Debates of Oct. 27th, 2025

Canada Revenue Agency

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Secretary of State (Canada Revenue Agency and Financial Institutions)]

Mr. Speaker, abuse of the tax system is illegal, and the CRA takes enforcement action when instances of abuse are identified.

While we cannot comment on matters before the courts, Canadians can be assured that the CRA is maintaining the integrity of the tax system and preventing misuse of sensitive data. Canada's new government is committed to working with the CRA to continue to strengthen the integrity of our tax system and protect taxpayer dollars.

Health

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, Albertans are being charged $100 for a COVID-19 vaccination while other Canadians are getting their vaccinations for free. The Canada Health Act guarantees access to necessary health services for everyone regardless of where they live, but the government is doing nothing while premiers break the law and Canadians' health suffers.

I wrote to the Prime Minister about this months ago and have yet to hear back from him, so I am asking the Prime Minister this today: Why is he refusing to enforce the Canada Health Act so that Canadians can get the health care they deserve?

[Marjorie Michel, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to assure my colleague that we do believe in vaccines. The science on vaccines is very clear. We are working closely with the provinces and territories to accelerate vaccination. Vaccines that are absolutely necessary are covered by the provinces. I am working with the Province of Alberta to increase vaccination rates in that province.

Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie South—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the third report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, presented to the House on Monday, September 22, 2025, be concurred in.

I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, who is also a stalwart defender of openness, transparency, truth and accountability, as our shadow minister for ethics on the ethics committee.

The ethics committee has been in the process of studying a report and a review of the Conflict of Interest Act. As I reported to the House, what the committee is in the middle of studying right now includes the conflict of interest rules, disclosure mechanisms and compliance measures set out in the act.

The committee is also looking to the House to instruct the committee on 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; regulating public office-holders’ ownership of assets in tax havens, and I will have more to say on that in a few minutes; 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. The conclusion of the review calls for the committee to report its findings to the House.

The Conflict of Interest Act, quite frankly, has never contemplated a situation such as the one we are in right now, where we find a designated public office-holder with so many potential conflicts of interest because of extensive private sector holdings. We are really trying to focus on and narrow down how we can improve the Conflict of Interest Act and perhaps provide recommendations to the House, and certainly to the government, in amending the law in ways that would protect the transparency and accountability that Canadians so rightly demand.

It is not just about the one thing of having a conflict; the appearance of the conflict is also another thing. Quite frankly, there are many holes within the Conflict of Interest Act that allow for designated public office-holders, including those holding the highest office in the land, to use that act, with its many loopholes, to skirt around the law that exists today, and that would cause reasonable, thinking people in this country to question the motives and intention of a designated office-holder.

We are quite understanding of the fact that we cannot focus on things on a case-by-case basis, and that is why we are conducting the comprehensive study on the act to ensure that Canadians are confident that their designated public officers are not using their offices as a means to enhance or further their private interests and to gain financially as a result of their being in office.

As members will recall, the act is quite comprehensive, but it is to ensure that ethical governance exists. It is central to maintaining the integrity of public trust in government. It is also designed to prevent the misuse of power. It aims to prevent officials from using their positions, as I said, to further their private interests, and it aims to clarify obligations as well. Designated public office-holders have complex and varied responsibilities under the act.

It also provides for some oversight and accountability to strengthen oversight mechanisms so parliamentary reviews can identify gaps on enforcement and compliance, which is what the committee is doing right now, and to evaluate the effectiveness of the Ethics Commissioner. The committee oversees the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner.

It is also to respond to public concerns, high-profile cases or controversies that may prompt the need for legislative review, which certainly we are seeing in the case of the Prime Minister right now. On modernization and reform, the intent of the committee is also to update outdated provisions.

The act may need revisions from time to time to reflect current realities, for example, digital assets and lobbying practices. I am very pleased to report that the ethics committee has passed a motion to study the Lobbying Act, which has not been reviewed since 2012 despite the legislative requirement of a five-year review. I know that the Commissioner of Lobbying is very much anticipating the review, and I expect that you, Mr. Speaker, will hear from committee or the House leaders, asking for the committee to conduct such a review.

It is also to address ambiguities. Some rules may be unclear or be inconsistently applied across different roles.

