ORDERS OF THE DAY
House Business
Hon. Darren Praznik (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, by way of House business, I am going to move momentarily that the House will resolve itself into Committee of the Whole. Following that process, we will then ask that you call Bill 17, The Elections Amendment and Elections Finances Amendment Act, for second reading.
THIRD
Bill
2—The Electoral Divisions Amendment Act
Hon. Darren Praznik (Government House Leader): At this time, Madam Speaker, I would move, seconded by the honourable Minister of Rural Development (Mr. Derkach), that Madam Speaker do now leave the Chair and that the House resolve itself into the Committee of the Whole to consider and report on Bill 2, The Electoral Divisions Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur les circonscriptions J lectorales, for third reading.
Motion agreed to.
COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE
Bill
2–The Electoral Divisions Amendment Act
Mr. Chairperson (Marcel Laurendeau): I would like to call the committee to order to deal with Bill 2, The Electoral Divisions Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur les circonscriptions J lectorales). Does the honourable First Minister have an opening statement? The honourable First Minister, did you have an opening statement?
Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): No.
Mr. Chairperson: Does the Leader of the Opposition have an opening statement? No. Okay, thank you.
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): No, but do not tempt me.
Mr. Chairperson: Okay. I will not tempt you then.
The bill will be considered clause by clause. The title and preamble are postponed until all other clauses have been considered in their proper order by the committee.
Clause 1–pass; Clause 2–pass; Clause 3–pass; Clause 4–pass; Clause 5–pass; preamble–pass; title–pass. Bill be reported.
Committee rise. Call in the Speaker.
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IN SESSION
Committee
Report
Mr. Marcel Laurendeau (Chairperson): Madam Speaker, the Committee of the Whole has considered Bill 2, The Electoral Divisions Amendment Act, reports the same, and asks leave to sit again.
I move, seconded by the honourable member for La Verendrye (Mr. Sveinson), that the report be received.
Motion agreed to.
House
Business
Hon. Darren Praznik (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, if you could please call Bill 17, The Elections Amendment and Elections Finances Amendment Act, for second reading.
SECOND
Bill
17–The Elections Amendment and Elections Finances Amendment Act
Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the government House leader (Mr. Praznik), that Bill 17, The Elections Amendment and Elections Finances Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi J lectorale et la Loi sur le financement des campagnes J lectorales, be now read a second time and be referred to a committee of this House.
Motion presented.
Mr. Filmon: Madam Speaker, I rise today to introduce Bill 17, The Elections Amendment and Elections Finances Amendment Act. As honourable members know, this bill will implement recommendations advanced in the report of former Chief Justice Alfred Monnin.
Madam Speaker, when the
report of the Commission of Inquiry was released, I indicated to the people of
This bill is divided into two parts. Part 1 deals with The Elections Act, and Part 2 presents amendments to The Elections Finances Act. In Part 1, The Elections Act will be amended in order that more timely consideration can be given to the report which the Chief Electoral Officer files following each general election. In order to ensure that this takes place, the act will be amended so that within 60 days of tabling of the report, the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections must begin its consideration of the report.
The second amendment to The Elections Act relates to the limitation period for prosecutions. This section will now permit the Chief Electoral Officer to commence a prosecution not later than one year after the date on which the Chief Electoral Officer has reasonable and probable grounds to believe that an offence has been committed. This replaces the previous five-year limitation based on the date of the election, not on the time when the Chief Electoral Officer is given reasonable and probable grounds.
In Part 2, Madam Speaker, The Elections Finances Act is being amended in a number of areas. First, new provisions are being added in relation to auditors retained by registered political parties. Should an auditor's professional judgment or objectivity be impaired, the act will now require that he or she must resign immediately from this position. This reasoning must be provided to the Chief Electoral Officer and the newly assigned auditor.
A new section is being added in order to deal with the auditor's report and ensure that all reports are in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards. This new section will also permit the auditor to include any statement that he or she feels necessary if: (a) the financial statement to which the report relates does not present fairly the financial transactions contained in the records of the candidate or registered political party; (b) the auditor has not received all the information and explanations required from the official agent or the chief financial officer; or, (c) the official agent or the Chief Electoral Officer has not kept proper accounting records. I believe that should be "the official agent or the chief financial officer has not kept proper accounting records."
Further provisions have been added to ensure access to the records by the auditor and also ensure that any oral or written statement or report has qualified privilege. Second, Madam Speaker, we are implementing the recommendation that records must be retained for a minimum of five years. However, additional powers will be given to the Chief Electoral Officer should he be of the opinion that records should be kept for a longer period of time to extend this period in order to ensure compliance with the act.
Third, a new section will be added to the act in order to permit periodic inspections and audits by the Chief Electoral Officer of the records of candidates, constituency associations, and registered political parties that relate to information that should be in statements or returns required by the Chief Electoral Officer under this act. Fourth, as with the amendments to The Elections Act, the time limitation on prosecution period will be extended. It will now provide that the CEO may initiate a prosecution not later than one year after the date on which the Chief Electoral Officer has reasonable and probable grounds to believe that an offence has been committed.
Finally, Madam Speaker, a report by the Chief Electoral Officer under this act will require consideration by the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections within 60 days of tabling in the House. All of these amendments will be in effect once the bill has been given Royal Assent.
Madam Speaker, former Chief Justice Monnin also recommended that political parties should adopt a code of ethics that would guide their party, or a code of conduct should be legislated for them. After a review by the Chief Electoral Officer and discussions among representatives of all registered political parties in the province, it was concluded that each political party is capable of ensuring that this recommendation is implemented within its own operational structure. Speaking for my party, we are developing a code of conduct which will guide our internal operations. At the same time as we prepare our party's code of ethics, we continue to work with Elections Manitoba and are interested in its proposals that the parties adopt common electoral values. We will review Elections Manitoba's proposals in this area with keen interest.
Madam Speaker, this has been a difficult time for all concerned. However, the extensive and exhaustive inquiry undertaken by the former Chief Justice has allowed us to look at the core fabric of our democracy. Some people may be discouraged about our process. Some people may be troubled with the results of this inquiry. However, we should remind ourselves that the actions of a few have not inflicted irreparable damage on our democratic system of government. Our system remains strong and with the amendments being introduced today and the lessons we have all learned, our system will be stronger than ever. Thank you.
Ms. Becky Barrett (
I would like to give a little personal context to this bill and both The Elections Act and The Elections Finances Act. I cannot think of any two bills that are more important to the provision of good government than The Elections Act and The Elections Finances Act. I may be open to some criticism on that, but I do believe that the issues and the elements in the whole electoral process are absolutely critical and fundamental to our democratic system, and The Elections Act and The Elections Finances Act are the vehicles through which we as Manitobans can have whatever degree of trust we have in our electoral process.
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It is essential that we have a very high level of trust in our electoral process or the damage to the fabric of our democracy can be irreparable. I would like to say that I think, from my experience, both The Elections Act and The Elections Finances Act as they are currently, even before Bill 17, in effect in the province of Manitoba provide an excellent basis for holding good, democratic elections in the province, if everyone who participates in that process accepts and understands the basics of fair play and fair elections. I believe that is what Bill 17 is addressing, the fact that some people in this province have not accepted and understood that.
The two acts that we are amending today are excellent pieces of legislation.
It is very difficult, Madam Speaker, I believe, for people not to have the
ability to vote in the
I first dealt with The Elections Act and The Elections Finances Act in the
provincial election in 1981, when I held an organizational position with the
provincial New Democratic Party, and I was the person in the party who
interpreted those pieces of legislation for the various campaigns during the
election, not to the exclusion of the auditor or the Chief Electoral Officer,
but I was the gatekeeper for questions, and in 1986 I did much the same thing.
In 1988, I had the distinct honour during very difficult times, when the election
was called very quickly, of working very closely with the then Chief Electoral
Officer, Richard Willis, who died, unfortunately, far too young. He was a
wonderful Chief Electoral Officer and provided marvellous guidance to all of
the parties and all of the campaigns in the
We dealt very closely with the appointment of returning officers. The process of the appointment of returning officers is one of the very few areas where the Chief Electoral Officer has made recommendations that the current government has chosen not to follow through on, and we have made a commitment on this side of the House that we will bring in amendments taking the appointment of returning officers out of the hands of the government and putting them, the appointment and training, more completely into the hands of the Chief Electoral Officer where we think they belong, not, parenthetically, Madam Speaker, because we think that it is necessarily a process that is open to political patronage but because the job of a returning officer, as anyone who has had any knowledge of that, is a very difficult one, and because it is a difficult one we think it is very important that they be people who are, in a way, permanent and well trained and not have to be appointed sometimes on very short notice.
So, as I say, even before Bill 17, The Elections Act and Elections Finances Act were wonderful pieces of legislation, and I look forward actually very shortly to being able to work under those two acts in an actual election campaign, to put into practice the amendments that took place last June and the amendments that will be debated and, I assume, passed by this House very shortly.
Normally my recollection is that when the minister or, in this case, the First Minister speaks on second reading, outlining the principles of the legislation, as is the purpose of second reading, they put it into the context, the reasons why, and go into some detail in many cases as to the reasons why this legislation is being brought forward. I was all prepared to listen extensively to the Premier when he made those explanatory notes. Unfortunately, the Premier was very brief in his comments. So it falls to me to provide that context for the members of the House, the context out of which has grown the elements of Bill 17.
I know we all here, some more than others, certainly wish the events of the last four years had not happened, but they did, and we are sitting here today with Bill 17 in front of us dealing with the outcome of those events. [interjection]
Yes, thank you. My
colleague the member for Interlake (Mr. C. Evans) has asked me to explain some
of the background and the context that has led to the elements of Bill
17. The Premier did say that his government would accept the recommendations of
the Monnin inquiry. He did say that. I just wish that the Premier had said,
finally and definitively, that he was appalled by the events that gave rise to
the Monnin inquiry in the first place and Bill 17 as an outcome of the Monnin
inquiry. I think most Manitobans would believe that the Premier has been, to
give him the best possible context, grudgingly apologetic in his comments,
recently forced into making apologies to the people of
However, the background on why we are now sitting here debating Bill 17. I would like to quote from Justice Monnin's report, and I quote: "A vote-rigging plot constitutes an unconscionable debasement of the citizen's right to vote. To reduce the voting rights of individuals is a violation of our democratic system."
Now it is absolutely appalling to me, and as I think it is appalling to all Manitobans, that we actually have to have a report–at the cost of upwards of $1 million in money, to say nothing of the cost to the electoral system, the cost to the trust the people of Manitoba have in their political process and in their elected and appointed political representatives–that we have to have such an expensive process to come up with a statement that Justice Monnin has put in his report that should be blatantly and completely obvious to every single person who participates in the political process. At the very least, it should be blatantly obvious to all citizens of the province, but most particularly to those people who work within the political process, whose aim in life is to elect people to the Legislature of the province of Manitoba so that they–those representatives who are elected–can influence and implement policies and directions of the government of the province of Manitoba, an aim I might say that is one that I aspire to as well.
