That in the opinion of this House, the government should strike an impartial public judicial inquiry into the total process of awarding and cancelling the 1993 Pearson airport redevelopment contract, leading up to and including the allegations that the Prime Minister of Canada solicited a $25,000 campaign contribution from Paxport Inc. just prior to the last Liberal Party leadership race and the awarding of the Pearson airport contract to Paxport.He said: Mr. Speaker, I believe that the only way we are ever going to clear the air on this whole odour of the Pearson development contract is to have a full, genuine, public judicial inquiry. I have called for that for over two years.
I am going to do a little bit of crystal balling. I suspect that in responding to this today the government will say that there has been an investigation, that the Senate held a full hearing.
Let us see how impartial the Senate investigation is. On one side the Liberal senators are justifying what the government did. On the other side the Conservative senators are trying to justify what the Conservative government did just before its defeat in 1993. But who is really interested in Pearson airport? That is the real question. Somebody needs to be concerned about Pearson airport, about the right of law, about the people in metro Toronto, about the flying public and about the Canadian taxpayer. Who was there representing them? Nobody.
Before I leave the subject of the Senate inquiry, I might add that at the inquiry the senators on both sides were able to call any and as many witnesses as they wanted to call. Despite having that ability, the Liberals only managed to pull in two or three people out of all the witnesses who came forward who supported their position, and they were on the Liberal payroll. I do not think that was a particularly good defence for the Liberals.
There was another investigation. Perhaps this one was more impartial. There was an investigation when the government first took office. The government said it was going to investigate this deal and if it found it was not a good deal for the Canadian taxpayer, it was going to cancel it. Was it an impartial investigation? Let us see. The investigation was done by one person, Mr. Robert Nixon. Mr. Nixon had 30 days to investigate this deal but he actually took a little less time. He received $80,000 for doing it.
Who is this Mr. Nixon, this impartial investigator? It seems he is a long time Liberal supporter, party fundraiser, treasurer for the Liberals in Ontario, father of a sitting Liberal member of Parliament in the current Liberal government. What did he get for doing this? He got $80,000, but the government will argue there were a lot of costs so he really did not make a huge amount of money.
Did he get anything else? Immediately after he put in his report with no substantiating evidence whatsoever, which said that it looked like a bad deal which he thought the government should cancel, the government responded by saying: ``Good enough, Mr. Nixon. For that we are now making you the chair of Atomic Energy of Canada''. That is really impartial.
How did we get into this mess in the first place? During the 1993 election the Liberals needed an issue. They needed a few issues. Everybody needs issues at election time. The Tories were really on the outs. They were accused of anything and everything and I suspect they were guilty of most of what they were accused of.
One of the things the present government accused the Tories of was having a corrupt deal in the Pearson development contract. The Liberals accused them that it was a pay off for their Tory friends and supporters and said that they were going to investigate it. I do not argue with the premise to look at it.
We started to investigate the contract in the House under the guise of Bill C-22, probably the most undemocratic piece of legislation this government has brought forward since 1993. I wanted to see if there was justification for the $30 million these very generous Liberals on the other side were going to give the consortium. I questioned whether those in the consortium should even get that, given all the things they were accused of. When I began to investigate this to decide if I should be arguing against giving them that much, to my surprise I could not find one single solitary piece of evidence to justify cancelling the contract in the first place.
I have never questioned the government's right to cancel the contract, only the relative wisdom of it. I certainly questioned the passing of a piece of legislation that enabled the government to cancel the contract retroactively which in effect would say that it never existed, that would set the compensation by legislation and that would ban the consortium from seeking redress from the court. The Minister of Transport then proceeded to call them corrupt and a great number of other names. He then took away their ability to defend themselves in court. We have found absolutely no justification for this.
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However secret government documents came to me. When I say secret I mean documents that came to me stamped ``secret''. They
cannot get more secret than that. When we finally got our hands on these documents they did not support the government's position. They in fact clearly instructed the government beforehand that it was making a bad move.
