.

[Ethics, May 13th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, when Ray Novak was first appointed chief of staff by the Prime Minister to replace Nigel Wright, the Conservatives swore up and down that he had nothing to do with the Senate scandal. However, now we learn from RCMP documents that Ray Novak did, in fact, know about Nigel Wright's plan to falsify the Duffy audit report.

When exactly did Ray Novak tell the Prime Minister that he knew the Duffy report was doctored?

[Employment, May 12th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, 250,000 more Canadians are unemployed today then when the crisis hit in 2008. That is the reality.

When Alcan was taken over by Rio Tinto in 2007, Jack Layton asked the Prime Minister nine times to protect Canadian jobs.

Rio Tinto received minister Jim Prentice's approval, under the Investment Canada Act, by showing that its acquisition of Alcan would be of net benefit to Canada.

What is the net benefit for the hundreds of Alcan employees who were laid off today? What does the Prime Minister intend to do to save those jobs?

[Employment, May 12th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, we are not talking about what happened 150 years ago. We are talking about what he said himself here in the House on April 22.

While Liberals and Conservatives are feeding at the trough in the Senate, the current Conservative government is sitting idly by watching good middle-class jobs disappear. There were 20,000 jobs lost in April alone.

Rio Tinto is now completing the makeover after its takeover of Canadian aluminum giant Alcan by laying off hundreds of employees and stripping the Alcan name off the building.

Why did the Prime Minister approve selling off a major Canadian company with no guarantee to protect Canadian jobs?

[Ethics, May 12th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the question is, why did they work with the crown and the courts in the case of Mike Duffy, and not in the case of his confidante, Carolyn Stewart Olsen? That is the question.

On April 22, the Prime Minister told this House that he knew that Mike Duffy was a resident of Prince Edward Island before he appointed him to the Senate.

Why? Because, according to what the Prime Minister said that day, Mike Duffy signed a declaration stating that he was a resident of Prince Edward Island.

Is the Prime Minister willing to show that declaration to Canadians? Where is that declaration that Mike Duffy signed before he was appointed to the Senate? We would not want Canadians to be left thinking that the Prime Minister was not telling the truth.

[Ethics, May 12th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, what is before the court is the RCMP document I just read from.

One of the Conservative senators involved in the cover-up was the Prime Minister's close personal confidante, Carolyn Stewart Olsen. The director of the Senate audit said that Stewart Olsen's goal “was not to get to the truth....” Like Mike Duffy, Stewart Olsen was living in Ottawa, but was named by the Prime Minister to represent Atlantic Canada. Like Mike Duffy, she still claimed expenses for her Ottawa home.

Is that why the Prime Minister's Office went to Stewart Olsen to help with the cover-up? Was it because they knew her expenses were just as fishy as Mike Duffy's?

[Ethics, May 12th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, according to RCMP documents tabled in court, we now know that staff from the Prime Minister's Office ordered Conservative senators to whitewash the audit report on Mike Duffy's expenses. The staff involved the Prime Minister's former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, and his current chief of staff, Ray Novak.

Did the Prime Minister know that his staff, including his two former chiefs of staff, falsified a senate audit report?

[Ethics, May 7th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the email from the Prime Minister's chief of staff went on to say that:

A purpose of this is to put Mike in a different bucket and to prevent him from going squirrely in a bunch of weekend panel shows.

Will the Prime Minister now finally acknowledge that his office has been directly implicated in a deliberate attempt at obstruction of justice?

[Ethics, May 7th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, on February 7, 2013, Nigel Wright, the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff, wrote in an email to his colleagues in the Prime Minister's Office, “Mike is very pleased with this so it will give us a little bit of time if [Conservative senator David Tkachuk] can pull it off”. Pull what off? Obviously rewriting the report. They know it as well as we do.

This is pure Richard Nixon. The Duffygate coverup was orchestrated right in the Prime Minister's Office. That is what these RCMP court documents prove. Why will the Prime Minister not answer?

[Ethics, May 7th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the RCMP is unequivocal. The RCMP told the courts that the report had made its way to the Prime Minister's Office during the investigation. Again I quote: “The report...had made its ways to the PMO...and...revisions, what they wanted to have written in the report, was done”.

Can the Prime Minister tell us why his office doctored the details of that audit report? What are they trying to hide? Who are they trying to protect?