I am not one of those
people who think that the political process is a necessary evil. I think it can
be one of the highest callings that anyone could undertake, and I am more than
proud to stand here today as a representative of the 57 constituencies and so a
representative of the government of
I have never apologized nor
will I ever apologize for the choice of profession that I have undertaken and
that the people of my constituency have given me. However, it is increasingly
difficult to have people in the
I think very much I agree with Justice Monnin, who says that we probably have not gotten to the bottom of this whole issue, that people have lied and covered up to such an extent that we may never get to the bottom of this issue. But even having not gotten to the bottom of this issue, the numbers and the extent and the depth and the breadth of the actions of the people who have been identified in this scandal is appalling. It goes to the heart of the democratic process in the province of Manitoba in general, and it goes to the heart of the Progressive Conservative Party in Manitoba in particular, and, most dreadful of all, it goes straight to the seat of power of the government in the province of Manitoba.
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I will not say that I am knowledgeable about the political history of the province of Manitoba, but I would like someone from the government side or anybody to tell me when, with the possible exception of the scandal around the building of this Legislative Building 75, almost 80, years ago, there has been a scandal of this magnitude, of this proportion, in the political process in the province of Manitoba. I do not think there ever has been one.
I would say that in comparison between the Rodmond Roblin scandal leading around the building of this building and the vote-rigging scandal of 1995 to 1999 in the province of Manitoba that the one that goes to the heart of democracy is the vote-rigging scandal. It is just unconscionable, as Justice Monnin has said, that this was allowed to happen.
Justice Monnin goes on to say, and I quote: The attempt here at vote splitting was, in my opinion, clearly unethical and morally reprehensible, end quote. Justice Monnin's report, which is the genesis of the elements of Bill 17, I would like to say does vindicate the position of the people who raised this concern in the first place. It vindicates the members of the official opposition both in this House and throughout the official opposition in their role as party members.
The Manitoba NDP had been accused by the Premier of fabricating the entire story about the vote-rigging scandal for political gain. Now, it would be one thing if this was the first time the Premier had gotten up in his seat and accused the opposition of saying something or promoting something or putting forth an idea simply for political gain. It is a mantra of the Premier's that he has undergone for the length of time that he has been Premier, and it does parenthetically, Madam Speaker, I believe, no justice and brings no glory to the office of Premier when the current occupant of this office continually claims political expediency as the rationale for questions and concerns raised by the opposition. But he certainly did accuse us, both in the House and outside the House, of political opportunism. I believe that the report certainly vindicates our concerns and the issues that we raised.
I say even more importantly than the vindication of the staff of the Manitoba NDP and the members of the opposition of the Manitoba NDP who were vindicated, even more importantly is the vindication of Darryl Sutherland, who had the courage, finally, to come forward and make accusations that were proven to be accurate against the highest and most powerful people and organization in this province. This is a man who was living on welfare on a reserve with $114 a month, I believe; this is a person, when you look at the power in this province, is at the bottom of the power grid; this is a young man, who has had very little of a sense of power in his life, up against the government of the Province of Manitoba, up against the Premier of the Province of Manitoba, up against, as we found out through the Monnin inquiry, the five or six or seven or eight, at least, most powerful individuals in the Progressive Conservative Party and the Progressive Conservative government.
This young man, Darryl Sutherland, had the courage of his convictions to bring forward those accusations and to undergo the most vile kinds of personal attacks on the part of the Premier of the province. This young man, Darryl Sutherland, kept up with it. He did not flinch; he showed the mettle of which he was made, as did the Premier of the Province of Manitoba who stated in this House, time and time again, there was no truth to the rumours; they were simply partisan political posturings, who stated in the media and in public that it was just something out of the furtive imagination of the Manitoba NDP and that Darryl Sutherland was not telling the truth.
Again, I think we need to look at the character of these two protagonists, if you will. If there are two protagonists in this morality play that we were seeing the dénouement of, well, at least the preliminary dénouement of, in our debate on Bill 17 today, it is has to be Darryl Sutherland versus the Premier, the one with no power, no influence, no money, no support system, nothing but the knowledge of the truth, and the other, arguably the most powerful person in the Province of Manitoba with the supports of the government behind him, the supports of the party behind him, the absolute-- there is no one in this province who has more supports behind him than the Premier. Who ended up being the hero in this story, and who has ended up being the villain in this story? I think the people of Manitoba know the answer to that. It did not require Judge Monnin to bring that forward, but I am very grateful to the people who participated and brought forward their stories and their truths to the commission so that the people of Manitoba now have it in black and white who was the hero and who was the villain, and very shortly, they are going to do their democratic duty and they are going to respond to not only the Monnin inquiry, but as a major component of their response in the election the Monnin inquiry will be there.
The people that the Premier had aligned himself with that came out in the Monnin inquiry were people that are long time, high up in the party and the government. These are not Johnny-come-latelys or Cubbys-come-lately. These are longstanding members of the Tory hierarchy, the social and political and financial, I dare say, elite of this Conservative Party in government. So you cannot shove under the table and just say, oh, they were misguided, they were new, they did not know. None of that washes. These people knew and they know that they knew. What they did and what they said and how they behaved throughout this entire miserable disgusting mess sheds a very bright light on the public morality and the private morality and the ethics and the principles that guide at least these people. I would venture to say that these people are not acting in isolation. They were responding to and part of a culture that this party and this government have operated under for many years.
We have Cubby Barrett, a major player in the Interlake region and an honourary life member of the Progressive Conservative Party. He was part of the Progressive Conservative campaign fund committee. We have Taras Sokolyk, the Progressive Conservative campaign chair who also served as the chief of staff for the Premier (Mr. Filmon) of the province of Manitoba.
Let me digress a minute, Madam Speaker, because I think what is interesting when you figure out who all these people are is how they interweave the party and the government. Now, I come from the United States originally, and one of the basic tenets of the political process in the United States is the separation of church and state. I think that concept is one that plays out or should play out in the political process in Manitoba, and that is, the state is the government, and the church, in this context, and my apologies to honourable members who are men of the cloth, the church in this analogy is the party.
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It should be simple to anyone who has any concept of basic democracy and the role of a government and the role of a party. Yes, they work together. The party works very hard to gets its members, its nominated candidates elected and hopefully elected as the governing party, but once that happens they should be backing off and doing party work and leaving the work of the government to the government members. The idea that Taras Sokolyk, who was the chief of staff, the closest person to the Premier (Mr. Filmon), the one to whom the Premier's door is always open–aha, even if the ears are closed, if you believe the Premier–that person is also the campaign manager for the entire 1995 provincial campaign for the Progressive Conservative Party. This is mind boggling. But Mr. Sokolyk is not the only person who has that meld of party and government.
We come to Julian Benson. Julian Benson, when the party were in the vote-rigging scheme, admitted to working with Sokolyk and others to write cheques on personal accounts, to pass them through, to give money to the independent candidates with the aim of splitting the vote and thereby electing Conservatives in three constituencies in the province. Julian Benson had another role. His other role was chair or president of Treasury Board, arguably, I would say, in the hierarchy of a government, the second most powerful position in government, the person for whom the Premier's (Mr. Filmon) door is also always open. No other two positions in the government, not the minister's, not deputy minister's, not any other staff person position has the power that Mr. Sokolyk and Mr. Benson had in the government. In this scheme, no other two people had more power and influence and their hands more into this than those two high up ranking Conservative officials.
Another person who was involved was the campaign manager in the Interlake, Mr. Allan Aitken. Now, in our party, campaign managers during campaigns are very important. They are incredibly important individuals, and they are put into the system at a very high level, at least during a campaign. They know a lot about what is going on. They know a lot about what is happening with the Leader's tour and with the polling and with the strategy. I do not doubt that Allan Aitken probably was involved in the situation at a much higher level than he alludes to.
The Tory candidate in the Interlake, Mr. Ed Trachuk was also implicated. Now we are going, instead of up the food chain, we are going down it a little bit. We are going down to the campaign manager and the candidate in one of the ridings. But, again, these are high profile people who should be above reproach, and we should not have to be dealing with the elements of Bill 17 here today, because it should be a given that if you are involved in the political process, if you want to be working toward electing candidates and governments that represent your views and your beliefs, that you do it within the rules. But, no, these people, and however many more there are, there are no rules. And why are there no rules? Because this is an arrogant, tired government filled with hubris.
An Honourable Member: Hubris?
Ms. Barrett: Hubris. Look up your Greek. Pride, overweening pride that in virtually every Greek tragedy where it is mentioned and where there is a protagonist who experiences it, that protagonist goes down to ignominious defeat, Minister of Education (Mr. McCrae), and I think that is what is going to happen here. The rot, the hubris, started from the top, and Justice Monnin may not have been able to find out any direct implication in his very narrow interpretation of his mandate, but the people of Manitoba know where the hubris starts. They know where the hubris ends. They know where the rot begins, and it starts from the top and it is going to end at the top.
We also have Arni
Thorsteinson and Bob Kozminski, and I do want, Madam Speaker, to get into the
specifics of Bill 17, so I am not going to speak very extensively on these two
individuals. But you know what? Arni Thorsteinson was the chief fundraiser of
the PC Manitoba Fund. Again, hello, one would assume that a person with that
kind of authority and that kind of power not only would have the ears of the
Premier (Mr. Filmon) but also would know and understand the fact that in the political
process you have to not only be squeaky clean but you have to be seen to be
squeaky clean. Clearly, that concept never entered Arni Thorsteinson's mind.
And Bob Kozminski, I have here a comment from Bob Kozminski. Oh, I thought I
did, but at any rate, basically Bob Kozminski stated and I quote, as quoted in
the Winnipeg Sun on February 10 of this year: Quite frankly with my political
leanings and what the NDP has done to this province over the years, I would do
anything to take votes away from the NDP.
No wonder Justice Monnin had as one of his major recommendations the fact that the parties should really get their acts together and put together a code of ethics, and, Madam Speaker, I can speak briefly, if I have enough time, about the fact that the New Democratic Party does have a compendium of ethics and principles and values that permeates everything we do. I think the Conservatives have a compendium of principles and ethics that permeates everything they do, but I do not think they are exactly the kinds of principles and ethics that Justice Monnin wants having in there, and the people of Manitoba. It is not do whatever needs to be done to justify your side's victory. It is not the end justifies the means. It is not our side, right or wrong. It is not there is no difference between the party and the government. It is not do whatever you need to do no matter if it is unethical or illegal or immoral. Do anything you need to do, but do not get caught. Now that is the basic principle and dictum that this group of people just did not–
An Honourable Member: They got caught.
Ms. Barrett: They got caught.
An Honourable Member: That is what they were so afraid of.
Ms. Barrett: Oops. It was not that it was wrong. It was not that it was wrong. The problem with this whole thing for the Conservatives, from the top on down, is that they got caught.
I guess the one comment I
would like to make about the Premier's involvement in all of this–or lack of
involvement, if you take his comments–is, the word I think that has been used
in a statement I read, his curious passivity in all of this. He did not know.
Nobody told him. He did not act on anything when Mr. Sokolyk told him on June
23, I believe last year, that this was not a problem, but they, meaning the
NDP, were on to something. Well, would you not think that, given the context at
that point, the Premier would have said to Mr. Sokolyk: Come here, Taras; come
into my office? What do you mean by "they are on to something"?
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That is the responsibility
of a leader. It is the responsibility of the Leader, the member for Tuxedo (Mr.