After two years the Prime Minister, who has not produced one single piece of supporting evidence to justify the legislation dealing with the Pearson airport, has not been able to get royal assent. When the government brings forward legislation and it is defeated, that is a motion of non-confidence. After two years the government cannot get the bill through the Senate. It has never passed. After two years it has failed. That is as close to a message of non-confidence we can give to this government as it is likely going to get in this session.
I am using the Prime Minister primarily because the then Minister of Transport and the now Minister of Transport, who no doubt are going to end up trying to support the Prime Minister on this sad piece of legislation, it is not their bill. It was the Prime Minister's bill all the way and there should not be any misunderstanding about that.
The Prime Minister and his lackeys have repeatedly attempted to justify the cancellation of the Pearson contract by saying it is far too rich a deal, that it is taking far too much taxpayers' money and shoving it into the pockets of Tory supporters, that it is just too great a return on their investment to justify letting it proceed.
A few things have turned up. When we investigate this we find that there are more Liberals than Tories in this. Now it has gone to court. A lot of people are not aware because the bill never passed, which amounts to a non-confidence motion on the government, that it went to court in Ontario.
The contract holder sued the government for breach of contract and the court said: ``Guilty. The federal government is in breach of contract''. Of course the federal government has tons and tons of taxpayers' money and it just trots down to the justice department and says: ``Start preparing our appeal''. When the government has unlimited funds it can prepare the best appeals in the world and it did. The courts again said: ``Guilty. You are wrong. It is a breach of contract and you are going to have to pay''. The matter is now in court to decide on the damages. The government is being sued for $600 million to $650 million.
The government has a defence. Members opposite should have some patience because we are going to defend the government. We are going to tell everybody what the government is using for this wonderful defence. Again, the government has all the justice resources in the world available to it. Keep in mind what I mentioned earlier about how the Prime Minister and his lackeys said the reason to cancel this deal was because it was far too rich and gave those Tory hacks far too much money, that the rate of return was way too high for the investment. What did the justice department come up with for a defence?
An hon. member: A drunken defence?
Mr. Gouk: Maybe a drunken defence would be good. That might explain some of it.
The justice department went into court and said: ``Your Honour, we should not be paying any compensation to the contract holders because they are mainly looking for compensation for lost profit and the actual fact is this was a terrible contract. They would have gone broke, lost their shirts and would not have made any profits so why should we compensate them for any?''
Is it not interesting that the government talks out of both sides of its mouth at the same time. That is quite a trick. Mind you, the Liberals have had decades and decades to practise with many years in opposition. I do not know how well they could practise it on this side of the House because when they go to the other side they say everything differently. Perhaps they got confused and thought half the time they were on this side of the House and the other half they were on that side and that is why they have two different stories on the same thing.
The Prime Minister has repeatedly misinformed the public on the matter of lease revenues. He said that we are giving up all these revenues that we currently get. That is a-well, I cannot say what I was going to say; I almost let it slip out. That is wholly inaccurate. I think that term is acceptable. It is wholly inaccurate because we have public government documents which clearly show that the lease payments are deferred during the construction period but they are repaid with interest. That is hardly what the Prime Minister has been telling everyone.
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The Prime Minister also deliberately disregarded government reports. Again these were stamped as secret all over them. These government reports clearly pointed out that cancellation of the contract would leave the government open to damages ranging from $500 million to $2 billion of taxpayers' money. Right now it is in court defending an action for over $600 million plus the cost of defence.
The manner in which the Prime Minister cancelled the contract brings into question the value of a contract signed by the government in the event that the government changes. The Prime Minister again deliberately disregarded secret government documentation which pointed out that the legislation limiting the government's liability left the crown open to many problems, including severe capacity and congestion problems at Pearson, increased construction costs and the danger of undermining the government's future leasing and contracting process. This is in a report that went to the government before it brought forward this odious piece of legislation.
The Prime Minister has spent $2 billion on false government job creation, the infamous infrastructure program. Call it infrastructure, fine. If we need some money to kickstart the infrastructure repairs in this country that is one thing, but to call it job creation is an absolute farce. The government spent $2 billion on this and it has virtually no permanent jobs. It is something like 4,500 permanent jobs.