Certainly, first and foremost, it is to improve transparency by strengthening disclosure and reporting requirements that can enhance, ultimately, what the goal of all parliamentarians and designated public officers should be: to ensure that the public has the utmost confidence that designated public office-holders are not using their position to further enhance their financial portfolio.

Right now the committee is undertaking a review of the applicability to various roles, as ministers, parliamentary secretaries and senior officials have different levels of obligation. It will assess post-employment rules and consider exemptions and exceptions. Some provisions may allow for exceptions, which may need a little more scrutiny.

From a policy and legislative alignment standpoint, it should align with other ethics frameworks to ensure consistency with the Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons and other federal ethics laws and certainly to support broader accountability, including transparency, lobbying and privacy legislation as well.

The committee is working. It is in the process right now of undertaking the study. There have been some pretty significant interactions with witnesses who have provided some suggestions to the committee that could eventually form the recommendations of a study that we ultimately present to Parliament, and have the government respond to many of the recommendations that may come. I certainly do not want to preclude any results of this.

Obviously the committee has more work ahead of it. There are more witnesses to appear, but also, as we draft the report and come up with recommendations, I can assure the House with some confidence that many of those recommendations will form a significant upgrade and allow for the Conflict of Interest Act to reflect the modern times and the situation we find ourselves in, where, in the case of the Prime Minister and his private interests, we have never had a prime minister as conflicted as the current one is, with having to declare 103 conflicts of interest, as well as stockholdings in the United States that represent almost 93% of his portfolio.

What makes it important, particularly with blind trusts and the ethics screens that have been set up, is that there are many loopholes within the current, existing framework of the act that can allow for a designated public officer to be directly engaged and involved in the decision-making process when, in fact that person should be recusing himself or herself from any decisions that are made, because there is a financial gain or a financial interest at play.

The committee wants to make sure that it is in a position to close the loopholes. There have been significant suggestions from witnesses who have appeared on how to do that, so that will form the basis of many of the recommendations the committee presents.

We also want to ensure that there is ethical governance. The act is central to maintaining integrity and public trust in government. In some cases, quite frankly, that trust has been eroded. In the Prime Minister's case, during the election he told a reporter that he holds only cash and real estate, but we found out subsequent to the ethics reporting that the Prime Minister has an extensive portfolio of holdings within companies, particularly affiliated with Brookfield and others, 93% of which are in the United States.

We also found out through witness testimony that while the Prime Minister was the head of Brookfield, taxes were dodged in tax havens to the extent of $6.5 billion. When Canadian companies do not pay their taxes, that is less money for services that look after vulnerable people, less for health care and less for education. Therefore, we want to ensure that public trust is restored, that designated public officers are held to the highest standard and that we review and modernize the Conflict of Interest Act to reflect the modern realities of Canada today.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I question the motivation behind bringing forward this particular report. I will have a chance to provide some more detailed comments shortly, but the question I have for the member is this: Given that we have bail reform legislation we are hoping to start to debate, that we have a budget coming up and that there is a superior court deadline in regard to Bill C-3, something that we were supposed to be debating this afternoon, can the member give an indication whether the Conservatives plan to continue to debate the report for the next few hours?

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie South—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will say this: The report's being presented in the House and being concurred in is a requirement in order for the ethics committee not just to continue its study but also to eventually present a report to the House. There were Liberal members on the committee who agreed with our having the House concur in it.

At some point the concurrence motion had to come to the House. Today was the day, and I would hope that the member is not opposed to the committee's work on improving and increasing the transparency and accountability of designated public office holders.

[Grant Jackson, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to second the motion brought forward by my colleague from Barrie.

I want him to expand a bit on what he was just talking about. The member for Winnipeg North's questioning the motivation is a bit concerning. I find his insinuation to be a bit shocking, given that we all should be upholding the provision of ethical government, even if it is self-reflective of the Liberals.

I wonder whether my colleague could comment a bit on that and on why we should have ethical government here even if the Liberals do not like it.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie South—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let me begin by saying that it is the job of the ethics committee, as an oversight committee, to hold the government to account. It is majority-led for a reason, by a majority of members of the opposition, and it is our job to provide oversight. There are other committees that do that as well, but it is critical, as I said, that Canadians have transparency and accountability and are confident in the ability of the Conflict of Interest Act to hold designated public officers to account, and it is also critical in the appearance of conflicts.

