Madam Speaker, I am surprised by what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government is telling us today, because the Liberals are always trying to teach the Conservatives a lesson, telling them to take note of the election result. The Liberals themselves should take note of the election result. The government does not have a majority. It is a minority government. As such, the Liberals are in the minority in committees, and if they do not make substantive suggestions, they will not have the support of the Bloc Québécois. What the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government is saying to us is that if the Liberals had a majority, we would not be having this type of debate this afternoon. There would be no debate on the rules governing conflicts of interest. We would not be talking about grey areas having to do with an incredibly unusual case that is before us, namely the position an individual held before becoming a public officer holder.
Today's debate concerns the report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, which requests that the committee conduct a review of the Conflict of Interest Act. Who better to do that than the committee? The report calls for a review of “the Conflict of Interest Act, including the conflict of interest rules, disclosure mechanisms and compliance measures set out in it”. This is the mandate that we are seeking in the House, which is why we are discussing it now. The parliamentary secretary to the government House leader has only to ask around in the streets and on social media. He will learn that the public has little regard for the work we do here. They have no confidence in their public institutions.
Spending one short afternoon on a serious discussion of a review that is required every five years is also an opportunity to educate and to show the public that even though we politicians are constantly criticized on these issues, they do matter to us. We want to take steps to repair the negative opinion that some people may have toward politics.
The report asks:
that the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics be designated to undertake the review;
I believe we are in the best position to do so. It also asks:
that it be an instruction to the Committee to consider, as part of its review, whether the Act should be amended or expanded with a view to enhancing transparency, preventing conflicts of interest, avoiding potential or apparent conflicts of interest...
This is also a question that the Ethics Commissioner raised during his appearance. I will continue:
...regulating public office holders' ownership of assets in tax havens...
Indeed, it is quite interesting to know that the Brookfield firm, whose leader is now the Prime Minister, is the king of tax havens and tax avoidance.
...limiting the availability of blind trusts as a compliance measure, extending the Act's provisions to political party leaders and leadership candidates, and increasing penalties for non-compliance;
That was also a recommendation from the Ethics Commissioner. It concludes as follows:
...and that, at the conclusion of the review, the Committee report its findings and recommendations to the House.
The Conservatives are proposing an amendment and saying that we will not be voting on this report today. Before we vote on the report, they want to see if we need to go further, and they want to wait for an order from the House to hear from key players identified by the Ethics Commissioner, who told us that the Prime Minister's situation was such that he had to set up conflict of interest screens, which are administered by his chief of staff and the Clerk of the Privy Council.
My colleague across the way seems to look down on the opposition parties. I hope people will remember that in the next election.
Ethics analyzes a situation based on what should be happening. As such, ethics is more demanding than the law. The review I am referring to must be based on principles, and one of those principles is that the highest office in the land requires the highest level of exemplary conduct. This also implies the highest level of transparency and requires, according a former clerk of the Privy Council, that a distinction be made, in terms of rules and requirements, between the Prime Minister, ministers, members of Parliament, and public office holders. It is important to say that. As part of this review, we will have to find a way to provide for more oversight of the role of prime minister.
When I say that ethics is more demanding than the law, I mean that just because something is legal does not mean it is ethical. For example, tax avoidance and tax havens are legal, but are they ethical? Jason Ward, who appeared before the committee, told us that the Canadian government loses between $13 billion and $15 billion a year to tax avoidance, and we learned from other witnesses that Brookfield excels in this area. It seems to me that there is reason to be concerned or, at the very least, to question and reconsider the matter. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government may not like it, but the fact remains that we need to do our job and lift this veil of secrecy.
Other principles that should underpin our actions and analysis as we review this act are integrity, transparency and accountability. These must be at the heart of our work in order to come up with rules that preserve or enhance citizens' trust in political institutions.
Issues have been raised since the work began. For example, one of the Ethics Commissioner's objectives is to avoid tightening ethics rules too much so as not to discourage qualified and competent people from entering politics. It will come as no surprise that I disagree with the Ethics Commissioner on that principle. People who want to get into politics must make sacrifices.
At the end of the review, the committee could very well conclude that the role of prime minister is not meant for people with certain private sector backgrounds. Of course, that is assuming that we want to avoid having a veil of secrecy around all this. We will examine this issue, but it is clear that anyone who wants to become prime minister must not have any apparent conflicts of interest. That is one of the issues here. The Ethics Commissioner spoke to us about proactive rather than retroactive ethics, that is, punishing questionable conduct. He told us that it would be interesting to extend the Conflict of Interest Act to apparent conflicts of interest.