The cancelled Pearson contract would have created 14,000 person years of construction employment with 1,200 new jobs at absolutely no cost to the Canadian taxpayer whatsoever. Now the government, in addition to this $600 million or $700 million worth of compensation that it could lose in court, in addition to all the legal costs that it is incurring, still has to do something about terminals 1 and 2. The consortium was going to spend $850 million of private investors' money in that.
The costs have gone up so we are now looking at $1 billion, or $1.2 billion which was the last estimate I heard. Where is the government going to get this money? It is not in its wonderful budget. Maybe it is going to spend the surplus money, but gee, it cannot. That is the money it is giving to Atlantic Canada to try to buy away the GST. I do not know where the government is going to get it.
The Prime Minister's mishandling of the Pearson contract has jeopardized 1,140 airport jobs, 560 direct off airport jobs and over 3,000 indirect jobs in the metro Toronto area. It also results in a tri-level government tax loss of $72 million a year.
Bill C-22 works against the interests of metro Toronto and all Canadians because after introducing open skies, things that have been long awaited for in the aviation industry, it has now jeopardized the future potential of Pearson airport as Canada's primary hub.
The final point I would like to raise is an allegation. I stress it is only an allegation that has come from many sources. The allegation is that the Prime Minister solicited a $25,000 contribution from one of the principals in the Pearson consortium for his leadership campaign fund.
There have been lots of allegations of this. The Prime Minister had the opportunity to at least partially dispel this. Part of the reason we cannot prove this one way or another is that his law partners refused to disclose documents because they are confidential. They are covered by the Privacy Act of lawyer-client confidentiality. The Prime Minister could have released all those documents to the public but he did not choose to do so. I think we should have a full and proper investigation to determine what these are.
I will close by making the same offer to the new Minister of Transport which I made to the old Minister of Transport. It can be the Prime Minister, I do not care who it is, who stands. If he is going to defend this then he had better be prepared to defend it publicly. I offered to publicly debate this with the previous Minister of Transport anywhere, anytime. One of the nation's television networks was prepared to cover it. I pointed out to him then as I point out to the new minister now, that the balance should be in their favour.
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The Minister of Transport can go armed with all his assistants, the deputy minister, the assistant deputy ministers, all his special assistants, executive assistants, all the justice department lawyers, and I will come armed only with the truth. The venue for the new minister, if he wishes, can be the University of Victoria in his riding or it can be one of the lighthouses he vowed to save after they pulled his bacon out of the straits when he was about to go under.
The offer is open and it stands but there needs to be full public disclosure on this. It has not happened and I suspect with the Liberal government it never will.
Mr. Joseph Volpe (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Health, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I hope I will not collapse to the same sort of seductive attraction that rhetoric holds for my colleague opposite. I hope we will be able to look at the facts rather than engage in disparaging repetitions of allegations from sources he well knows are suspect at the very best and at the very least motivated by self-interest.
We can address the issue in the motion presented by the member but we would also have to take a look at the premises he has cast forth in the House about the process. He says this has been an undemocratic system. He says that in the House where people get elected, where people have to go through a lot of trials to get the public to appreciate the position they will present in this place, in a place which is open and being televised today all over the country. Nothing is being hidden.
This is a House which authorizes committees both from the House as well as in the other for public inquiries that he requests. Then he says the system is undemocratic, it does not work. His colleague beside him says this place does not work. Why did you seek office? You come here to make it work.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): I take note on this Friday afternoon, as the week draws to an end, that there is a difference of opinion, but please express it through the Chair.
Mr. Volpe: I guess I was letting the truth, the facts and the evidence that have come forward over the course of the last several months influence my approach to this discussion. It is unfortunate that my colleagues are not infected by the same kind of democratic disease.
My good friend from Kootenay West-Revelstoke admits the Prime Minister and the government were well within their rights to cancel this deal. He questions whether deals with governments can be considered legitimate because they are prone to be cancelled. Can anyone imagine that, in 1993 right in the middle of an election campaign in which the Pearson airport deal was a nationwide issue?
