Bill S-1003 (Historical)

An Act to amend The United Church of Canada Act

Financial Statement of Minister of Finance

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I would ask hon. members, including the member for Carleton, to be careful in their choice of words and to not use characterizations of individual members. We should always avoid characterizing individual members as opposed to a government, a party, policies or decisions. That is another matter.

The hon. member for Carleton.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are new developments in the SNC-Lavalin scandal just breaking today, and I rise today to bring them to the House's attention.

As members will recall, the justice committee decided to convene an investigation into the Prime Minister's interference in the criminal prosecution of the company known as SNC-Lavalin. That investigation, unfortunately, was short-lived. As revelations about the Prime Minister and his team's 20 points of contact with the former attorney general, in which they made veiled threats, in which they interfered, in which they applied inappropriate pressure, came to light in committee, members on the Liberal side, who constitute a majority, voted to shut down the investigation altogether. I was present when that happened, and it was clear that the government had engaged in a cover-up.

That being said, we concluded at the time that there was still hope of getting to the truth, and that hope resided in the ethics committee. As such, numerous members of the House wrote the chairman of that committee, who would confirm that a motion to carry out an investigation into the SNC-Lavalin corruption scandal was in order. Roughly a week later, members convened at the ethics committee, under the leadership of that chair, and debated whether the committee should proceed with an investigation.

One Liberal member on the committee had previously voted for a full-scale public inquiry, and thus it was expected that he might be supportive of allowing the ethics committee to proceed in carrying out that investigation right within the parliamentary precinct. When presented with the opportunity to do so and vote in favour of the motion, allowing the investigation to go ahead, he began to speak and said that he was not ruling out a future investigation at committee, that perhaps at some future date an investigation could proceed, but doing so would be premature before the justice committee had received all its written submissions and before the justice committee had decided to conclude its own work.

A second Liberal MP, the member for Ottawa—Vanier, said, in a post-committee scrum with the media, “I believe that today we had a conversation on the fact that the Ethics Commissioner is currently studying, and that's why we are waiting for him to get back to us and report. Also, the justice committee is still working on it, as we know. [The member for Mount Royal], the chair, will receive more information, so it's premature for us to go forward.” I emphasize “premature for us to go forward”.

Two members of the Liberal delegation on the ethics committee expressed an openness to having a full-scale committee investigation into the SNC-Lavalin corruption scandal but concluded that it would be premature to do so until such time as the committee received all its written submissions and heard all its testimony and concluded its own work on the file.

In fairness to those two Liberal members, while I disagree with them, it is a reasonable point of view. There is no need to have two committees doing the same thing at one time. In other words, why not wait to find out what the justice committee was going to do with all the testimony it had received and what it would eventually do with the then forthcoming written submissions of text messages that both the former attorney general and Gerald Butts were to provide.

The justice committee has done that now. It has completely terminated the investigation. It has received all the written submissions. Those submissions have now been published for all eyes to see. The justice committee's work is known. As of this morning, according to Liberal members who met in a secret in camera meeting, that committee will do no more work on this file.

The two Liberal members of the ethics committee, who were waiting on the justice committee to wrap up in order to get the final evidence that the committee report would provide, can no longer claim it is premature for the ethics committee to begin its work.

I report to the House of Commons today that next Tuesday would be the appropriate day for the ethics committee to consider whether to proceed with the investigation into the Prime Minister's SNC-Lavalin corruption scandal. I note that he has attempted to shut down two previous investigations, and that might cause pessimism among members of the House. However, I also note that there is reason for hope and optimism in that at least two Liberal members of the ethics committee have now said that their opposition to an investigation was time limited.

In other words, because it was premature at the time the motion for such investigation came before the committee, they may now have changed their mind because all of the information that another committee had to provide has now been provided. The conversation now shifts over to the ethics committee where we will once again debate whether to open an investigation into this file.

The Prime Minister has tried to put this matter to rest by shutting it down. When I use the term “shut down”, I am quoting the Prime Minister's former Treasury Board president. This is not an allegation of an opposition MP; these are the words of a former member of the Prime Minister's inner circle, a doctor, a woman to whom the Prime Minister entrusted one of the most senior cabinet positions any prime minister could offer. She believes the government is trying to shut down the investigation into this scandal.

It is not working. The Prime Minister has been incapable of grabbing this scandal and forcing it underground. Every time he tries, the people of Canada, as well as conscientious members of his own caucus speak up against him.

I believe he will have to conclude, one week from today, that his only recourse is to open the entire matter up for all eyes to see. As he was fond of saying in the last election, “sunlight is the best disinfectant”. Let us lift the curtains at the ethics committee and let the sunshine pour in so everyone can see the truth. “Sunny ways my friends, sunny ways” as a prime minister we all know once said.

Mr. Speaker, I put you and the House on notice that next Tuesday, a week from today, we will all be watching carefully as Liberal members join with Conservative and NDP members to determine whether to end the cover-up and open up a full-scale investigation to get to the truth in this matter.

With that notice having been given, I now turn the attention of members to another important legal matter.

We are lawmakers; ergo we must not be lawbreakers. There is an important law, which was passed into effect in the previous Parliament, called the Reform Act. That bill came from the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. He has long been a student of Parliament and an advocate for its supremacy. The member came forward with this bill in the previous Parliament, with the intended purpose of limiting the executive branch's ability to commandeer the House of Commons at the expense of public interest. It was under the previous government that the bill was in fact passed.

The Reform Act did two principal things.