Filmon), who is Leader in two contexts here. Well, we have the separation of
the parties, or should have the separation of the parties, whose goal is to
elect members, separated from the government, whose goal is to provide good
government. There is one area, one person, in whom those two entities come
together. That is, in this case, the Premier of the Province of Manitoba. He is
not only the Leader of the government, the First Minister. He is also–and in
this context equally as important–the Leader of the Progressive Conservative
Party. It was his duty as both Leader of the party and Leader of the government
to demand from Mr. Sokolyk: What do you mean by "they are on to
something"?
By his passivity, he acquiesced in the cover-up, I would suggest. He may not have been overt in his actions, if Justice Monnin is accurate–and I reserve my personal view on that–but at the very least he was covert–not covert, but passively acquiescing in the extension of the problem and the not getting down to the facts, which was his job. It is always his job. It happened on his watch, as he is wont to say these days.
An Honourable Member: And he was what? Asleep at the watch?
Ms. Barrett: No. The member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) asks if he were asleep at the watch, and I do not think so. I do not think he was asleep at the watch. I think he did not want to know, and he wanted to have that lovely phrase called "plausible deniability." Well, I think, Madam Speaker, that we have come to the realization here in the province of Manitoba that while there may be a concept called plausible deniability, and while the perpetrators of this cover-up and this scandal attempted, perhaps, to provide that plausible deniability to the Leader of the Progressive Conservative Party and the Premier of the Province of Manitoba, it has not worked. The people of Manitoba do not feel that the Premier's comments are plausible.
However, I do have some comments that I would like to put on the record regarding the elements of Bill 17 itself. Mr. Justice Monnin made seven recommendations. Bill 17 directly addresses five of them. Two of them are not directly addressed, and with good reason, I believe. The procedure–what happened after Justice Monnin's report was tabled is that two committees are ongoing in the province here that have worked with the Chief Electoral Officer in Elections Manitoba over the years to implement and come up with the recommendations to make the electoral process more fair and more open. There are two ad hoc advisory committees; one that deals with The Elections Act and one that deals with The Elections Finances Act. The representatives from those two committees met a week ago actually, a week and a day ago, to go over the recommendations of the Monnin report. There were representatives from all three political parties at that meeting, as there have been representatives from all three political parties at all of the advisory ad hoc meetings. They are not always the same people, but there were representatives.
In the case of our party, we had the provincial secretary who is the chief administrative officer for the party. We had the auditor for the party as a whole. We had the comptroller who is the chief financial officer in the party office, and we had myself as a representative from the caucus and a person who has some background and experience in dealing with these two pieces of legislation. There were two representatives from the governing party and two representatives from the third party.
We spent quite a bit of time looking at all seven recommendations and came up with five recommendations that we felt should be in legislation. I would like to deal with the two that are not. The first one–and I am trying to remember which one it is–was recommendation 4 that the reporting formats for campaigns, audited statements, et cetera, and candidates, be looked at and upgraded. The reason that is not in the legislation is that Justice Monnin was looking at The Elections Act and The Elections Finances Act as they appeared in 1995, which was the act that was in effect when the vote-rigging scandal took place. Since that time, most particularly last June, there have been major amendments to both acts that have dealt with, in the view of the Chief Electoral Officer, the auditor and accountant who was there in an advisory capacity, and the representatives from all three political parties had been dealt with by subsequent amendments to the 1995 legislation. So that particular recommendation was not dealt with in the Bill 17 before you.
The other recommendation that was not dealt with, and the Premier alluded to it in his opening comments, was the recommendation that all political parties should look at a statement of ethics as was recommended by federal white paper and electoral reform known as the Lortie report, after the chairperson. Now Justice Monnin recommended that all three parties have the same code of ethics. As you can well imagine, Madam Speaker, when we got to that particular part of the discussion at the committee, we decided that all three political parties do have a set of ethics that they are operating under, maybe not written down, and they are very different.
An Honourable Member: Even Conservatives?
Ms. Barrett: Oh, yes. I did not say ethics had to be good ethics.
An Honourable Member: Oh, win at all costs.
Ms. Barrett: Yes, that is an ethical position. Win at all costs is an ethical position. It is not a–
An Honourable Member: Do anything to stop the NDP. Was that not one of them?
Ms. Barrett: Yes. It may not be positive but ethics is a valueless word. It can be positive or negative. So we agreed, all three parties and the Chief Electoral Officer, that it would be highly unlikely that the three parties would agree on a single set of ethics, but we did, as the Premier stated, agree that this Chief Electoral Officer would come back with some examples of statements of principle that other organizations have used and that we would look as a committee at possibly finding some statements that could be used by all three parties, but that each individual party would put together their own statement of ethics.
Madam Speaker, I would like to say that the Manitoba New Democratic Party–I went through the Lortie report and looked at the recommendations on the various elements that should be in a statement of ethics. I would like to outline many of the Lortie recommendations and say that we were there. Each party should have an explicit statement of the organization's values, principles, philosophy, objectives, and traditions.
Madam Speaker, I recognize that my time is almost up. I would like to, and others will be talking about the various specific elements of Bill 17, say in closing that while the genesis of Bill 17 is a dreadful black mark on the history or actions that have produced a dreadful black mark on the political history of the province of Manitoba in general and the Progressive Conservative Party in government in particular, the elements of Bill 17 are good elements. The bill itself reflects the spirit and the direction of Justice Monnin; the process through which we got Bill 17 shows that sometimes we in this House can work co-operatively together. I just regret from the bottom of my heart that we had to go to the extent that we did to deal with the elements of Bill 17. I hope that this will never be necessary again.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): We, too, would like to be able to see–
Introduction
of Guests
Madam Speaker: Order, please. Prior to recognizing the honourable member for Inkster, I would like to draw the attention of all honourable members to the loge to my right, where we have this afternoon Mr. Brian Pallister, the former member for Portage la Prairie.
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Mr. Lamoureux: As I was saying, Bill 17 is indeed a bill for which there is unanimous support inside the House to see pass. The general will, much like the boundary redistribution bill, is to see it in fact passed prior to budget debate, which is going to be starting next week or on April 29.
Madam Speaker, there were a number of thoughts that came across my mind as I was listening to the member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett) speak on this particular bill. Before I comment on that, I want to comment very specifically on the legislation that was in fact introduced.
The Monnin inquiry, and I will start off with the four recommendations which are encompassed virtually in its entirety inside, were that the statute of limitations which currently exists, two years from the date of alleged offences, be changed to two years after the Chief Electoral Officer finds grounds to believe an offence has been committed; the second one, that the Legislature move rapidly when the Chief Electoral Officer requests any amendment to the relevant statutes.
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The sixth and seventh amendments, recommendations, were also brought into the legislation, the sixth one being giving the Chief Electoral Officer the power to conduct investigations and audits of the financial affairs of political parties; and seven, that, as a result of recommendations one through six, political parties be obliged to keep their financial records for a minimum of five years after filing a statement.
Madam Speaker, there is the other recommendation, which was No. 4, which makes reference that Elections Manitoba revise its reporting format to better account for sources of income and expenditure. That one was dealt with, as the member for Wellington had pointed out, in the previous legislation that was proposed and passed since the '95 election. In fact, I believe it was passed last June.
With respect to recommendation No. 3, which no doubt the Premier made reference to and indicated that his party and he were taking action not only on a code of ethics but also the code of conduct. The recommendation reads that the registered political parties prepare a code of ethics. If they fail to do so by December 31, 2001, then a standard code should be legislated.
Well, Madam Speaker, I recognize that this particular recommendation was not included in the legislation, as there was an all-party group that sat down with Elections Manitoba and reviewed that particular issue, as the member for Wellington had made note of. So me, being the happy Liberal team player I am, I am not going to necessarily say what my personal thoughts are on this particular recommendation, but suffice to say, I believe, I really do believe that there is a need for a code of ethics and a code of conduct. It pleases me greatly to the degree which our leader is committed to ensuring that that does take place within the Liberal Party. I am told through our administrative arm of our party that in fact we are going to be developing a thorough code of ethics and a code of conduct.
As the member for Wellington points out, in particular when we take a look at variations and there is no doubt going to be some variation, what would be nice to see in time are the three parties getting together and coming up with a code of ethics which ultimately could be brought into the legislation, in particular, the code of ethics.
Then the other one was No. 5, the audit methods be improved in conjunction with auditors, accountants and the Institute of Chartered Accountants. I think that is something that is still somewhat being reviewed, and we will see what ultimately comes of that. I do believe that the recommendations put forward and the intent of those recommendations are in the most part being adhered to and definitely being addressed by all three political parties. I think that is a very strong positive.
Having said that, the beginning of the session, we heard through a matter of privilege, I believe it was, and I think you have it under notice, so I will be very careful on the comments on it, but the position that we--
An Honourable Member: That is a change.
Mr. Lamoureux: I appreciate that vote of confidence. Madam Speaker, the party's position has been in recognition of the Monnin inquiry to accept that the Premier (Mr. Filmon) has made an apology and that in fact we move on.
Having said that, Madam Speaker, as I have indicated to the Chamber before, we do find it quite difficult to believe that so many people around the Premier were involved, yet the Premier himself was not necessarily aware of it. Having said that, I wanted to comment on what some would say, you do not throw stones at a glass house–or a bull in a china store, those are the types of things that one has always got to be careful of.
I have had opportunity because I have always had an interest in, as I am sure everyone in democracy and how it has performed, how we might be able to improve it. I took the opportunity to meet with members of Elections Manitoba months ago to talk about concerns that I have as an individual, as an elected MLA, and how we can make our elections that much more democratic, if I can put it that way, dealing with issues, whether it is third-party advertising, whether it is paid labour going into campaigns, not necessarily taking an account for. There are many things, a lot of room for us to be improving.
What I would like to see is a much more proactive approach from Elections Manitoba at addressing some of those issues that I had raised with them, and also to see political parties being more open-minded and maybe not as protective over their own personal interests as much as protecting what is in the interests of all Manitobans in future elections. I am being baited to comment on something I would dearly love to comment on, but for the member for The Maples (Mr. Kowalski), I will indicate maybe one story in the last provincial election as an example of not throwing stones in glass houses.
I can recall we had a very heated campaign, as I am sure all members have heated campaigns, but we had signs disappearing. Well, Madam Speaker, we all no doubt have signs disappearing. I found out that it was the New Democrats that were taking down my signs. Now, the member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen), a very wise person and someone that I respect, asked, what was my evidence? What we did, Madam Speaker, is we actually went to some of the homes, and the NDP campaign was telling them that they could not have two signs on the lawn. So then they took down the Liberal sign and put up the New Democratic sign. It was an interesting experience.
We filed the complaint with the Elections Manitoba. We had a pile of signs that were just kind of disappearing. At the end of the campaign, I was happy and doing some touring around, and one of the bins in very close proximity of the NDP campaign office was full of my signs. Well, at the time individuals indicated–[interjection] No, I never did get an apology. Nor did I ever get any comments. Anyway, Madam Speaker, I know, and I use it just as an example, I think that there is a lot of behaviour that cannot be condoned that takes place in campaigns, and we have to be very careful of what we say.