In the case of the Prime Minister, in an example I gave earlier, he has 103 different conflicts of interest declared and over 550 stocks held in the United States. We heard from the deputy clerk of the Privy Council, for example, during transportation committee hearings, that it takes a whole department to look after the Prime Minister's conflicts, so we want to make sure we have the right people in front of us, including the Clerk of the Privy Council and the Prime Minister's chief of staff, to ensure that the screens are being properly applied and that the Prime Minister is not in conflict.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I commend my committee colleague who, I want to point out, is doing a very good job in the chair this afternoon.

We did indeed hear from a few witnesses, including the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, who was very concerned that restricting conflict of interest rules could discourage “competent” people from entering politics. He said that we need to strike a balance: restore or enhance public trust in democratic institutions without going overboard on tightening the rules.

What does my colleague think about that?

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie South—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, no one who aspires to become prime minister or a member of Parliament should profit from things they conceal among their private assets.

We talked a lot about, and there has been some testimony about, complete divestment of holdings in order to ensure that designated public office holders are not subject to the perception among the public that there is an alternative reason as to why they are in that position, for profit.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the motion that has been brought forward by my hon. colleague for Barrie South—Innisfil, who serves as the chair on the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, is important.

Having served on this committee over the past few Parliaments, I have had the opportunity to work with the member for Barrie South—Innisfil and to see him bring the serious approach that is necessary when we are dealing with matters that fall under the purview of this committee. This is a prime example of the important work that this committee can do. With members of opposition parties carrying a majority of votes on this committee, it presents an opportunity for this standing committee to examine, challenge and test the rules and legislation as they pertain to issues that strike at the heart of what has undermined Canadians' confidence in our democratic institutions over the last few years.

We have seen the Conflict of Interest Act, a law, not being well respected by the Liberal government over the past 10 years, with members of the current cabinet found to have broken that law and former prime minister Trudeau found to have broken that law five times. This is a concern for Canadians. Now we are reviewing this act in the context of a Prime Minister who has 103 potential conflicts that have to be managed. What does that mean and what does that look like? How is that process being used to enhance and protect the confidence that Canadians are supposed to be able to have in their executive and in elected officials?

Right now, with those conflicts of interest, there are screens in place, which means that there are issues that are not to be raised at the cabinet table when the Prime Minister is in the room. There are 103 issues. Based on his work as chair at Brookfield, they touch on things that we would expect are important for the Prime Minister to be at the table for: telecommunications, infrastructure, military. I would say that the screen, this protection, is not for the Prime Minister but for Canadians. The intent here should be that we protect Canadians from public office holders, from ministers, in this case the Prime Minister, and his being involved in discussions and taking decisions that would improve his finances and that he could financially benefit from. However, the people who administer that also work for him. It is the Clerk of the Privy Council and the chief of staff to the Prime Minister.

We had the former clerk of the Privy Council testify at committee. The challenge I would raise today is that for the former prime minister, Mr. Trudeau, it was when Mr. Wernick was the clerk that the five occurrences in which the Conflict of Interest Act was broken by the prime minister took place. What was the efficacy of this system? I would say it did not work; it was very poor. Is this something that needs to be changed? This is what the committee is considering, of course.

The question of whether or not, as the act defines it, divesting funds is sufficient is also very important. We had another witness at committee, a former chief of staff to former prime minister Harper, who agreed with the suggestion that divestiture should mean it is actually divested, not placed into a blind trust, but sold.

There are conflicts that continue to exist with the current Prime Minister. He set up all kinds of funds when he worked at Brookfield and has invested in those funds, but the pieces of those funds are not clear to the public. It is very opaque. Does he continue to hold, through that blind trust, investments in tax havens? We do not know. Should a prime minister have investments in tax havens? I would say no. They should be paying taxes as everyone else does, not using the accounting tricks the wealthy rely on to avoid paying their fair share. We expect, at a minimum, that the Prime Minister is going to pay his fair share of taxes.

Therefore, we expect we are going to be able to get some transparency through the reporting process. Right now, we do not get that. Should “divest” mean that one instead sells those controlled assets, not one's real estate, not one's home, and then has the investing process carried out by a manager who would operate blind with a direction from the Prime Minister?