The first change the act made was it took away the legal authority of party leaders to ban candidates from running. It used to be in the Elections Act that one could not be a candidate for a political party unless one had a signature from the leader of that party. That created a bias within the act, in favour of the party leadership against the grassroots. The Reform Act, instead, allowed the party to assign any authority it chose to have the power to accept or reject candidates. In other words, the party could say that a local electoral district association president or some other trusted figure would have the authority to accept or reject candidacies. However, no longer would it be a given under law that such authority would reside exclusively in the hands of the leader. It is possible for a party to craft its own constitution, as any free organization can, in an open, civil society to assign that power to its leader. That decision now rests with a party and not with the law. That was the first change.

The second change the Reform Act made is particularly relevant to today's conversation. It stated that at the first caucus meeting of every party, after an election occurred, there must be a vote on whether to apply a set of rules to determine the expulsion of members of that caucus. In other words, in the past, party leaders had been able to just banish people from the caucus arbitrarily. This law empowered caucuses to create a set of enforceable rules that would be embedded in legislation, whereby no one could be removed from a caucus without a vote of the caucus members.

At the very first Conservative caucus meeting after the last election, we decided to vote in favour of applying that rule to our caucus. The Conservative Party, as it stands now and in this Parliament, cannot remove members from caucus without holding a vote of caucus members. In other words, a party leader cannot simply wake up one day and say that Mr. Smith is no longer a member of the Conservative Party. Instead, caucus members need to vote on the future of Mr. Smith.

That brings us to today's debate. We are now hearing rumours of retaliation against two courageous whistle-blowers in the Liberal ranks. Both the former attorney general and the former treasury board president had the incredible audacity to tell the truth about the Prime Minister's conduct in the SNC-Lavalin affair.

A number of the Prime Minister's top supporters in caucus have gone to media outlets and suggested they should be banished from caucus altogether because they dared speak up and defend that truth. As the argument goes, they should be punished for allowing Canadians to learn that the Prime Minister interfered in a criminal prosecution.

Here is the legal hiccup. It turns out that the Liberal caucus failed to follow the law and hold a vote at its first caucus meeting to determine whether there would be rules for the expulsion of members. In other words, if the caucus decides to expel these members, that expulsion might be illegal.

I want to read members some background. This is a letter that the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills wrote to the current Attorney General. It states:

Dear Minister,

I would like to congratulate you on your new role as the Minister of Justice and the Attorney General of Canada.

In a letter to the previous Minister of Justice and the Attorney General of Canada, dated February 29, 2016, I brought to the Minister's attention the possible non-compliance of Section 49.8 of the Parliament of Canada Act by members of the cabinet. I also sent a letter to the Deputy Minister of Justice and the Attorney General of Canada, dated May 11, 2016, voicing the same concern. Both the Minister and Deputy Minister did not respond to me directly and as such, I have no idea of what action, if any, was taken. I am now bringing this matter directly to your attention for your consideration and action.

As you are aware, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General is the chief law officer of the Crown, responsible for ensuring that the administration of public affairs is in accordance with the law, and responsible for upholding the rule of law. The Attorney General has a duty to provide objective legal advice in order to ensure that government action complies with the law. Given that the government is bound by the rule of law, as well as the Attorney General's advice on legal affairs, traditionally it must be accepted by Cabinet even if it is an unpopular policy.

As you are also aware, the Reform Act past in the House of Commons on February 25, 2015, passed in the Senate on June 22, 2015, received Royal Assent on June 23, 2015, and subsequently came into force on October 26, 2015. It amended the Parliament of Canada Act.

According to Section 49.8 of the Parliament of Canada Act (appended for ease of reference), at its first meeting following a general election, the caucus of every party in the House of Commons must conduct a separate recorded vote among the caucus members in respect of each of the following questions:

(a) whether sections 49.2 and 49.3 are to apply in respect of the caucus;

(b) whether section 49.4 is to apply in respect of the caucus;

(c) whether subsections 49.5(1) to (3) are to apply in respect of the caucus; and

(d) whether subsection 49.5(4) and section 49.6 are to apply in respect of the caucus.

Furthermore, Section 49.8 stipulates that “as soon as feasible after the conduct of the votes, the chair of the caucus shall inform the Speaker of the House of Commons of the outcome of each vote.”

It has been publicly reported by various news media (one report of which is appended for ease of reference) that the Liberal Members of Parliament, including Ministers, did not comply with Section 49.8 of the Parliament of Canada Act, instead deciding to “defer” the four votes. This appears to be in contravention...of the Parliament of Canada Act.

The Minister of Justice and Attorney General is responsible for upholding the rule of law, ensuring that Cabinet acts in accordance with the law, and is ultimately accountable to the House of Commons. I ask that you uphold your constitutional and statutory responsibility and take the necessary steps to ensure that the government complies with Section 49.8 of the Parliament of Canada Act.

While Section 49.8 concerns the conduct of not just Ministers but all Members of Parliament of a recognized party in the House of Commons, it is important to note that according to Open and Accountable Government, Ministers are to be held to the highest standards of conduct for all their actions, including those that are not directly related to their official functions. Ministers are therefore expected to adhere to these standards in circumstances, whether they are acting as a Minister, a member of the House of Commons or private citizen.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

In other words, the member was laying out very clearly that there are laws that determine how a caucus must conduct itself and that those laws determine how members can or cannot be expelled.