I can remember a volunteer that came to the campaign office. I am sure many of my colleagues inside the Chamber might be able to relate to this particular story, and that is the overenergetic volunteer that comes in after doing a drop and has a few of your opponents' brochures. Madam Speaker, I had indicated to the volunteer that that is not something which I can support, and they should not be taking action of that nature.
Madam Speaker, that is the reason why, and in fairness to this particular volunteer, and I will not tell you his political allegiances prior to my campaign, but in particular I think what is important to note here is that there is merit for a code of conduct. As members, we have to ensure that Manitobans as a whole have a responsibility to do what we can to ensure that there is a higher sense of conduct, of professionalism. I should put it maybe in terms of professionalism. As one member makes reference, the Minnedosa riding, that is something which has occurred. It is an action which, even though it was very isolated, it is something that happened to be with the Liberal Party. It is appalling to see that sort of action take place.
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What is important, Madam Speaker, I believe, is what sort of action is taken when we hear or we see something of this nature take place. That is why I said, right at the very beginning in entering into this, is that we have to be very careful in terms of the way in which we try to come across as being super clean or holier than thou on very important issues. We are not accusing the New Democrats of being super clean.
For the member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton), I have to be very careful because we talk with impunity, because we can say whatever we want in here and no legal action can be taken. I was aware, and I will share it with the member for Thompson of an incident that happened in Thompson with one of your workers. These sorts of things–and it does not mean the member for Thompson would have supported it. [interjection] No, it had nothing to do with bribery. As I say, there is a fine line and there is this gray area. Quite often, we see incidents like the Monnin inquiry and that investigation, which was absolutely a slap to the face of democracy, and anyone looking at it justifiably and duly should soundly criticize it.
There are other actions, Madam Speaker, maybe not to that degree, but there are other actions that do take place that go far beyond that line, and bribery is definitely one of them. There is absolutely no doubt about it. That is something which I would not attempt to defend, even though it happened to be with the Liberal Party, but I am not saying that the Liberal Party is void of any sort of election mistreatment.
Unfortunately, things of that nature happen, but if the member for Thompson believes it does not happen in the New Democratic Party, he needs to take his head out of the sand because I have had many–and I want to respect what the member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen) had indicated, you know, evidence is important.
That is the reason why it is without doubt I can take shots at the government. It is without doubt I can talk about my sign incident at the local level. But I have to be very careful because a lot of stuff that we hear, Madam Speaker, is rumour, is hearsay and so forth, but I believe that a lot of those rumours do, in fact, take place.
That is the reason why, you know, when we look at the recommendation of the code of ethics and the code of conduct, I think it is absolutely critical for all three political parties not only to recognize it, because action speaks much louder than words. What we really need to do is to see those documents, so it helps better define that gray area, so not only as candidates but as volunteers, that in the future we do not see the same sorts of actions that have happened in the past.
Having said that, as I indicated at the beginning, it pleases the Liberal Party greatly to have this bill before us. We look forward to its speedy passage, much like the boundary redistribution legislation. I understand we might even be doing the elected Speaker resolution tomorrow or next week, but the idea again is to pass that.
There are some good, positive signs. We recognize that and we look forward to continuing to move forward in terms of providing a better form of democracy for Manitobans. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.
Mr. Steve Ashton (Thompson): Madam Speaker, I sort of notice a pattern here. The member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) speaks and I planned on speaking, and after he finishes speaking, I feel this sort of urge to say more than I was originally going to say. I must admit that he has done it again, because what I find interesting with the member for Inkster's comments is that I think his advice is wise up to a certain degree, but I think he has missed the point.
The whole question of ethics that the member talks about, the member for Inkster should recognize here that you have to look at the degree of lack of ethical behaviour that is involved. I realize that he is sensitive because the only party that has been convicted, anybody connected with any political party thus far in recent years of any kind of offence is I believe the son of a Liberal candidate in Minnedosa, who attempted to bribe Joe Anderson, a person I know quite well, an aboriginal candidate, by the way, attempted to bribe that individual and ended up being taken to court for it; I mean, attempted to bribe him for the purpose of getting him to withdraw from the election.
Now, I want to say to the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) that if you do consult with any authority in terms of ethics, that would certainly rank as unethical behaviour of the highest kind, not the types of incidents that the member talked about.
You know, I often find in elections, it is true–you know, one thing I find interesting, though, is a lot of these sorts of accusations that float around about signs often are directed at parties when you have a lot of evidence that it is straight vandalism. I say to the member, what he was talking about was not that case, because if you have people who have a house saying to withdraw a sign, to take down a Liberal sign or an NDP or a Conservative sign, anybody that is an owner of a home has the right to put up whatever number of signs they want. [interjection]
Well, I will tell you one thing, Madam Speaker, we in the New Democratic Party like to put signs on houses where people actually vote for us. [interjection] Well, I can say that. It is very easy–I can prove that in my own case because I only put up window signs. [interjection] Well, the member says come up to the north end of Winnipeg. But, you know, it is interesting, because is the member suggesting somehow that people in his constituency are not in the position of making a decision? If we say at the door, which I think is reasonable, we want to put signs up–we do not want to put signs up in houses where people are not going to vote for us, and we trust that people are going to vote New Democrat if they put the sign up. By the way, in northern Manitoba–
An Honourable Member: What about a wife that votes Liberal and a husband that votes NDP?
Mr. Ashton: The member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) says, but what if there is a split household? That is quite different from where you have two people in a household and three signs up, and I have seen that sort of situation. I have always said in my house–[interjection] Well, The Maples, we are talking about The Maples then.
In Thompson itself we have window signs, and that requires the permission of the property owner to put it up. If someone tells me at the door that they are voting NDP, I will ask them if they want a sign, and then we will deliver a sign. But if they say I will put a sign anyway, that is not the way it is done. [interjection] It is interesting because the member for Inkster obviously does not get it. Maybe his party does not care where it puts its signs up, but in our case, I can tell you that virtually every candidate that I know will say the same thing. I will say that if I go to a household that has a Liberal sign on it, and someone says, but I am voting NDP, I will offer to give them a sign if that is the case. [interjection]
It is interesting because the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) still does not quite get it. He still does not get it. After he sort of says we are all concerned about ethics, sort of bribery in a Liberal campaign, he then slips into this thing with the signs back and forth, not recognizing the quantum difference in what we are dealing with. I say to the member, because he is the ethics critic, the ethics critic should be the first one to recognize that attempting to bribe someone is about the worst possible kind of behaviour.
An Honourable Member: Both are wrong.
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Mr. Ashton: Well, you see, the member says both are wrong. Once again he shows a complete ignorance of ethics. It is sort of like, you know, this is part of, by the way, the way in which you get out of this. It is like, well, yes, our campaign in Minnedosa attempted to bribe a candidate and was convicted of that, but, you know, everybody does things that are wrong, so that kind of means we are all in the same circumstance. It does not, Madam Speaker.
You know, what is interesting, the only person that is condoning anything is the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) who tries to compare this thing with the signs to attempting to bribe a candidate to drop out of an election. That is an offence under The Elections Act. It is an offence to the ethics and morality of this province, and I say, Madam Speaker, when the member tries to put these two things in the same circumstance, he does a disservice to any sense of ethics in this province.
I notice the Conservatives, by the way, have yet to be–
Point of Order
Mr. Gary Kowalski (The Maples): My understanding of the rules of the House is that we are all considered honourable members, and under Beauchesne I am wondering if calling the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) of not having ethics is the same as calling him not an honourable member and is out of order. So I would ask, if that is the case, that the member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) reconsider his intemperate words and withdraw those comments.
Madam Speaker: The honourable member for Thompson, on the same point of order.
Mr. Ashton: Madam Speaker, I did not refer to the member for Inkster as being unethical. I was referring in debate to the lack of a sense of the balance of what he is talking about in terms of ethics, which is a disagreement of opinion. But I did not accuse the member for Inkster of unethical behaviour. It is a very important point in debate, a disagreement of opinion.
Madam Speaker: I will indeed check the authorities and read the transcript before ruling on the point of order raised by the honourable member for The Maples.
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Mr. Ashton: Madam Speaker, I want to stress again, because until we learn the lessons of what had happened in the Minnedosa case and the events covered by the Monnin inquiry, until we do that we are ensuring that this type of behaviour will happen again.
The thing that has to be understood, what happened in Minnedosa was unacceptable, period. No, well, everybody has done something or other campaigns have done this or other campaigns have done that. One campaign attempted to bribe someone to drop out of the race. They were taken to court. They were found guilty of that offence.
That is wrong, period, which brings me to the Monnin inquiry, because this is what has to be established here. And I want to stress again in case anyone misunderstands the point here that I do not suggest that every Conservative member in this House or every member the Conservative Party is somehow unethical because of what we have seen proven by the Monnin inquiry. That would be an unfair statement. There are some very honest Conservatives in this House, very honest Conservatives in the party generally, and I actually, one of, a New Democrat, I said, well, is it not a bit of an oxymoron to talk about an honest Conservative? And I said: be fair to people. Do not hold them responsible for the behaviour of somebody who happens to be a party member or a member of the House here who did not know about that.
But, you know, the end result–I do not blame all Conservatives for the action of everyone that is involved, but I do say that one should reflect on the Monnin inquiry to show that I certainly hold this government responsible; I hold the Premier responsible. By the way, I hold the member for Fort Garry (Mrs. Vodrey) and the member for Arthur-Virden (Mr. Downey), the co-chairs of that 1995 campaign, responsible. I say that it is not good enough for any of the individuals involved with this to say, well, I really did not know. I did not know. This was a systematic attempt to disrupt the electoral process. It was developed at the highest level. It was developed by people who are the entire inner circle of the Conservative Party, and I say to members opposite that if you remain silent–did anybody, for example, question the presence at the Conservative convention of some of the principals in this inquiry? Did they question it? Do members of the cabinet who go off on vacation with members like Cubby Barrett, who supposedly had been banished from the Conservative Party, when members sit here and we mention Cubby Barrett, who was proven to have been a major part of this unethical scheme, sit there and it is like, you mention Cubby Barrett's name and the smiles go up on the other side. It is sort of, oh, Cubby, Cubby, we, you know–members opposite still have not understood that Cubby Barrett was involved in unethical behaviour, period, period. And they show it day in and day out.
I want to run through the rest of this rogues' gallery, because these are people who not only were involved in this unethical scheme, each and every one of them has benefited immensely from their connection to the Conservative Party. This is not just random unethical behaviour. These are people who have been the–I mentioned this earlier to the member for Lakeside (Mr. Enns). You know, the Conservative Party the last 11 years in Manitoba might as well adopt the pig as its symbol, because they have been at the trough. Cubby Barrett has been one of the most significant beneficiaries of his connection with the Conservative Party.
Now let us run through some of the rest of this rogues' gallery. Taras Sokolyk. Do you know what amazes me again? This shows how little the Conservative Party understood this back in June. I remember questioning the Premier (Mr. Filmon) for two hours on Taras Sokolyk's role. Taras Sokolyk, do you remember him, the chief of staff for the Conservative Party? Do you know what the Premier said? He said, well, I am not going to answer questions about what happened in the election. That was a different Taras Sokolyk. He was my campaign manager then. He was not working for the Conservative government, he was working for the Conservative Party. Taras Sokolyk. Now how many times did he lie under oath? Once? Twice? Three times? Seventeen times. The chief of staff lied under oath 17 times, Madam Speaker.