We heard from the current Ethics Commissioner that when funds go into a blind trust, there is not a lot of turnover, churn or trading that takes place, and they often come back out the other side in the same form. The composition of the trust is the same. However, I think we would find, if we looked at the performance of the investments made by the Prime Minister that he set up immediately before taking office and then placed into the trust to be managed by someone else, that the only people who are blind to the full composition of the trust are Canadians. The Prime Minister knows what went in and what is going to come out and, based on the decisions he makes, the value is going to increase. His decisions are only to be stopped, if at all, by his two employees. These are the things we need to study. We need to get better visibility on who is managing it and how it is being managed.

For these reasons, and others that I cannot get into at great length at this moment but would like to see the committee examine, I am going to move an amendment to the motion.

I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following: “the third report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, presented on Monday, September 22, 2025, be not now concurred in, but that it be recommitted to the committee for further consideration, with a view to assessing whether the scope of the review of the Conflict of Interest Act proposed by the committee should be amended in order to address better the concerns posed by the unprecedented extent of the Prime Minister's corporate and shareholding interests, provided that, for the purposes of this order of reference,

(a) the following be ordered to appear as witnesses, separately, for at least two hours each, at dates and times to be fixed by the Chair of the Committee, but no later than Friday, November 21, 2025:

(i) Michael Sabia, Clerk of the Privy Council and an administrator of the Prime Minister's conflict of interest screen,

(ii) Marc-Andre Blanchard, Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister and an administrator of the Prime Minister's conflict of interest screen,

(iii) Bruce Flatt, Chief Executive Officer of Brookfield Corporation and the Prime Minister's immediate successor as Chair of the Board of Directors of Brookfield Asset Management Inc., and

(iv) Connor Teskey, President of Brookfield Asset Management Inc. and Chief Executive Officer of Brookfield Renewable Partners L.P.; and

(b) it be an instruction that the committee report back to the House by Friday, November 28, 2025.

The amendment is seconded by the hon. member for St. Albert—Sturgeon River, which is ably represented by the member.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

The amendment is deemed in order.

Questions and comments, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, over the weekend, because of a constituent, I did an inquiry using the Internet. I had asked the question of Brookfield Asset Management and Conservative members who had investments in it. It has everyone from the deputy leader to, and I like this one, the leader of the Conservative party. It says that while not directly holding Brookfield stock, he holds an indirect investment through the Vanguard FTSE Canada Index, which has Brookfield as one of its holdings.

Doing a quick count, I find that AI identified seven members.

I wonder if the member could tell me how many Conservative MPs have investments, directly or indirectly, with Brookfield Asset Management. Does he know that answer?

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

Madam Speaker, I too share the member's lack of confidence in his ability to use Google, but I do not have that information in front of me. What I would say, though, is that the Conflict of Interest Act needs to be updated to make sure that the Prime Minister and party leaders in the House of Commons be required to divest their assets and to place them—

[An hon. member]

Including your leader.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

Order.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am not sure if I was not projecting. I said that the Prime Minister and leaders of all parties in the House of Commons should be required to divest their assets, because Canadians want transparency. They need to renew their confidence in public institutions after 10 years of it having been broken by the Liberals.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Madam Speaker, first, we would like to have a French version of the amendment. That would help us with our work in this debate.

With regard to the question just asked by the government representative, I would say that the big difference is that elected officials in the opposition do not have the same influence as the Prime Minister does.

Do not forget that when the Prime Minister worked at Brookfield, he moved the head office from Toronto to New York to avoid the minimum corporate tax. That would not be possible in Canada. At the last G7 summit, he succeeded in getting the G7 members to back down on the demand to introduce a global minimum tax on American companies. By so doing, the Prime Minister is helping to make himself richer because he can probably assume that his blind trust still holds shares in Brookfield. The same goes for the web giants, GAFAM. He decided to scrap the digital tax that targets them. However, since his trust also holds shares in this sector, he is benefiting and making money.

What does my hon. colleague think about that?

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question. I will send him a French version shortly.

This is very important. Let us talk about the actions of the Prime Minister. He has taken decisions, and he is able to take decisions. He holds the pen on laws. He is writing the budget. As he said during the election, he wrote the Liberals' platform, which formed the basis for the government's policies, all while still having control over those controlled assets, which were not yet in a blind trust.