So far the Liberal Party is not in respect of those laws. All other caucuses held votes to ensure they were in compliance with the Parliament of Canada Act.

To simplify, this is what it means. Those sitting back home right now wondering whether their member of Parliament works for them or the party leader should ask themselves who can remove a member of Parliament from his or her caucus. If the answer is that the leader simply removes the caucus member, then apparently that caucus member works for the leader. If, on the other hand, as is the case in the Conservative Party, a member of Parliament works in a caucus that is bound by the Parliament of Canada Act to ensure that no one can be removed except by vote of a majority of MPs in that caucus, then that MP works for constituents. That is how simple it is.

It is not that the Liberal caucus decided to give its leader the power to remove members of caucus. It is that the Liberal Party broke the law requiring that the caucus set rules for the expulsion of members. In so doing, the Liberal caucus is now in a legal twilight zone, as it is unable to tell anybody the legal procedure required for two of its senior members to be expelled from caucus.

It has been brought to my attention that Liberal caucus meetings have been going on all day and that Ontario Liberals have gathered to discuss the future of the former attorney general and former Treasury Board president. They are discussing whether those two distinguished parliamentarians should be punted from the Liberal caucus altogether. However, here is the problem. Liberals cannot do it legally until they have addressed the requirement in the Parliament of Canada Act, which stipulates that they must decide whether the leader or the caucus has the power to do that.

The Liberal Party very much risks finding itself in yet another legal crisis in the next day. Tomorrow its caucus will meet, and I understand that there may well be a decision to expel members of the caucus. However, we do not know how that decision will be made, because so far the Liberals are in violation of the Parliament of Canada Act, which stipulates how exactly that procedure is to be carried out.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Shameful.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

It is shameful that the Liberal Party has found a way to break the law even in circumstances that relate to its own caucus management.

I would add that while this sounds really complicated, it is actually quite simple. The act just says that after an election, a caucus should go into a room to hold a vote on the rules for the expulsion of members.

Conservatives did it and it took us about 10 minutes. As a group, we decided that caucus members could only be expelled through a vote of the full caucus. That stripped a future leader of the ability to remove anyone arbitrarily, and it empowered MPs, whether they are in the front, middle or back bench, to be equal in making that decision.

There are members of the NDP who I believe did exactly the same thing. They held the same vote, as they were required to under the act, and it is my understanding, though I was not there, that they did this. However, the Liberal Party refused to abide by this legal requirement and make that administrative decision on its first day and now it is caught in this strange situation where it wants to carry out retribution against courageous whistle-blowers in its own caucus. The Prime Minister is determined to have them kicked out and punished for speaking their minds, but nobody knows the legal status of an expulsion from the Liberal caucus.

Mr. Speaker, I bring this to your attention because it could land on your desk. You could find yourself as the arbiter of this messy situation that the government has created for itself by failing to follow the legal steps that are provided for in the Parliament of Canada Act.

I have my opinions on whether the former Treasury Board president and former attorney general should or should not be allowed to remain. Absolutely they have the right to remain. In fact, they should be celebrated for their courage and honesty. However, I believe that whatever decision the Liberals make, which is theirs to make and not mine, should be done in accordance with the law. They need to follow the law.

The Prime Minister broke the law when he took a quarter-million-dollar free vacation from someone who was seeking a government grant. He has broken, at the very least, the spirit of the law by applying inappropriate pressure and interfering in the criminal prosecution of his corporate friends at SNC-Lavalin. For God's sake, let him not break the law as he carries out retribution against the courageous whistle-blowers who exposed him for that earlier misconduct.

The Prime Minister has some time to fix the legal problems within his caucus. He could potentially, with counsel from you, Mr. Speaker, and the law clerk, convene another caucus meeting to discuss the application of the Reform Act to his caucus. I believe that after he does that he would have to table in the House of Commons a full report on how he and his caucus have come into compliance with that act. However, failing that, he is operating lawlessly as he attempts to punish those who have spoken against him.

Speaking of the law, there is another law worth noting in this affair, which is the whistle-blower protection law that exists for public servants. I was proud to serve as the parliamentary secretary in the Harper government that passed into effect the Federal Accountability Act, which contained protections for whistle-blowers.

The House will recall that the impetus for this act was that a courageous whistle-blower, Allan Cutler, had spoken up against the sponsorship scandal. He witnessed that money was being funnelled out of the coffers of the government into the Liberal Party of Canada and to Liberal-linked ad agencies. He blew the whistle and he was fired. He was fired for speaking up and he suffered serious career damage as a result. Therefore, we passed a law to protect public sector whistle-blowers in the event that they witness wrongdoing. Under the law, they are allowed to make a formal complaint to seek an investigation with the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner who then carries out an investigation.

I acknowledge that the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner does not have jurisdiction over a party caucus or over cabinet ministers. It strictly applies to members of the public service. However, this is about the example we set as political leaders. If we have a law that protects public servants who blow the whistle against retaliation, how could the Prime Minister violate the principles of that law by punishing the whistle-blowers in his own cabinet? What message would he send to public servants about the propriety of standing up and speaking out when they see something wrong if he punishes the very people who have done just that?

What the Prime Minister should do is, first, apologize to both of these whistle-blowers, and second, thank them for standing in his way when he was trying to behave inappropriately.

The former attorney general may have done the Prime Minister an incredible service when she refused his personal and political interference in the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin. She may have been helping him in a strange way by stopping him from doing something very dangerous, both to himself and to our legal and justice systems. She warned him in the most emphatic way that he ought not push her any further.