I would note that I still have serious questions about the Premier's role in terms of lack of being forthcoming because he was aware on June 23 of Mr. Sokolyk being aware and probably involved in the 1995 campaign. That is to assume, you have to expect us to believe, that this happened without the co-chairs of the campaign, sitting MLAs–the member for Fort Garry (Mrs. Vodrey) and the member for Arthur-Virden (Mr. Downey) were co-chairing that–while the Premier was the Leader of this party, while his chief of staff was also his campaign manager. They knew nothing. They did not know anything about Jules Benson being involved in the campaign, anything about this involvement.
On June 23 the Premier came into the House, do you know what his words were? It did not happen. Madam Speaker, he said it did not happen. On the 24th he came into the House, and he said what? He said that he had talked to officials. Well, that was not true. He talked to one official in the campaign. He once again said: I have no knowledge of the Conservative Party being involved with any of this. That was not accurate information because on the 23rd, as we found out under oath, it took the Premier to be under oath before he went ahead and revealed that. By the way, when Taras Sokolyk resigned, what did the Premier (Mr. Filmon) say? Oh, well, the only discussion I ever had with Mr. Sokolyk about this was in 1995. It is not true. He told the media he had a conversation in '95 when in fact he, on the record at the inquiry several months later, confirmed he had a discussion with Mr. Sokolyk on the 23rd of June. That is Mr. Sokolyk.
Jules Benson. Jules Benson. Now is this just some random Tory that just happened to do something? Some rogue Tory? The head of Treasury Board. How many years was he treasurer of the Conservative Party? You know, it is interesting because when he became the chief civil servant, what is amazing is that no one on that side, no one in the campaign, understood that under his oath he was not supposed to be involved in political campaigns. The height of irresponsibility I thought was when the Premier went outside of this House and said, well, since the Schreyer government changed the role of civil servants in the political process, people just did not know that Jules Benson was not supposed to be involved in campaigns. Madam Speaker, did the co-chairs of the campaign not know that? I mean, this is the highest paid civil servant in the province involved directly in the campaign.
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I want you to picture this for a moment. This is the same person on Treasury Board that was meeting with the advertisers for the Conservative Party in 1995. Does anybody not see the ethical difficulties when you have somebody who is in a key position to grant favours to people? The Jules Benson, chief civil servant on the one hand, popping up as Jules Benson, loyal Conservative member on the other side. Jules Benson, the rogues' gallery.
Let us continue with another one, Gordon McFarlane. Well known to the member for Fort Garry (Mrs. Vodrey), official agent for her campaign in 1995, well known to the co-chairs, the comptroller of the Conservative Party.
An Honourable Member: McCarthyism, guilty by association.
Mr. Ashton: I say to the member, in this case what is not credible is the fact that Gordon McFarlane committed serious offences for which he is going to be held accountable. Have you read the Monnin report on Gordon McFarlane? Yet this individual continues to pop up, as we have seen even today.
I tell you what is amazing about a lack of ethics and how the Minister responsible for the Liquor Commission (Mrs. Vodrey) does not quite get it. You know, her only concern was, well, he was doing this before the Monnin report came out, but she does not understand that it is wrong for somebody who was the comptroller of the Conservative Party, who was her official agent, to be the supposedly objective third party dealing with liquor licence applications, which, coincidentally, result in two groups with Conservative connections ending up in that.
Point of Order
Hon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister charged with the administration of The Liquor Control Act): Madam Speaker, I would just like to point out to the member, on a point of order, that this individual was acting on behalf of his firm, Grant Thornton. Grant Thornton is a very reputable CA firm in this province, and they have a reputation to preserve. The member is attempting to draw some kind of allegation.
If he has anything in relation to the firm of Grant Thornton, which acts as auditors to the MLCC, I would like him to put it on the table because I am very, very concerned with the image that he is casting on a very reputable firm within this province and an individual who was acting in his capacity as a chartered accountant in this function.
Madam Speaker: Order, please. The honourable Minister of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship did not have a point of order.
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Mr. Ashton: Madam Speaker, I want to make it very clear that the Gordon McFarlane I was referencing was the same Gordon McFarlane who was cited in the Monnin report as having breached the law in causing a false statement to be filed with Elections Manitoba, contrary to Sections 81 and 83(b) of the act. So do not lecture me about this individual's ethical accounting practices.
Madam Speaker, this is the same person, and she still does not get it, the lack of ethics that is shown by this individual. The least this individual should have done–there are hundreds of accounts in this province. Did he not understand that by being the comptroller of the Conservative Party and the official agent to the minister, with direct knowledge of who is a Conservative, who contributes to the Conservative Party, that he could not be an objective source in terms of analyzing liquor licence applications? You know, it shows again that the member for Fort Garry (Mrs. Vodrey), who, coincidentally, was also the co-chair of the campaign in which these activities happened, still does not get it. Even after the fact when you have a clear example of something this wrong, that the public understands to be wrong, the minister sits there and attempts to defend Mr. McFarlane's activities. Mr. McFarlane should not have been involved in vetting the liquor licence applications, period; and, if she does not understand that, she should not be the Minister responsible for the Manitoba Liquor Control Commission.
I say, Madam Speaker, let us continue with this because once again they still do not get it. I mentioned three individuals, all of whom lied, all of whom committed election offences, all of whom breached serious ethical standards in this province. We are talking again–I want you to picture this because these are not random people–the comptroller for the Conservative Party.
You can continue because it continues in terms of some of the other players in this, key players again: fund raisers, donators to the Conservative Party. Once again, people who have benefited greatly by their association with the Conservative Party. These are not just altruistic individuals who donate money to the party of their choice. These are people who have benefited through legislative changes, through appointments to boards that have benefited them directly. These are not people who are involved for altruistic motives.
Bob Kozminski. Now, you want a summary of the Tory ethic for this province, you can do it in his comments, his infamous comments. You know, Bob Kozminski said he would do anything–I will repeat that–anything to take votes away from the NDP–anything. He reminded me by the way, I had an individual, former young Conservative from Ontario, who was involved in my campaign a number of years ago and echoed these remarks. He came to Manitoba. He went to Conservative constituency meetings in my constituency, and he said, you know, after a few months, he understood he was in the wrong party in Manitoba. The reason he supported the NDP, he said, was because he knew what the NDP stood for. He said when he went to the Conservative meetings, the one thing that they had in common, the one thing they talked about was their hatred of the NDP and their desire to defeat the NDP.
Is it not interesting, Madam Speaker? Bob Kozminski will do anything, anything, to take votes away from the NDP. Well, we saw in that case, with Mr. Kozminski, he did not just say it, he put it into action. Who were these altruistic individuals here? Who were signing the cheques? Mr. Kozminski. Mr. Thorsteinson, oh, we cannot leave him out. I mean, it is interesting. We have a former member of ours, now affiliated with the federal Conservative Party. Mr. Thorsteinson has a long connection with the federal Conservative Party, particularly when they were in power, you know, the on-the-take days. I would recommend that book to people because it shows what happens when you get a systematic lack of any sense of what is ethical, complete lack of any sense of moral judgment. You know, people forget why Brian Mulroney was so unpopular. It was because in the eight years it was in government, I cannot think of a government, and certainly a federal government, in Canadian history that has so many people involved who were up on charges for influence peddling, ministers involved with questionable activities, contracts being let out with obvious political connections.
An Honourable Member: Grant Devine.
Mr. Ashton: Well, Grant Devine. The member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers) talks about Grant Devine–by the way, another Premier who did not know what was going on in his government. That is what he says. How many Conservatives have been charged? But, you know, I say to people, I say to members opposite, what we have seen here is, you map out these players. I have not mentioned some of the other players in this as well because it just amazes me how they keep popping–Allan Aitken. You know, here was the guy who could not remember the entire year of 1995, by the way, the entire year, 1995.
An Honourable Member: Just a blur.
Mr. Ashton: Just a blur, just a blur. You know what I find interesting though, Madam Speaker, is this is the entire inner circle of the Conservative Party. This is the chief of staff. This is the head of Treasury Board, all clearly indicted by Justice Monnin for unethical behaviour. It is the key fundraisers. Cubby Barrett, member of the Conservative Party for life. These are the key financiers. We have constituency campaign managers. We have candidates in the Interlake.
The bottom line with this is the only real approach of the government since this has come into place has been to sort of give these apologies, supposed apologies. But I question apologies where somebody says: well, I am sorry; I apologize, and then they immediately attack people who raise questions about what happened, about ethics, about morality, about what happened four years ago. I look to the Premier. I question the Premier's role from June on not going public and talking about his meeting with Taras Sokolyk. I question his role in not asking Mr. Sokolyk, according to the Premier, what happened. Can you believe a Premier whose best defence is to say: Well, Sokolyk told me that the NDP was on to something, so I blinked. Madam Speaker, he blinked. [interjection]
An Honourable Member: Get a lawyer.
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Mr. Ashton: Get a lawyer, and do not come to my staff meetings. By
the way, because the Premier is a member of this Legislature, I will assume he
was telling the truth. We have to assume that. I would not assume that about
any of the other sordid characters who were involved in this, because they lied
repeatedly under oath. But can you believe the 11-year Premier of this province
blinking, saying get a lawyer; do not come to staff meetings.
He is trying to say to the people of Manitoba that he is–you know, like their slogan, the Filmon team. Well, the Filmon team right now, they are all involved with this scandal. Manitoba Strong, you know where they talk about Manitoba Strong. What leader is this, Madam Speaker, who blinks and says: get a lawyer, do not come to staff meetings. I am sorry. What about Jules Benson? Well, there is another great situation. The Premier is aware of Jules Benson's involvement in July I believe it was–a wedding.
An Honourable Member: It was his son's wedding.
Mr. Ashton: Exactly. My colleague points out. You know what is interesting is, was Jules Benson immediately subject to censure by the Premier? Did he fire Jules Benson? You know what I find amazing is, he knew in July, and Jules Benson–he even called Jules Benson a liar in October, then he retracted it. The funny part was, the only correct statement I think the Premier made in this entire drama was in October, because Jules Benson did lie. Read the report. Read what Justice Monnin said. Benson obviously did not tell the whole truth regarding the extent of his involvement in the 1995 campaign. This is Judge Monnin, page 57: "I am of the view that Benson's involvement was improper and that certain party members failed to see the clear distinction between a civil servant and a party volunteer."
You know what happened to Jules Benson? He was not fired. He went out and he got to retire. Some punishment.
An Honourable Member: With his little severance package.
Mr. Ashton: With his little severance package, exactly. By the way, Jules Benson was receiving a 12 percent RRSP contribution, far more generous than anyone in this House receives. Jules Benson was allowed to collect another six months worth of RRSP credits and, you know, not a black mark on his record. Nothing in his file. You know, Don Leitch actually said he was asked to leave, but even the Premier would not go that far. Jules Benson walks away from this with what? He walks away from this with not a scar.
An Honourable Member: $40,000.
Mr. Ashton: Yes, $40,000. This is how much this punishment has been brought forward.