The standard needs to be very high for people who want to serve in Canada's highest office. Canadians expect that. We need this transparency and those controls in place. That is why we are looking to continue the study at the ethics committee with these very important witnesses, as in the amendment I moved.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague spoke about some of the deficiencies with the Prime Minister's blind trust.

What good is a blind trust with respect to the carried interest payments to the tune of tens of millions of dollars that the Prime Minister stands to reap? It appears that, in the case of those carried interest payments, it is Canadians who are blind to them, while the Prime Minister is fully aware of what holdings are in the funds that are the basis upon which he will garner profits in the future.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

Madam Speaker, this is a very important question that strikes to the heart of the matter: Canadians are the ones left blind while the Prime Minister continues to be aware of how he can benefit from the decisions he takes, how they will improve his financial standing and how he can make more money based on the decisions that he or his government takes while he is in office.

That is why this review of the act is so necessary at this time.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, there is a lot to go over here. I can say that much.

What I find truly amazing is that anyone following this debate, which I hope does not have to go all afternoon, will see the hypocrisy that is oozing out of the Conservative Party of Canada. It is really quite amazing when we stop and think about it. The current leader of the Conservative Party was one of the staunch defenders of Stephen Harper in a very big and very real, tangible way. He was someone who defended the blind trust. Stephen Harper, as prime minister, was the one who put in the rules by which we operate today. Not only did the former prime minister Stephen Harper put in the rules, but one of the largest advocates for the whole idea of the blind trust was the leader of the Conservative Party.

I find it absolutely amazing that the Conservatives cannot see the hypocrisy there. I am not surprised, in the sense that the Conservative agenda is very much not focused on Canadians but rather focused on the Conservatives' own self-serving party interests. They constantly put their party ahead of the interests of Canadians.

Let me read a quote that comes from a CBC article. I cannot say his name, but I can say that he is the leader of the Conservative Party. It states:

[The leader of the Conservative Party] previously appeared to have no issue with public office holders using a blind trust.

In 2010, Nigel Wright was brought on to be then prime minister Stephen Harper's chief of staff after a career in the private sector.

Wright appeared before the House ethics committee—of which [the current leader of the Conservative Party] was a member—to discuss his appointment, a conflict of interest screen that was set up with the ethics commissioner and a blind trust.

I cannot say the leader's name, but he was actually a member of the committee.

The article continues:

[The leader of the Conservative Party], a parliamentary secretary at the time, said opposition MPs had “attacked” Wright's motives for taking the job and asked him to explain his blind trust.

“I transferred all of my controlled assets into the blind trust in late October. The blind trustee is the legal owner of them all now, and I'm not to have any communication of any sort—no direction, no advice, no information about what's in there. I do not know and will not know what's in there,” Wright told the committee.

[The leader] responded by acknowledging Wright's experience in the private sector.

“There are going to be people in this public service world who come from different backgrounds,” he said.

“But that is a strength for our country. We look forward to inviting people from various sectors, in this case the business sector, but from all sectors, to make a future contribution to our country.”

Talk about selective memory. This is today's leader of the Conservative Party, who advocated the benefits of a blind trust. He was an enforcer for Stephen Harper, who put in the rules we have today. Now, the Conservatives have apparently changed their clothes. They have gone as far right as one could possibly imagine, and they are more focused on character assassination than they are on any great substance of interest to Canadians.

That is what we have witnessed from members of the Conservative Party in their transformation. They know no shame.

What were we supposed to be debating today? There was a superior court that made a decision related to citizenship. There is a deadline coming up on that legislation. We have to pass it before November 20, which means passing it through the entire system before it is ultimately given royal assent. If we do not, we will not have a law that deals with the issue of citizenship of descent. Conservatives have been putting up speakers to this, but the legislation needs to pass.

We have the budget coming down next week, on November 4. We have bail reform legislation, something that the Conservatives like to talk a whole lot about, but when they have the opportunity to deal with it, what do they do? They do silly things of this nature when, in fact, we have a Prime Minister who has followed the rules. Even before he was the Prime Minister of Canada, and even before he was a member of Parliament, he followed the rules. Across the way there has been absolute silence. Each and every one of them should be ashamed of the way in which they continually try to attack the character of individuals over protecting the interests of Canadians. If they had an ounce of integrity, they would see through the game that is currently being played.