Allow me, for a moment, to reflect on the chronology of those warnings. It started on September 18, 2018, when the Prime Minister and the Clerk of the Privy Council called in the former attorney general and pushed her to allow a settlement with SNC-Lavalin that would shelve criminal charges for fraud and bribery. She made it clear at that point that she was not interested in giving the company a special deal, as the company simply did not qualify for a settlement. He pushed some more. He made up stories about how the company headquarters would leave if she did not immediately intervene, stories we now know are patently false.

Still, she stood her ground so he pushed again. She said she looked the Prime Minister in the eye and asked him if he was interfering with her work as Attorney General, and that she strongly advised against it. One would think he would have gotten the message, but unfortunately that was just the beginning. Then, in the days that followed, his senior staff would continue the pressure campaign. The finance minister would jump in on the action as well. Strangely, he personally met with senior—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the government House leader is rising on a point of order.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that you take into into consideration House of Commons Procedure and Practice, page 625. It states:

Repetition and Relevance in Debate

The rules of relevance and repetition are intertwined and mutually reinforcing. The requirement that speeches remain relevant to the question before the House flows from the latter’s right to reach decisions without undue obstruction and to exclude from debate any discussion not conducive to that end. The rule against repetition helps to ensure the expeditious conduct of debate by prohibiting the repetition of arguments already made. To neglect either rule would seriously impair the ability of the House to manage its time efficiently.

If we think about the hours of discussion from the member across the way, we will find consistent duplication, repeating the same points after the same points, and we are actually talking about the 2019-20 budget. I just bring that to your attention so that maybe periodically we can get the member to go back to what the debate is about, and that is the budget.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I thank the hon. parliamentary secretary for raising the point. I am in complete familiarity with what he refers to. It is a topic that does come up from time to time. One of the limitations on that for chair occupants is, of course, that one has to actually hear what the member says before one can be enlightened as to whether a bridge has been crossed or a line has been crossed in terms of repetition and relevance. That is one of the difficulties in coming to that conclusion.

I can assure the hon. parliamentary secretary that I will remain vigilant and listen carefully to what the hon. member has to say, and certainly, should it be necessary, to remind him, as with all hon. members when they are in the midst of debate, to avoid and in fact steer clear of the repetition of arguments that have already been presented to the House and to ensure that they are relevant to the question at hand.

A final point on that simply is that on budgetary matters, the degree of liberty that members have to make their arguments on budget matters is quite vast. With that in mind, we will listen carefully.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order, while I appreciate that the hon. parliamentary secretary is here more or less all the time and as a consequence hears every single word that is spoken in this House, and while I am not here quite as frequently as a result of committee duty and so on, I want to observe that the reason I am still here is that the hon. member was making novel points that I was not yet familiar with, and I do not see, from my perspective, any repetition.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

On the same point of order, Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the intervention from the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader and I have risen myself on this Standing Order a number of times in this Parliament. I note that in response to members who have brought the rule of relevance to your attention, in this Parliament there has been a very broad application of this Standing Order. That has been the answer from the Chair in most instances—in fact, in almost every instance I can think of—when this issue was raised. I assume that will continue and that there will be broad latitude given on this Standing Order.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I thank all hon. members for their interventions. As I say, this is an important Standing Order for the House, and we will be observant of it and pay close attention.

We will resume debate with the hon. member for Carleton

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will note with interest that the Liberals now claim that the matter of deferred prosecution agreements has nothing to do with budget policy. That is ironic indeed, because those deferred prosecution agreements were created in the budget bill that the Liberals introduced here in the House of Commons. If they thought at the time that it was not a budget measure, why did they put it in the budget? If they thought it was completely irrelevant to the budget, why was it in the budget bill?

The answer, of course, is that it should never have been in the budget, but now that it has been put there, it is perfectly fair game during this budget debate to discuss it.

We learn every day of another form of deceit, another contradiction, just like this one. Less than a year ago, Liberals were claiming that this tool to allow corporations to avoid trial was a budget measure. They forced it through the finance committee, through the House of Commons, and then through the Senate finance committee, again and again claiming “This is a budget matter.”

Now we have a member who stands up and says that this has nothing to do with the budget and it is completely irrelevant. Is that not the whole story of this scandal? It is one flip-flop after another, one change after another in the versions of events and the stories that Liberals tell. They will say anything at any time in order to justify their inappropriate conduct. The intervention by the colleague across the way is just the latest example.

I can point to other contradictions. On February 15, the Prime Minister came out and said to 37 million Canadians that if anyone, including the former attorney general, had issues with anything they might have experienced in the government or did not feel that we were living up to the high standards that the government set for itself, it was her responsibility to come forward and their responsibility to come forward, and no one did.

Of course, that is absolutely false. She did come forward, again and again. She went to the Prime Minister personally on September 18, and then to his clerk of the Privy Council, when she said in a recorded conversation, about which top Liberals cannot lie and which they cannot deny, because it is all caught on tape, “We are treading on dangerous ground here—and I am going to issue my stern warning—because I cannot act in a manner and the prosecution cannot act in a manner that is not objective, that isn’t independent.... I can’t act in a partisan way and it can’t be politically motivated. All of this screams of that.”

If that is not a warning, I do not know what is.

Now the latest story from the Prime Minister is that he never heard about that conversation. After an attorney general had an explosive conversation of this nature with the top public servant about a priority file for the Prime Minister, in the two months that followed, the Prime Minister did not hear a word about it.