Now, let us deal with the Cubby Barretts and the rest of this bunch here, you know, Cubby Barrett, the Cross Lake liquor licence. I have been in Cross Lake many times. I knew the previous owners of the hotel. It is absolutely disgusting that Cubby Barrett boasted on six occasions that he would have no trouble using his connections to get a liquor licence when he was purchasing that facility. On six occasions he said that. There are two witnesses to that effect.
The great thing about the Tories is, you know, you can get away with that. You can be shown in this scandal to being directly involved in unethical behaviour. But you know what? Cubby Barrett sits there today and he owns what? The Cross Lake Inn. He has four licences, VLTs. Cubby Barrett cashes in every day, every week, every month, from his political connections to the Conservative Party.
Now, it is interesting, because this whole crew, you know, I mean, there was a group in Thompson trying to buy a hotel recently. Guess who shows up? Allan Aitken shows up, Allan Aitken, and I am sure if I was to mention this to him he probably would not remember it either, but it is almost wherever you turn you start to see a connection here, and this is what I mean about this common theme. Notice the connection, by the way, the players and the Monnin report, the vote-splitting scandal. Now, where are they showing up?
Think of this for a moment. What is the one branch of government, the one Crown corporation where the simple granting of a licence could make you money, could make you a millionaire? It is the Liquor Commission. Think about this for a moment.
An Honourable Member: Who is on that?
Mr. Ashton: Cubby Barrett, by the way, who is on the Liquor Commission, as the member points out. This is how they sort of stand back and sort of try and separate themselves from it. Grant Holmes, chairperson, has donated $8,200 to the Conservative Party; Wesley Goodspeed, $6,500; Joyce Buffie, another contributor. I just want you to picture this.
Now, this is the apolitical Liquor Control Commission. They used to have a Mr. Tom Denardi on it. He was apolitical too. He just happened to run in Crescentwood in 1990 for the Conservative Party. He got on the board. They discussed and developed the proposal to have private wine stores. He got off the board. He applied for the wine store licence, and guess what? He got the licence, you know, just sort of random person off the street, right? Yes, right. This time around, the same thing. Who pops up again? Gordon McFarlane. There are hundreds of chartered accountants in this province, and he just happens to end up being the person doing the third-party audit. The objective source. I note, because, by the way, I have talked to people who did not get a licence. One family spent $11,000, and they were shocked when they got a letter back, not from the Liquor Commission, but from Gordon McFarlane. Gordon McFarlane, we would like to thank you for your interest and submission. It continues: unfortunately your proposal was not selected for further consideration.
We–now I wonder what "we" was referring to. "We" as in him as a chartered accountant, or "we" as in the Conservative Party. Which "we" was Gordon McFarlane talking about. I want to read on the record again the fact that in the liquor store situation, and by the way I just want to show you the lack of ethics here. This decision was made in December of last year. This is not ancient history, this is December of last year. Pembina Fine Wines, Joe Jerema, [phonetic] a contributor to the Conservative Party and De Luca's Fine Wines. I outlined three individuals with close connections to the Conservative Party, the De Luca's, who have been contributors; Tom Frain [phonetic], I believe, who contributed $2,000 to the Conservative Party; and also David Filmon, obviously connected with the Conservative Party.
They still do not get it. We raised this and the minister says, well, this is terrible, people have a right to earn a living. I can tell you that the family that put their application in good faith and spent $11,000, they had a right to be treated fairly. We have a situation where you have Gordon McFarlane supposedly doing the analysis of it, and you end up with people with Conservative connections getting licences. I say to this minister she should be ashamed of even doing anything other than apologizing to the many applicants who put their names in good faith or apologizing to this House.
Mr. Gerry McAlpine, Acting Speaker, in the Chair
Perhaps she does not understand after having been in government so long that the people of Manitoba see, they see the ethical rot that eats to the heart of this government. That is my point. It is not just Monnin. It is 11 years of accumulated arrogance that we are seeing from this government. Eleven years. They just do not get it. They did not see anything wrong with the vote-splitting inquiry, the vote splitting in 1995. They try and stage manage Monnin now as if, well, it is all in the past. They think a few "apologies," and I put that in quotation marks, because I really question how authentic those apologies are, are going to somehow change things and move things on. But what we see is they have not learned. It was not just the 1995 in elections. It is with basic things such as dealing with liquor licences. They still have not learned. They cannot pretend they are banishing people, and then go on holidays with them--
An Honourable Member: Or conventions.
Mr. Ashton: –or conventions. They just do not get it, Mr. Acting Speaker. I get back to the federal Conservative Party, because they did not get it until they were knocked down to two seats.
An Honourable Member: They did not get it till they got it.
Mr. Ashton: They got it good. Yes. The member for Kildonan (Mr. Chomiak) referenced that.
An Honourable Member: And gender parity.
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Mr. Ashton: And gender parity, indeed. They did it the hard way. Two members. I smell the same rot, and that smell will not go away for one very simple reason. We are dealing with the Premier (Mr. Filmon) here. He is the same Premier that has watched over this for 11 years.
By the way, Mr. Acting Speaker, I would note the fact that I do not believe the vote-splitting scandal was the first time we have seen a pattern from this Premier on these kinds of issues. Talk to senior Conservatives that remind me about 1983. Does anyone remember Brian Ransom? Brian Ransom. It is interesting. I have talked to Conservatives that say the same thing happened then. Filmon's camp ran another candidate. They made sure there were three candidates to split the vote. There were all sorts of dirty tricks. I believe at least one of those individuals involved was later convicted in terms of an immigration fraud, scam–1983; 1988, I have mentioned this before–
An Honourable Member: Mr. Clark.
Mr. Ashton: And Mr. Clark, indeed. I say to people who say, well, what is the proof, in fact there has been a significant amount of work done on this. I believe the proof will come out. I remind people that in 1995 the Conservatives denied there was anything wrong in the Interlake, Dauphin and Swan River. No, it did not happen. In 1998, the Premier in June said it did not happen. It was not true. It was not true.
I want to go one step further, because the funny part about all the attention that has been paid to the vote-splitting scandal, Mr. Acting Speaker, is the fact that the biggest scam of the last election is one that I think needs to be investigated further. Maybe we need an inquiry on this scam. You know, it is funny. The Tories must be really frustrated right now with the vote-splitting scandal, because you know what really bugs them the most. Number one is that they got caught. Number two is it did not work. It did not work. They did not win any of those three ridings. That probably means more to them than anything, the fact that it did not work. If it had worked, that would have been fine.
But there was another scam in the last election. It was called Save the Jets. Remember that one? What is funny about this, some of the same people that were involved in the vote-splitting scandal were part of this Save the Jets committee. In fact, the ironic part is the head of it is now running for the Conservative Party in the next election.
An Honourable Member: Who is that?
Mr. Ashton: John Loewen.
An Honourable Member: The same.
Mr. Ashton: John Loewen, indeed.
You know, the bottom line here is, what did they do? Now I want you to compare Gary Filmon, who sort of did not know what was going on in the vote-splitting scandal, so he says. You remember what he said about the Jets, when days after the election it became clear that there was no hope of saving the Jets. Do you remember what he said? He said: I was out of the loop. [interjection]
Yes, the next day, as the member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale) points out: I was out of the loop.
An Honourable Member: Remember that in February, they agreed. They had already met with the Finance minister, and he already knew that.
Mr. Ashton: Well, as the member points out, the former Minister of Finance, now Minister of Health (Mr. Stefanson), had met with this group and gone through the business plan. They knew there was no hope in February, but they also knew that this was a great campaign issue. I remember what they did in the election. Here is the sort of ethical standards of this party. You know who they took advantage of in that election. We know in terms of aboriginal people, but it was also young people. They would go to the door in Rossmere and constituencies they knew to be close. They would not talk to the parents. They would talk to young adults, especially young males–
An Honourable Member: My son almost voted for them.
Mr. Ashton: Well, the member for Burrows (Mr. Martindale) said his son almost voted for them on this.
They went in and cynically said there is only one party that will save the Jets. I would suggest it cost the Liberal Party several seats, especially in southwest Winnipeg. It certainly cost us Rossmere, and probably made a significant difference in St. Vital and other seats that were close. You know what? I want to note this, by the way. This scam, this Tory scam, won them the election.
An Honourable Member: That lie worked.
Mr. Ashton: And indeed, as the member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale)
said, the only difference between this and the Monnin inquiry is that lie
worked: Save the Jets.
An Honourable Member: Phoenix rising from the ashes.
Mr. Ashton: Ah, exactly.
I guess I have some comfort, by the way, going into the next election. I know they cannot be running on Save the Jets again. Somehow I do not think Save the Moose is going to do it for them this time. I think the Moose are going to do okay as it is.
An Honourable Member: Save Gary Filmon.
Mr. Ashton: Well, indeed, you know. What it is going to be, the next election is Save Gary Filmon. Save the Premier, save his tattered reputation. I think the only reason he is hanging in, Mr. Acting Speaker, is because people know that one of the reasons the Conservative Party has suffered to the degree that it has is because of his leadership or lack thereof.
I want to say, Mr. Acting
Speaker, to repeat the phrase that I think is so often used in other contexts
but should be used in this case: Those who do not learn from history are
condemned to repeat it.
What we have to learn from the Monnin inquiry is the need to put in place the recommendations we see in this bill. But what we also have to do is understand, as this Conservative Party has failed to do since the scandal came forward–and that is to commit to a real concept of ethics in this province.
I ask the members opposite to do nothing more than what most Manitobans would ask. They want elected representatives and political parties to do their best for the province. They do not want people, either in an elected position or in close proximity to the party, to benefit financially in a huge way through no other reason than their connection with that party. They do not want fixed elections. They do not want the kind of lying that we saw repeatedly, like Judge Monnin talked about, never having seen as many liars.
The people of Manitoba want political parties committed, Mr. Acting Speaker, to a vision of fairness and ethics, and I say to members opposite, if you think that you have learned the lessons from Monnin, you have not, and I say on the record that I really believe the only way in which the Conservative Party will learn the lessons of the scandal is by being soundly defeated in the same way that Brian Mulroney was in 1993.
Mr. Tim Sale (Crescentwood): Mr. Acting Speaker, as all members of the House know, I had a rather long and intense involvement in this whole disgusting scandal, and I want to speak in support of the amendments, although I think there are a couple of them I am going to make comments on that may not go far enough.
My involvement in this sorry process started with the fact that a number of the press believed that there was a story here that had not been told in its full entirety in 1995 because people had lied to the investigation by Elections Manitoba, but, unfortunately, they had no hard information other than a strong perception that the whole truth had not been told.
So, Mr. Acting Speaker, when I was privy to a conversation with Allan Aitken and Kim Sigurdson in which a free and frank admission of the depth of this scandal was made, I realized that we were not going to be able to simply say, well, that was '95, this is 1998, because what was at risk was the public trust in our whole democratic process. What was also at risk was the potential for at least one political party, the Progressive Conservative Party, to believe that they could get away with anything in their pursuit of power.
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So we began to attempt to tie down what actually happened, and, ultimately, in spite of our best efforts, we were unable to get Mr. Sutherland to make the admission that he finally made to the CBC. At that point we had, as our lawyer had told us we needed to have in January when we first consulted legal counsel on this issue, two ends of the story. We had Mr. Aitken as confirmed by Mr. Sigurdson meeting with Mr. Sokolyk, and we had Mr. Sutherland admitting that he had received substantial funding to persuade him to run for a party created by the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba.