He suggested a definition: “Every public office holder shall arrange his or her private affairs in a manner that will prevent the public office holder from being in a conflict of interest” or in an apparent conflict of interest. He wants people who are interested in entering politics to know that they must avoid not only conflicts of interest, but also the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Some people think this is far too difficult to manage. I would respond that the Ethics Commissioner opens an investigation when he believes there is the appearance of a conflict of interest. What he told us is that he would like the provisions of the act, our regulations, to stop things from going that far. He would like to see people receive training and information to prevent them from getting into these kinds of situations in the first place.
The other aspect has to do with sanctions. The Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics is working on this. The commissioner told us that the $500 penalty seems too lenient to him and should perhaps be increased to $3,000. We will look into it.
I want to talk about blind trusts and what is happening with the Prime Minister. If his assets are in a blind trust, does that mean that he is making decisions without knowing how much his fortune is growing? Does he really have no idea that it is growing? I mean, he knows how to count. He just does not know by how much it is growing. Some witnesses told us that this blind trust was insufficient.
I am not quite ready to let everything go. We will look at this, but it is serious. Just because a person's assets have been put in a blind trust does not preclude a situation where a decision might be made requiring him to recuse himself. Recusal is vital. We are told that a conflict of interest screen has been set up. On the issue of recusal, I asked the former clerk of the Privy Council, who served from 2016 to 2019, how many times he had had to suggest to the then prime minister that he leave the room. His answer was that he did not remember. I would just like to say that if I had to ask my boss to leave the room so that we could make a decision without him there, I would remember the time and the date. I would still remember a few years later. This means that the legislation, as it is currently structured, does not adequately address the issue of conflicts of interest because the definition in section 2 is strictly limited to private interests and does not cover decisions that would have a general impact.
As my colleague from Joliette demonstrated earlier, the world has changed. Gone are the days when it was a case of one company and one minister who reports to the prime minister and who is governed by certain rules. Indeed, the prime minister can tell a minister to leave the room. The Prime Minister can come to the conclusion that there is the appearance of a conflict of interest and that a decision will not be made along those lines. In contrast, we have the case of a Prime Minister who decides on all of the country's economic policies and who also comes from an environment where tax avoidance is commonplace. It is a whole culture. How do we transpose that culture into a public culture?
We asked the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner the following question: If all the Prime Minister's assets were placed in a blind trust and that resolved the issue, then why did the commissioner insist on a conflict of interest screen? If that is the case, then on some level, this must not have been sufficient. How many other conflict of interest screens are there and who is managing them? That is another question that we should look into. Experts have differing opinions on that. For now, we have heard from a lot of people who are saying the conflict of interest screens are not sufficient because people who report to the Prime Minister, people he himself appointed, are the ones responsible for this screen. We do not know exactly how this conflict of interest screen works.
What I would propose is that we have an independent commissioner. I asked the commissioner why it was not up to his office to go to cabinet to demand accountability, to administer this screen. He told me that, if he were to do so, he would be in a conflict of interest himself, that he would be both judge and stakeholder. The commissioner should remain the judge and we should appoint someone else to the essential role of ensuring that the process is transparent and that the requirements for exemplary behaviour are met. We have here an opportunity to create additional leverage.
Have I upset the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons? Am I being overly partisan, or am I bringing up key issues in order to improve parliamentary democracy and the basic requirements expected by those who elected us? Are my current remarks in the House unnecessary? Do the people listening at home think that what I am saying is not important? That would be a bit simplistic.
Duff Conacher, from Democracy Watch, told us that when conflicts of interest are defined strictly in terms of private interests, as opposed to being defined in terms of matters that apply more generally, 99% of the time, the prime minister does not have to leave the room. Funny, is it not? He said that, and several Liberals are offended by it. I asked the former clerk of the Privy Council, and he could not remember the last time he asked a prime minister to leave the room. Perhaps this proves Mr. Conacher was right when he said that, under the current act, only 1% of cases would require the individual to recuse themselves.
Once upon a time there was a fellow who wanted to become prime minister. He was the head of a multinational corporation that controlled 900 companies with assets of $1 trillion. He came to power. Before taking office, he declined to make a declaration, in the interest of transparency, of any potential conflicts of interest he may have had. After entering office, however, the first thing he did was to pass a bill under a gag order that, coincidentally, will ensure that the company he once headed will one day hold very substantial interests in five shipyards—