The story from the government was that he did not hear about it because he immediately left for vacation. It turns out that the public record shows that is false. He did not leave for vacation. He does take a lot of vacations, but unfortunately for his story, this was not one of the occasions when he did take such a vacation.

Even if he had, this is what the clerk himself said on the availability of the Prime Minister. He said:

There were multiple, multiple, multiple occasions where the minister could have expressed concern to the Prime Minister, and every single day could have picked up the phone and called.

He said as well:

The Prime Minister is available through the switchboard seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and is working seven days a week. The Prime Minister is interrupted all the time for calls with foreign leaders, security matters, heads-up.

Further, he said:

All ministers have the option of reaching the Prime Minister. Give or take a little bit of scheduling and where he might be in private time, and so on, every minister of the cabinet can reach the Prime Minister.

I presume that if that is true, then the Clerk of the Privy Council could have found time in the two months that followed this extraordinary conversation with the former attorney general to relay its contents to the Prime Minister, yet Liberals expect us to believe he never did and that as a result the Prime Minister did not know anything.

His chief of staff was involved in the interference, but the Prime Minister did not know. His principal secretary and best friend was involved, but the Prime Minister did not know. His senior adviser, Mathieu Bouchard, was involved, but the Prime Minister did not know. The Prime Minister's top adviser, Elder Marques, was involved in the interference, but the Prime Minister did not know. The finance minister was involved in the interference, but the Prime Minister did not know. The finance minister's chief of staff, Ben Chin, was involved in the interference, but the Prime Minister did not know.

Everyone was involved in this, as we now know because of documented text message conversations, journal entries and even audio recordings, right up to the Clerk of the Privy Council, but we are expected to believe that the Prime Minister did not know a thing.

According to the Clerk of the Privy Council, he works 24-7 and is available at any time to be reached easily and brought up to date on all these matters, but somehow this one just slipped right by him.

Why is it that Canadians find that so hard to believe? The answer is that it is because it is not true.

That brings me to the matter of the ethics committee, which will convene on Tuesday, a week from today, to decide whether to carry out a full-scale investigation and hear from all of the key witnesses who are alleged to have interfered in the SNC-Lavalin scandal.

Conservatives will be calling on all members of the Liberal Party to vote in favour of this study, particularly the two members who said they were open to such an investigation but that it had been premature at the time it was brought before the committee the last time it met.

The Prime Minister needs to understand something that has become very difficult for him to appreciate. It is this. The House of Commons does not work for him. It is the other way around. He holds that office only as long as the majority of MPs in this place say that he holds that office. It is not an entitlement. It is not a family heirloom to be handed down from father to son. It is the property of the Canadian people, and through their delegation to us, it is our job to decide whether he is able to hold that office.

In the meantime, this chamber and its committees are one gigantic accountability machine, an accountability machine that demands answers for the government's conduct and, particularly, the Prime Minister's conduct. This is not the Prime Minister's personal self-esteem factory. We do not exist here to try to elevate his sense of ego and self-importance. It is not the job of parliamentarians to gush and heap praise on him and treat him with the adoration and respect he expects and demands. That is not what Parliament does.

Parliament is supposed to ask the difficult questions until such time as we get accurate and believable answers. So far, they have not been forthcoming. Thus, we march on and I continue speaking on behalf of my constituents. I think in this sense that I am carrying out the role that all MPs are supposed to do, which is to stand up, speak up and fight back when they see something wrong.

It is not only opposition MPs who do that. There are courageous members on the government side who have been willing to take a principled position, for example, the former attorney general. She was prepared to put her principles ahead of her career ambitions. Then we have the former Treasury Board president who, likewise, said that she was not prepared to be part of the cover-up and that there is much more to this story that needs to be told. Therefore, let us tell it.

I am ready to end my speech now. All I need is for a member of the government to stand up and commit that the majority Liberal-controlled ethics committee will open a full-scale investigation into the SNC-Lavalin corruption scandal. As soon as one member of the other side rises and purports to speak on behalf of the Prime Minister, I will terminate my remarks and allow the debate to go on otherwise.

Until that happens or until you stop me, Mr. Speaker, I will continue to speak up for accountability in the SNC-Lavalin corruption scandal. I thank the members who are here with me, providing moral support for me to stand here on behalf of the Conservative caucus but also on behalf of my constituents.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I see the hon. member for Calgary Rocky Ridge rising but he is in a different location so I am not sure. I recall recognizing him from a different location. I will have to consult the seating chart to see whether, in fact, I was correct. Perhaps I was incorrect the last time.

I see that he is in a different spot now. I must have been correct.

The hon. member for Calgary Rocky Ridge is rising on a point of order. I would ask the hon. member for Carleton to take a seat.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I had momentarily forgotten the requirement to be in one's proper chair when rising. My apologies to you. Thank you for my being able to catch your eye and rise to speak for a moment.

As it is not clear to me, I want to confirm and ensure, as we have had debate and points of order raised on the rule of relevance and repetition, that all of the facts and arguments have been made properly on that. Therefore, I want to bring to your attention page 632 of Bosc and Gagnon. It describes debates on the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne and the budget.