You know, in spite of the fact that virtually the whole riding of Interlake, my honourable colleague from the Interlake's riding–the whole riding knew about this scam. The Tory candidate, Mr. Trachuk is named in the report as having sat down with Mr. Sokolyk and Mr. Aitken–and we believe Val Hueging as well, although that is not in the report–and hatched this scheme prior to the writ being dropped in mid-March of 1995. The whole Interlake knew about this. Mr. Sigurdson and his friends knew about this. Obviously Mr. Sokolyk knew about it, he hatched it. Mr. McFarlane knew about it; Mr. Benson knew about it. Mr. Thorsteinson and Mr. Kozminski made some efforts to raise money for this little scam; they knew about it. Mr. Benson knew about it. The number of people who knew about this in 1995 was an astoundingly large number. The Premier knew about the allegations because Paul Samyn came to him on the bus and said, Mr. Premier, this is what we have been told, is it true? That was the point at which the Premier had the ability because, my goodness, it is very clear from how that party runs that if the Premier says jump, the members all say, how high, sir, how high.
If the Premier had asked the question in any kind of serious way, he would have been told. So it is difficult to believe that he simply walked away from the most serious accusation that could be made during an election, an accusation of bribery, vote splitting and money flowing improperly from one campaign to another campaign. Yet he tells us, and we are bound to accept his word in this House, that he knew nothing.
It reminds me of that funny story of when Mr. Benson was fired by Mr. Leitch, who said, Jules, you have to go; you cannot stay. The Premier said he did not know anything about that. Did not know anything about that. Jules was gone. You know, you had this kind of image of the Premier coming into his office and saying: where is Jules, I have not seen Jules for the last few days, where is big Julie, and the Premier's secretary said, oh, we fired him; Gary, we fired him, he is gone. And Gary says, oh, I did not know, I did not know. No, I just did not know. There are so many things he apparently did not know.
I want to focus on the
auditing and accounting issues in this set of amendments which is, particularly
Part 2, the amendments to The Elections Finances Act. I might just say to the
honourable member for Fort Garry (Mrs. Vodrey), there is a little clause in
here that she might want to read and think about. It is Clause 10.2(4) An
auditor whose professional judgment or objectivity is impaired in the manner
described in subsection 3 is disqualified from being an auditor and shall
resign immediately.
It is an interesting section. She probably should send a copy of that to Mr. McFarlane because it would be instructive for him to consider how as a professional person he could be her campaign manager, the assessor for the Liquor Commission, the comptroller of the PC Party in the election and not perceive there to be any hint of a conflict. He is clearly in possession of knowledge that would cloud at least his judgment if not his action. He knew who gave money, big money, to the Tory party. He knew who gave money to the candidate for whom he was the manager. He knew whom all the cheques were written to, the $1.5 million worth of cheques that were written in the 1995 campaign, but it never occurred to him that there might be a conflict here. Well, he should read that amendment and so should the Minister responsible for the Liquor Control Commission. It is simply atrocious that she would hide behind the firm he works for and say, oh, when he came to do this little job for us–for which he was well paid–he was just acting in his capacity as a member of his firm. I barely knew the man, you know, I can hear her saying it now–I barely knew the man; I hardly recognized him. Gordon McFarlane, I barely knew you. Well, what a scandal. What a scandal.
But let us talk about the auditing function here. Because of the fact that the cover-up scheme was essentially inept when it came right down to it, essentially inept–
An Honourable Member: No argument there.
Mr. Sale: I am glad the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) agrees that it was an inept cover-up scheme, because it certainly was. You know, you have a certified fraud inspector and an ex-businessman–we will talk about him in a minute–and you have Jules Benson, all kind of forgetting that when cheques go through the bank, the bank makes a microfiche copy. So you can tear up your cheque; you can hide it in a file; it does not matter; it is still on record at the bank in a microfiche copy.
So when we received information about this cheque, the game was over. All that had to happen was that Judge Monnin subpoenaed the records of the PC Party, and the bank very properly, after checking the authority of the judge, provided the microfiche copies, every single cheque, a great thick wad of paper with three cheques per page, and do they ever make interesting reading. I think that it would almost be a kind of public service for all members of the Conservative Party to get a copy of those cheques. They would find them very, very interesting.
I want to comment on the auditing process. You, know, Mr. Acting Speaker, there is a recommendation here to strengthen the audit process, but let me tell you that the federal government, the federal elections process, requires that Elections Canada does the audit, not a private firm, not somebody subject to political manipulation or to a nudge-nudge, wink-wink, do-not-ask-for-the-bank-statements audit, but Elections Canada. I am really wondering whether this amendment goes far enough in terms of its requirements, because it still allows for private auditors to audit the statements of political parties.
Let me tell you what the Conservatives did in 1995 in terms of the cheques they wrote: $300,000 written to their polling firm in the immediate run-up to the election, $300,000 of polling in the few weeks before the election, a lot of it push polling, pushing for issues so they could get people to agree to language–push polling, not honest polling for opinion but push polling.
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Now, of course, that is not an election expense under The Elections Act. Polling is not an election expense–you do not have to declare that–but advertising is. Now, the Conservative Party had an advertising limit in 1995. It was exactly 50 percent of the campaign limit, about $540,000 roughly. That was their advertising limit. But, you know, the cheques to Jake Marks total $787,000. Now, those who understand The Elections Finances Act and how it works will know that if you go over on your advertising, it is game over, right? You have broken the act and at the central party level, if you go over, the election can be simply nullified. It is a very serious offence.
So how was it that the
party could get away with writing $787,000 worth of cheques to Jake Marks and
Barb Biggar–
An Honourable Member: Barb who?
Mr. Sale: Barb Biggar. Remember Barb Biggar, Biggar Ideas? Yes, $787,000 on a limit of $540,000; they were $240,000 over their limit, not an accidental couple of thousand, $240,000 over their limit. Now, how did the auditing function work in regard to that little problem? How the auditing function worked in regard to that little problem, that $240,000 overexpenditure, I think the member for Lakeside (Mr. Enns) knows how it works. He is listening very carefully.
How it works is this. Elections Manitoba only audits what they are given. Right? So it is pretty simple. You just do not report all those cheques that were written for election purposes. You just do not report them. You say: we spent the limit, and Elections Manitoba says: oh, very good, how clever of you, you just spent the limit. There is no requirement to show how it is that out of receiptable campaign donations $240,000 more than was allowable was spent. They do not have to show, well, this ad was not used or this paper was not consumed or these slots on radio were not in fact used. We bought them, but we did not use them. They do not have to prove, under this legislation or under the previous legislation. [interjection] The member talks about that kind of tactic, and I would believe that from the Conservative Party, that they would buy billboards and they would buy air time and they would buy TV time so that no one else could have it. He must have gone to the same law school as his colleague, where students take out books so that other students cannot get them. What an interesting comment. The honourable Minister of Agriculture has an interesting sense of fair play.
I do not think this auditing function is going to prevent a party in the future from spending far more than they were allowed to. I ask members to cast their minds back to 1995 and the last week of the campaign, the last 10 days, but mostly the week. There was saturation advertising from the Conservative party. You could barely see anything on television for the number of ads for that party. In my riding we had the distribution of brochures, full colour, seven- or eight-page foldout brochures that were far more expensive than we could afford and live within the limit, but there they were, thousands and thousands of them.
I think it is entirely possible that the Conservative party not only broke the law in regard to bribery and obstruction and perjury, but they also broke the law in the election spending. But under the current regulations, there is no way of finding that out. There is no audit procedure to find that out. What one has to ask, Mr. Acting Speaker, is: would any sane person spend $240,000 more than they were allowed to spend? Why would they do that? Charity? From that party? I do not think so. So we are left with a puzzle. They spent $240,000 apparently on things they did not use. Charity to Jake Marks, that is the only possible explanation, because those expenses were never declared.
Now, they forgot to declare a couple of other expenses too. There were some expenses to Barb Biggar and there were expenses to Allan Aitken and there were several other expenses. They just forgot to include those. But you know, those pale by comparison with the amount of advertising overexpenditure. I think at the end of the Monnin inquiry, the Tories were so glad to get out of that without seriously looking at the advertising spending and the degree to which they broke a very serious provision of that act. They just congratulated themselves that all that had happened was that five of them got convicted of breaking the law. They thought that was a pretty good conclusion by comparison with what could have happened if Judge Monnin had gone into the auditing in a serious way.
I want to turn to the work of Mr. McFarlane briefly, page 3 of the transcript of Monday, October 26, examination by Mr. Green of Mr. McFarlane. This is a clue to the degree to which the Conservative Party is so utterly confused about accountability, the separation of the party from the province, of elected office from appointed office. This party is so ethically confused. Listen to what Mr. McFarlane says. This is the person who appears as an official of the PC Party of Manitoba, the comptroller in their election campaign. Mr. McFarlane, question from Mr. Green, you are still the campaign comptroller of the Progressive Conservative Party, are you? Mr. McFarlane answers, yes. Question: You were first appointed by Premier Filmon before the 1995 election? Answer: Yes. Question: As the comptroller of the campaign, to whom do you report? Answer: I guess, ultimately, to the PC Manitoba Fund, but during the election campaign, it was basically to Taras Sokolyk. The reporting structure was such that I reported to him.
Now is that not an incredible statement on the part of Mr. McFarlane? He thinks that he is accountable to Arni Thorsteinson, as the comptroller of the party. He does not understand that in an election there is a law called The Election Finances Act, and it is the party that is accountable, not the PC Manitoba Fund. The PC Manitoba Fund is not even an elected body, let alone an official body under The Elections Act. It is the bagman. The comptroller of the party thinks he is accountable to the bagman. What an amazing statement for Mr. McFarlane to have made.
We go on to find out in the second interview that Mr. McFarlane had with the commission that not only was he the confused comptroller of the party who thought he was accountable to Arni Thorsteinson, he was also the accountant for Taras Sokolyk. He was Taras's accountant. He helped Taras deal with his financial affairs, including billing. The PC members opposite, Mr. Acting Speaker, might be interested in this too. Mr. Sokolyk billed the party for consulting services that he provided on the weekends when he went to party meetings. By golly, I wish I could get some consulting services for meetings I went to on a weekend. We would all retire.
An Honourable Member: Just gas money would be good.
Mr. Sale: Gas money would be good, as the member for Lakeside says.
Mr. Sokolyk got consulting fees from the PC Party for his weekend time. There are some really interesting people to whom these fees were ultimately paid out–$8,500 worth of them–very interesting. Well, it appears that some of the consulting fees were paid out to Mr. Sokolyk's son for advice and assistance. His son was 12 years old at the time. You know, I kind of wondered whether–
An Honourable Member: Did you give him a T4 slip?
Mr. Sale: I wondered whether he got a T4 slip, yes. I also was kind of wondering whether the income tax people might be interested in finding out whether we were just splitting income here so that we did not have to report too much on our old income tax.