When I posed the mover of the motion a question, I asked this: Why was it being introduced today? What was the purpose? What was the motivation? It did not have to be brought in today. I even cited the bail reform legislation and citizenship legislation that we are supposed to be debating. I even made reference to the budget. What was his response? It was, “Well, we want the House of Commons to commit, in terms of concurrence. After all, that is what we are supposed to do.” What a crock that is. The member knows it. We get tabled reports coming in from standing committees all the time. If we were to have a three-hour debate on that, we would never get any government business dealt with. The member knows that.

Do we remember last fall when Conservative backbenchers were jumping up and down, hollering and screaming, bringing in all sorts of privilege motions and motions of concurrence? They were a destructive force on the floor of Parliament back then. Interestingly enough, I do not think they brought any concurrence reports. I would have to confirm it. I am pretty sure they did not bring any concurrence reports prior to their leader getting re-elected in the by-election, which implies to me that their leader is still having a difficult time recognizing the need for change, in terms of what it is that people said in the last federal election. Is that any surprise when we take a look at how it is that we have had a Prime Minister who has been focused on Canadians throughout the election and following the election?

We cant take a look at the agenda, at what the Prime Minister and Liberal members of Parliament have been able to accomplish. Contrast that to the obstruction that we get from the Conservative Party.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member says I sound upset. I am a tad bit upset because I want to deal with the issues that Canadians are concerned about first and foremost, as opposed to playing these destructive games that the Conservatives want to play, putting their own political partisan party issues ahead of the interests of Canadians.

I am a bit upset. Why? It is because at the end of the day, we had a Prime Minister and Liberal caucus recognizing that we wanted to build one Canada, a Canada strong. That is why we brought in legislation on that, Bill C-5, which we were able to pass, and I am grateful for that. It took down barriers so we could have more trade within Canada. The leader of the Conservative Party was not elected at that time, but we did get it passed. We were also able to give an income tax break to Canadians, and 22 million Canadians derived a benefit as a direct result.

We have substantial legislation before us. How many times did we have a Conservative MP stand up and talk about the need for bail reform? Bail reform is now in a position to be debated, but we need to get Bill C-3 through because of the superior court's deadline. Canadians want bail reform. The Conservatives say it, but they do not want it to turn into reality because they would rather say the government is dysfunctional. In reality, it is the Conservatives who are dysfunctional. Their priorities are all wrong.

They now bring up that we have a committee report, but it was decided by a standing committee where there is an unholy alliance or coalition between the Conservatives and the Bloc because they now make up a majority of the committee, just those two political parties. They have made the decision that they want to continue with the Conservative idea that the best way to get a government to be disliked is to attack the leader, whether it is justified or not. That is their motivation.

Then they say the standing committee has said we need to have this studied; it wants to investigate this issue. That is the Conservatives working with the Bloc. Those two formed a coalition to try to embarrass the government. That is the intent of the motion that was just proposed, not to deal with substantive issues that Canadians are concerned with.

They ask about the conflict of interest and whether we are interested in it. Absolutely, we are interested in the conflict of interest. We are going by the code that the current leader of the Conservative Party supported and defended, which Stephen Harper brought in and which the current Prime Minister respected even before he became a member of Parliament, let alone the Prime Minister of Canada.

Of course we are concerned about it, but it is the Conservatives who continue to believe that the best way to get Canadians upset is to come up with dots and stars all over the place, as if there is a conspiracy here and a given minister is bad. They are very good at the conspiracy stuff, but when it comes to tangible action, that is where they are found wanting.

One member made reference to the credibility of the system. Do I have a story for members on the credibility of the system. Every member of the House, I am sure, is aware of the leader of the Conservative Party's attack on the RCMP, one of Canada's most significant institutions, recognized around the world as a first-class law enforcement agency and security agency that protects the interests of Canadians. It is, in fact, apolitical. What does the leader of the Conservative Party have to say about it? The word he used in regard to management was “despicable”. We then wonder what impact that has.

All sorts of members piled onto that particular issue. They recognize the independence of our conflict of interest office and respect the office. Why do they not demonstrate some form of respect for the RCMP?

Days after the Prime Minister said that, others piled on. I remember the member for Bow River indicated there is “management weakness”.

[David Bexte]

Absolutely.