It states:

The traditions and practices of the House allow for the rule of relevance to be relaxed during debate on the motion for an Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne. During the days allotted to the debate on this motion, Private Members have the opportunity “to bring forward topics of their own choosing”. Consequently, debate tends to be very wide-ranging and the Speaker usually makes no effort to apply the rule of relevance. This is not the case, however, when the House is debating the Budget. The remarks of Members must be relevant to the motion before the House. All the same, the terms of the motion (i.e., that this House approve in general the budgetary policy of the government) are sufficiently broad to permit Members great latitude in their remarks—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. I thank the hon. member for Calgary Rocky Ridge for these additional points. I think they effectively repeat some of the comments that were just recently made by me and other hon. members.

As I indicated at the time, I am quite cognizant of the scope of the issues around which relevance in particular are measured. As I say, I will continue to listen carefully to the hon. member for Carleton in that respect. Should it be necessary to interrupt him and bring that to his attention, I will do so. Other than that, I will consider the matter closed for the time being.

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Drummond, Official Languages; the hon. member for North Island—Powell River, Indigenous Affairs; the hon. member for Regina—Lewvan, Natural Resources.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Carleton.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, where we last left off was on the importance of holding governments to account.

This is the House of the common people where we restrain the Crown and limit its powers to maximize the liberty of the people. In this instance, the allegation is that the Prime Minister personally and politically interfered with the criminal prosecution of a powerful corporation.

In other words, the judicial branch of government suffered, or almost suffered, a major act of interference by the head of the government in the person of the Prime Minister. As Parliament, we are the legislative branch but we have the accountability mechanism here in the form of question period, committees and the other tools at our disposal to bring the Prime Minister back in check when he abuses the other branches of government.

In other words, we do not as legislators dominate the judicial branch. We merely provide it with the laws it interprets, but we can act as its protector here in the House of Commons in instances where the executive has spilled over and invaded the territory of the judicial branch.

That is precisely what we are doing. Just as the judicial branch sometimes must constrain the executive, particularly when the executive infringes on the rights of the population., we as parliamentarians in the legislative branch can also restrain the executive when it attacks the sacred ground of the judicial branch. That appears to be what the Prime Minister attempted.

The decision to prosecute an enterprise charged with fraud and bribery is one left to independent prosecutors in the office of the director of public prosecutions. Interference in that prosecution by any member of the executive has the effect of contaminating the judicial branch with politics. We, as parliamentarians, are the decontamination team. We are here to decontaminate the corruption that spilled out of the executive and almost into the judicial branch, but for the courageous acts of the former attorney general, who closed the floodgates and prevented that contamination from spilling completely into this criminal trial.

Thank God, she was there. What a relief. Canadians should breathe a sigh of relief that we had such a woman of integrity doing that job at that moment. Do we think that things happen for a reason, that people are in a certain place at a certain time because they are especially needed there?

In May of 1940, Europe was collapsing under the aggressive attacks of an evil and mendacious dictator. If it had not already, France was soon to surrender. Germany had already successfully attacked numerous of its neighbours and Chamberlain, who had signed a “peace for our time” treaty with Hitler, was on the verge of almost losing confidence in the British House of Commons. While he commanded a majority still, it was clear that he did not have enough support in the commons to carry out a war effort.

There is a story of a famous meeting where Churchill, Chamberlain and Lord Halifax gathered together in one room. Oh, to have been a fly on that wall. It was clear that Chamberlain was on his way out, and the obvious replacement was Lord Halifax. Most people would have assumed it would be Churchill.

Who was Lord Halifax, and what was his plan? He was a widely respected member of the aristocratic elite and a senior Conservative of the British Parliament. He had engaged in efforts already, in the early stages of the Second World War, to initiate negotiations for the surrender of all of mainland Europe to Hitler. He initiated those negotiations through Mussolini. In other words, he was going to ask Mussolini to be the mediator in negotiations between Great Britain and Hitler on the surrender of Europe. That was his plan.

The three of them went into this meeting expecting that Lord Halifax would come out as prime minister. As certain historical accounts relay the events, Chamberlain said that he believed that he was losing the confidence of his caucus and perhaps of the commons and that he could no longer be prosecuting this war and would resign. On the question of who would replace him, he said that he thought it should be Lord Halifax. As the story is told, Lord Halifax said no, that he thought it should be Winston Churchill. Of course, Winston Churchill said, “I agree”.

Thank goodness that happened, because days later, when Churchill would become prime minister, he fundamentally altered the policy of the British government. It was not just that he was giving these stirring addresses to rouse the nation. There are many of those examples, and we can get lost in the soaring and brilliant rhetoric of the time. However, we miss, sometimes, that he actually changed the policy of the British government from one of survival to one of victory. He said, “You ask, what is our aim?... It is victory, victory at all costs”. He prosecuted the war with that full intention in mind. It was not to delay and frustrate the enemy for a later date, when they could one day renegotiate a settlement. It was to totally obliterate Hitler's Third Reich, and that is exactly what he did.

However, imagine if Lord Halifax had come out of that room as prime minister. Imagine the different world we would live in today. He would have attempted to negotiate a settlement that would have surrendered all of western Europe to a monster, but instead, we had a courageous lion who was prepared to fight and win at any cost. We might live in a very different world today had Winston Churchill, who in the years leading up to that moment was a very controversial and often very isolated backbencher during his wilderness years of the 1930s, not emerged as the prime minister, an unlikely prime minister, but arguably the most consequential one in modern history.

I relay this story merely to point out that sometimes certain people are in certain places at the right time. Although the stakes are nowhere as high today as they were then, as I think we will all admit, there is no doubt that there is something very important at stake in this particular controversy as well, and it is the independence of the prosecutorial arm of the government from politics. Had it been another attorney general, someone more malleable, someone whose convictions rested on sand rather than stone, we might have had a different outcome. That person might have said, “Sure. Clearly the prime minister wants this. It's illegal, but he gets what we wants. We know how he is. The clerk has made it clear that he is in a mood and he is going to get it done one way or another”.