So it is really interesting. I paid my son several thousand dollars in consulting fees. It is on page 89 of the transcript, asking about Mr. Sokolyk's son. Mr. McFarlane again says: to your knowledge what management services did Mrs. Sokolyk provide to the company? Answer–this is the man who wrote the cheque and audited the books: I am not sure what management services she provided. Question: do you know if she provided any? Answer–now, here is an interesting answer. This is fees paid from Sokolyk Holdings to Mrs. Sokolyk. Here is the answer: well, she certainly would be attending PC functions and that sort of thing, but I do not know that I can answer for sure.
So, hello, Mr. McFarlane, Mr. Sokolyk's accountant, is explaining that Mrs. Sokolyk should get management fees because she attended PC Party functions. Wait a minute. There is a little confusion here, I think.
Okay, next question. And Mr. Sokolyk's son on at least one occasion received a management fee to your knowledge? Answer: yes. Had he received management fees on more than one occasion? Answer: I would have to check the records. Question: Would you do that and let us know the dates, please? Undertaking number 3, advise re management fees received by Mr. Sokolyk's son.
By Mr. Green: do you know what management services he provided to the company? Answer: not absolutely certain. Question: are you generally aware? Answer–this is from the accountant who signed the statement: no, I am not. Question: do you know how old he is? Answer: I believe he is 13, 14, something like that. Question: is that his present age? Answer: yes. Question: so at that time the management fee in May of 1995 was paid, he would have been around 10 years of age, to your knowledge. Answer: something like that.
This is from an accountant. You know, subtract three from 13, you get 10. Answer: something like that.
Invoicing, which we will get to the specifics of later, the invoicing on a per diem basis by Sokolyk Holdings Limited, was that, to your knowledge, specifically authorized by anyone in the PC Party? Hello. Answer: to my knowledge, no.
So here is the Premier's Chief of Staff billing the party of the Acting Speaker. Was it authorized by the party? Not to the accountant's knowledge, and he wrote the cheques: to my knowledge, no. Well, now, how did he get instructed to pay these management fees to Sokolyk Holdings on the part of the PC Party. This is very interesting. Who instructed him to do this? Answer: Taras was giving me these invoices and I assumed they were valid invoices.
So Taras writes out an invoice to Taras, Taras signs it, Taras gives it to McFarlane, McFarlane cuts a cheque, and Taras cashes it. That is called controls, right, internal controls on your accounting system. You authorize your chief of staff to write cheques to himself–really interesting.
Question: so you did not actually at any time check to see that it had been something that had been okayed by the party prior to your receiving the invoices? Mr. McFarlane's answer: no. Question: you were just going on Mr. Sokolyk's say-so, in effect? Answer: yes. Question: do you know if anyone in the Progressive Conservative Party had okayed the use of Sokolyk Holdings as a vehicle for charging these consulting fees? Answer: I am not sure who that might be.
It is no wonder that Cubby Barrett got a licence for the Cross Lake Inn with an accountant doing the cheques like Gordon McFarlane. He would write cheques to a man who would sign over some of this money to his 10-year-old son, and there is only one reason to do that, and that is to avoid income tax. That is the only possible reason for that. He would sign cheques to his wife, who by the accountant's admission, did not do anything for the company. Why do you do that? To split income to avoid taxes.
Mr. McFarlane did the assessment on the 35 shortlisted liquor licence applications. Mr. McFarlane, the campaign manager for the member for Fort Garry (Mrs. Vodrey), the minister responsible, sat with the minister and assessed applicants for licences that made people instant millionaires, and he could not make the connection between his role as the comptroller of the party–and he thought he reported to Arni Thorsteinson in that role–his role as the accountant for Sokolyk Holdings, where he writes cheques out to 10-year-olds, and his role assessing 35 applicants for liquor licences that would make them millionaires. He sees nothing wrong, and the minister saw nothing wrong, and that is exactly why this party is in deep trouble. That party sees nothing wrong with mixing party, government, private, election, fundraising. They not only see nothing wrong with it, they do not even understand that those are separate concepts. That is how far out of touch they are.
Madam Speaker in the Chair
I want to turn to Mr. Benson for a minute. Mr. Benson was in knowing breach of his oath from March of 1995 until the day he was allowed to resign with his nice little $40,000 severance package. He knew he had broken The Civil Service Act. He did not just do it in a minor accidental way. He visited advertisers. He sat in on the budget development. He met with the campaign committee. Let the co-chairs of the campaign tell this House that they did not know of Mr. Benson's involvement when he sat in on the budget meetings, and he sat in on advertising meetings, he signed over a hundred cheques, he came regularly to party headquarters during the election. Let them stand up and say they knew nothing about this when they served on this committee as co-chairs. Let them stand up and make this House believe that they knew nothing about this.
That is an untenable position for them to take, unless they were totally derelict in their duties, and they did not go to any of those meetings, and they did not talk to any of those people, and they did not play any role as co-chairs of the campaign. It is a strange coincidence that two of the several senior cabinet ministers who are resigning just happen to be the co-chairs of the 1995 campaign.
I ask backbenchers on the government side: is it credible that the member for Arthur-Virden (Mr. Downey) and the member for Fort Garry (Mrs. Vodrey) in their role as campaign co-chairs would have no knowledge that Jules Benson represented them at budget meetings, represented them at advertising meetings, went to the headquarters of the party on a regular basis, wrote out and did a great deal of the bookkeeping–over a hundred cheques he made out by his own admission–and they did not know that and the Premier (Mr. Filmon) did not know that? The meetings were held in this building. They were not held in party headquarters. They were right here, meetings about the budget for the PC election campaign. The member for Arthur-Virden is on the ethics group. The fox is truly in the henhouse.
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Finally, I want to talk just a little bit about the kind of role that I believe we should not have had to take in this campaign: to point out the illegal behaviour of the party opposite. Had Elections Manitoba, in 1995, simply followed the money this whole thing would have been found out then, and we would not have had to spend a million dollars or whatever it was. It would have all come to light then had they simply followed the money. Had anybody been truthful on the PC side, when they were asked questions in 1995, we would not have had to spend this money in 1998. It would have all come out, if anybody had been truthful, but none were. Mr. Aitken lied, and everybody else they talked to on the PC side lied.
So it was left to us and to the press to chase down the truth. It would not have been able to be done if it had not been for a courageous person who finally told the truth, Darryl Sutherland; a former candidate who assisted in getting the process rolling, Kim Sigurdson; and a braggart named Allan Aitken, who was so cocky that he thought he could brag to us about this scam, particularly in response to a question from my honourable friend, the member for Interlake (Mr. C. Evans). He bragged to us.
You know, in retrospect, both the member for Interlake and myself realize that he bragged alright, but even in his bragging he was lying, because he did not tell us about Cubby Barrett. He alluded to cheques of course, and a number of other things he told us, which were not quite truthful, but there was enough truth there to get going on it.
You know, I could say something that would make honourable members opposite laugh. I think I will just say it and that is, I have been waiting for this reformed Premier, instead of making gutter, personal attacks, to get up and thank Kathy Aitken, and to thank Kim Sigurdson, and to thank Darryl Sutherland, and to thank Clif Evans, and to thank Tim Sale, for bringing to light the worst scandal in Manitoba's electoral history. If he is really glad that this stain is now out and can be dealt with, if he is really glad that ethics are going to finally surface again, he would thank those who put their reputations on the line.
Instead what did he do? He slagged Darryl Sutherland. He puts words in Justice Monnin's mouth and accuses me of something that Justice Monnin never said, did not even allude to. Justice Monnin's nose was out of joint, and I recognize that, but Justice Monnin did not suggest that I had broken the law. If he had ever suggested that, then of course there would be a problem here, but he simply did not like the aggressiveness with which we chased witnesses.
Would we do that again? You are darn right, we would. We got the key witness that he finally came to believe, Kathy Aitken. The only reason there was an inquiry was because we had an affidavit from Kathy Aitken, and the Premier was embarrassed to the point where he finally had to do the right thing. That is why there was an inquiry. Was it an aggressive act on our part? Absolutely. We went after the truth, and we finally got part of it, in the words of Judge Monnin: Part of the truth.
He is still uncertain as to whether he got the whole truth. I think it is pretty clear from whom he did not get the whole truth.
One of the things that the press pointed out informally throughout this whole process was–it was interesting–the Conservatives only ever admitted to that which could be absolutely proven on the evidence. They never voluntarily came forward and said: Here is the story. We are embarrassed. It was stupid.
They grudgingly, with their fingernails clenched, admitted only each fact as it was proven on the record. They never once came clean on anything. Even Gordon McFarlane, interview No. 1, interview No. 2 and finally testimony, still did not tell the whole truth, as Justice Monnin pointed out. Not one of those people has yet told the whole truth. It will be interesting, it will be interesting if criminal charges are laid for obstruction or perjury; it will be interesting to see what monkeys fall out of that tree when it starts to shake and when the prospect of major jail time or major fines has come home to five members of that party; it will be interesting to see whether their memories improve and whether the truth becomes finally known. It will be interesting. I think that we will all watch and wait.
Mr. Kowalski: I was not planning to speak on this bill, but the member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) motivated me with some of his comments. First of all, and I am sure I misunderstood him, I am sure he meant no intent to smear the ethics of many of my constituents in The Maples when he talked about how it is unethical for people to have more than one political sign on their front lawn. [interjection] Yes, he did, he said that. I took that–and there are many constituents of mine who did that, and it is part of the culture of some of the people where they come from that you do not say no when you are asked. Also, they believe in the secret ballot, and they believe that if they want to put all three political parties' signs on their front lawn, that is their democratic right. I was very disturbed by his comments calling that unethical. That is calling many of the people in The Maples unethical, and I take great offence to that.
Then he went on to smear the ethics of my colleague for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) and tried to diminish the wrongfulness of a member of the NDP party picking up the campaign signs in Inkster during the last provincial election and tried to say that was unimportant, that was not a serious thing. [interjection] No, please, this is my chance to speak, can I please speak? That is what he said. He says that is not important.
This is a slippery slope. That is why this whole debate I find very unfortunate. Whether it is the NDP pointing to the Conservatives or whether it is we talking about a candidate in Minnedosa doing wrongdoing, this is the ugly side of politics. This is a very ugly side, but you know what, he without sin, let him cast the first stone.
I will give you an example. In my own campaign in 1993, I was running against David Langtry and Norma Walker. I received some information that David Langtry was in the process–he was being sued civilly. Someone brought that to my attention. I said: no, I do not want to get into that. So then we went on the Peter Warren show as three candidates and what happened was someone from my campaign phoned in to bring up that point. Now, I was the candidate. I cannot control what every one of my workers do. This is someone who is very loyal to me, and they thought they were helping me. Well, Norma Walker jumped on it and started to discuss how if David Langtry was being sued, you know, he should not be running. I interrupted and I said: being a police officer, I believe someone is innocent until proven guilty and that this was a civil suit and no one was found responsible or unresponsible, therefore we should not discuss it. But that is an example of how zealots in a campaign do things that possibly we are not pleased with.
The member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton), the quality he brought to this debate, it brings all politicians down, this whole debate, by what we are talking about. I mentioned, and I am not being partisan, when we talk about the Liquor Commission, what about B.C. with Glen Clark?
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Madam Speaker: Order, please. When this matter is again before the House, the honourable member for The Maples (Mr. Kowalski) will have 36 minutes remaining.
The hour being 5 p.m. and time for private members' hour.