A less courageous and principled attorney general might have just folded like a cheap suit and allowed that to happen. However, it was not someone else. It was this attorney general, and she stood up again and again. They pushed and they pushed, and she would not back down. She finally said that she felt like she was about to witness the Saturday night massacre, which was a reference to Nixon's Watergate firings. She said to the Clerk of the Privy Council that she was waiting for “the other shoe to drop”, and it did. Less than a month later, the Prime Minister would shuffle his cabinet and punt her from her position, making up a confusing and incredible, fantastic story about a game of musical chairs that resulted from the simple resignation of one Treasury Board president, who was completely unrelated to the situation at hand. She was then replaced with another Attorney General, who the Prime Minister thought would be more malleable.

This takes us to the future. What can Canadians expect of this case if the government is re-elected and the Prime Minister continues in office? They can expect that within weeks, he will direct his Attorney General, someone he believes will do his bidding, to sign a special deal with SNC-Lavalin. That is what he has done twice before. Once was on December 8, 2015, when his government immediately, upon taking office, granted an exemption to SNC-Lavalin, allowing it to continue bidding on federal contracts, even though it was charged with fraud and banned from bidding for being charged with fraud and bribery. The second time he attempted to provide a special deal for SNC-Lavalin was the controversy we are now discussing regarding his former attorney general.

Let there be no doubt that if the Prime Minister is re-elected, within days he will interrupt the criminal proceedings, the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, to protect the company from trial. He has noted, and so have his staff and former staff, that they can do this right up until the moment a verdict or a plea is rendered. In other words, he knows that he has time on his hands. He knows that if he is back in office, he can try this same game all over again. He has shown a relentless determination to allow this corporation to avoid criminal prosecution, and he will carry out that determination if he is given a chance after the next election.

That is yet another reason we cannot allow him to serve in this office one minute longer than necessary. We need to replace him with a prime minister who respects the independence of both the judiciary and the prosecution so that decisions on criminal charges are rendered by judges and juries, not by politicians. That key separation is essential for the successful functioning of any democracy. That is precisely why we are holding him accountable for his already egregious interference, and it is further why we will argue to the Canadian people the need to replace him to make sure that this kind of odious, monstrous interference is never allowed to repeat itself.

I look around this chamber today, and the member from the Okanagan is here. He was among the very first to notice this strange amendment to the Criminal Code that popped into the omnibus budget bill. There we were, at 10 o'clock at night, turning 500 pages as we rushed to pass a bill the Prime Minister said needed to become law quickly. All of a sudden, there it was, right before us, an amendment to the Criminal Code right in the middle of a budget bill. It was the last thing we ever thought to find there. It was like finding fish in trees, so completely out of place it was.

There was only one witness to comment on it, and it was a public servant who simply gave the technical explanation of what it was. That was it. There were no anti-corruption crusaders, no corporate accountability experts and no law professors to come forward and explain to us what we were getting ourselves into. We were told that, by the way, we had to move quickly. We had to get this passed.

All of us were asking the same question: Who is asking for this? Who wants this?

We all go to church suppers or neighbourhood farms, or we knock on the doors of our communities in the suburbs of Canada, and nobody ever says, “Our laws are really cruel to corporate criminals. We really ought to find a way to let the crooks get off without a conviction. Maybe they could just pay a fine, fess up, promise not to do it again, and that would suffice.” Nobody ever says, “Enough with all this business of trials and convictions. Enough with calling the executives before the court to testify under oath. That is too inhumane. We need to find a nicer way to do it.” I do not remember hearing that from anyone in my constituency at the tens of thousands of doors I have knocked on since last summer, yet it was indeed a top budget priority of the Liberal government in mid-2018. Then, of course, it became the Prime Minister's top priority in relation to his attorney general in September, as soon as that Criminal Code amendment became law.

All of a sudden, there was panic. The attorney general had to be called on the carpet to answer to the clerk and the Prime Minister about why she had not moved with haste to direct the director of public prosecutions to extend this settlement offer to SNC-Lavalin.

The company was concerned. It was telling the Clerk of the Privy Council and others about a board meeting that was coming up on September 20, only days away, and it asked if the Liberals could not get it off the fraud and bribery charges within the next week. It had a board meeting, for God's sake. How was it supposed to do business?

Of course, the right answer that a normal prime minister would give if a corporation made such a demand would be, “Get out of my office. Go to court. If you did nothing wrong, defend your case and get acquitted. I never want to see you here again.” That would have been the right answer.

However, the Prime Minister kept inviting them back again and again. He said that they were doing everything they could for them, but there was one problem with the attorney general. She was getting in the way and mucking up their plans. The government set it up so that SNC could get off without a trial. It even amended the Criminal Code to make it possible for this one company, but this nuisance attorney general would just not play ball. She was told that she had a few months to get it done or they would move her out.

That is exactly what the Liberals did. They sent her packing, because she would not play ball. The old boys told her how things were going to work, and she said that where she comes from, they have the rule of law, and it does not work that way. They told her that she was no longer the attorney general, and they found someone perhaps more malleable.

The Prime Minister said the cabinet shuffle had nothing to do with the former attorney general's refusal to co-operate and give a deal to SNC-Lavalin, but here is what we know for sure.

When she was the attorney general, the answer to SNC-Lavalin's request for a settlement was a clear “no”. She looked at the act, she looked at the decision of the prosecutor and said that it was not going to happen, period. Therefore, the status of that request was, no.

The new Attorney General comes in. What is his public position is on it? Maybe. Therefore, by moving the former attorney general out and moving a new one in, SNC-Lavalin has gone from “no” to “maybe”. The Prime Minister would have us believe that his decision had nothing to do with that issue. Of course it did and it has had the consequence of reopening the possibility that this company, charged with stealing $130 million from the poorest people in the world, might get off without a trial. That is the effect of the cabinet shuffle. The Prime Minister can deny that was his intention, but it is definitely the effect.

We really have to wonder why the government is so obsessed with helping this one company get around the rules and avoid consequences. There are thousands of trials in Canada every year. People are charged all the time with crimes. Why this particular company? Why this particular group of well-lobbied-for executives? Could it possibly have something to do with the $100,000 of illegal donations that the company flowed to the Liberal Party of Canada? Those donations were funnelled through phony invoices, bonuses and expense claims, in a systematic fraud designed to move cash into Liberal Party coffers, and that has absolutely nothing to do with the decision?

I hear the deputy House leader of the Liberal Party blaming Stephen Harper, that it is Stephen Harper's fault that SNC-Lavalin gave illegal donations to the Liberal Party, that Stephen Harper must have somehow carried out mind control to force all of those executives to ask their employees to generate phony expense claims, bonuses and invoices so they could give the money to the employees, who would then give those donations to the Liberal Party. Stephen Harper then must have exercised mind control over the Liberal Party officials who received all of those donations and thought nothing unusual of them. It must have been Stephen Harper's incredible power of mind control that he was able to do that. I have to give that member across the way some points for creativity. First it was Scott Brison's fault. Now it is Stephen Harper's fault.

I admit it was Stephen Harper's fault. Let me tell people why. The member got me on to another train of thought.

Back in the sponsorship scandal, the Liberal Party was never prosecuted, even though it admitted it received a million dollars of illegal money. It was funnelled in through what Judge Gomery called an “elaborate kickback scheme”. Harper was always just a wee bit suspicious about why no one in the Liberal Party got prosecuted for it. He thought that maybe it was because the attorney general was a Liberal politician and controlled prosecutions, so maybe we should make the prosecutor independent from the political process.

That is why we created in the Accountability Act the director of public prosecutions, a completely separate office wherein decisions to pursue prosecutions of federal crimes would be made with no politics involved. So independent is this office that the director cannot even be removed by the executive without a vote in the House of Commons. Therefore, the process for removing a director is the same as for other officers of Parliament. Therefore, Stephen Harper created this office in the Accountability Act and he said that the only way an attorney general could direct the DPP to change course in any prosecution was in writing.

The attorney general has to write it down and publish that direction in the Canada Gazette so every Canadian has the ability to see what direction the politicians are trying to give to the prosecutor. There are no more backroom deals. It is because of that act that the Prime Minister could not secretly exert pressure on the prosecutor and allow that political interference to go ahead.

Therefore, yes, it is Stephen Harper's fault. He is the one who brought in the Federal Accountability Act, the very first act of his government. Because of that, the current Prime Minister got caught once again trying to help his friends in trying to violate the rule of law.

Therefore, we can blame Stephen Harper for something and be truthful about it. I know he is devastated to learn that the Liberals are blaming him for all of their political heartache right now, but as much as they would like him to be to blame, all of the misery is self-inflicted. Nobody forced the Prime Minister to help is corporate friends. Nobody forced him to interfere 20 times with the former attorney general to try to get to her shelve a criminal prosecution of a Liberal-linked corporation. Nobody forced him.

Yes, the lobbyists were persuasive; yes, they were abundant; yes, they were crawling all over Parliament Hill pressuring Liberals around him, but the Prime Minister had a choice. He could have said no to the old Liberal way of doing things. He could have said no, but instead he did exactly what Liberals always do, which is to help friends in high places, the powerful insiders, the people behind the scenes who pull the strings. He made a decision to let them drive his agenda and he is now suffering the consequences for that decision right now. That is the core reality.

We hear the Liberal member on the other side heckling away about Stephen Harper. The problem the Liberals are having is that they refuse to take responsibility for their own conduct. If they were to do that, they might be able to heal the wound. However, by continually lashing out and blaming everybody under the sun for the Prime Minister's personal conduct, they only make their problems worse.

First Scott Brison was to blame, then the former attorney general was to blame and now we hear it is Stephen Harper. I am sure we will hear soon that the former Treasury Board president is to blame. Everyone is to blame except the Prime Minister for his own conduct. He is making others pay for his mistakes.

The Prime Minister should learn from the case before him, that people must be held responsible for their own conduct. That is the case for SNC-Lavalin as well. If he had recognized the principle of personal responsibility, he would have understood that this corporation should have to go to trial to own up for what it did and for the actions that it allegedly carried out in Libya, with fraud and bribery amounting to $130 million. Would it not have made more sense for the Prime Minister to hold this company to the standard of law rather than to the instincts of politics? I think we all agree now that if the Prime Minister had thought in those terms, he would not find himself today in the state of disgrace in which he is currently.

Here we are at a fork in the road. There is a decision to be made by the members across the way. Will they allow the investigation to run its course so the truth can be known and the players can be held to account or will they continue with the cover-up?