As one who comes from Toronto and was very much in tune with what was going on at Pearson, I see a colleague opposite refer to an issue that was of national significance, controversial to say the very least, and the government of the day proceeded, nonetheless, to sign a deal. Can anyone imagine that he would then be surprised that it would be cancelled because it had been advertised that it would be? He should direct his anger at the former administration, but unfortunately there are none of them any longer in this place to take some accountability.
I hope members will forgive me if I chastise or perhaps simply chide my colleague and ask him why he continues to defend the indefensible.
I am astounded that the member is asking for yet another review.
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The first review was in the public context of the election. It was there for everyone to see, but it was not sufficient. Even though we followed through on our promises, the member asks for continuing expenditures of taxpayer money on an inquiry that has already been held.
We should not be considering a judicial inquiry or a Senate inquiry. That has already been debated in the Senate and it was decided the Senate inquiry would have the power to send for people, for papers, for records to examine witnesses under oath and heaven knows what else.
As the hon. member knows, on May 4, 1995 the special committee of the Senate on the Pearson airport agreement was formed with the following mandate: ``That the special committee of the Senate be appointed to examine and report upon all matters concerning the policies and negotiations leading up to and including the agreements respecting the redevelopment and operation of terminals 1 and 2 at Lester B. Pearson International Airport and the circumstances relating to the cancellation thereof''.
That committee sat between July and November and heard testimony from over 60 people including all major private sector participants involved in that project, from former ministers and senior public servants who acted on the government's behalf to the people who were protecting their own private interests. That was fine.
In addition, the committee reviewed thousands and thousands of pages of documentation. The evidence demonstrated conclusively that the Pearson airport deal was not in the best interests of the country in terms of substance and process.
An hon. member: That is a bald faced lie.
Mr. Volpe: I am speaking the truth. This is an open place and if we do not speak the truth we are very quickly found out.
The notable achievement of this special committee is that it heard more than 130 hours of testimony given under oath by 65 witnesses.
The public following this debate may be shocked to hear these kinds of things after having heard the rhetoric from the member opposite. From witnesses from both the public and private sector, those most knowledgeable on all the issues, all of the negotiations and all of the decisions made about Pearson, that committee saw an abundance of evidence including construction management contracts, architectural and engineering service contracts, other management contracts. Shall I go on?
The inquiry revealed to the public the role of lobbyists in the Pearson airport agreement. The report of the special Senate committee on the Pearson airport agreement is a very thick volume and I recommend it for the member's reading. This is a product of extensive inquiry which examined all of the relevant players and over 10,000 pages of documents, and which addressed all the motions put before the committee. I think that is very thorough.
An inquiry has been done. It has been open. It has followed the process of judicial inquiries. It has followed the process required by an open democratic system.
Given all the time and extensive consideration already devoted to such a comprehensive inquiry, I do not understand, but maybe other members do, how a member can demand that the government be expected to use millions more in taxpayer dollars to have yet another inquiry to come to the same conclusion. Need we go through this again? The answer is clearly and absolutely no. No further review is required.
Through the entire process, the allegations with respect to wrong doing have been substantiated by evidence that has been put forward. My colleague opposite is trying to score points in this political arena where we never take a partisan side. He introduces that element in this political forum.
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I should advise him that some of these allegations attack individuals whose known service in the public domain at the provincial level such as the first individual who looked at the impartial agreement. We cannot cast aspersions on people who dedicate themselves to public service. They are under constant
scrutiny. If we want to cast aspersions, let us do so outside the Chamber.
The government has gone through the entire system as is required by the taxpayers and citizens of the country. It has acted responsibly, followed all the processes and it is being held accountable. All the procedures are maintained in their integrity and the public interest is first, foremost and always safeguarded.
Mr. Dick Harris (Prince George-Bulkley Valley, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in support of the motion put forward by the member for Kootenay West-Revelstoke.
What we have here will undoubtedly go on for a while and will probably be viewed like a television mini-series by the time we get through. It has all the elements. It has intrigue, influence peddling, patronage and unholy relationships between very strange bedfellows and their respective party friends, the Liberals and the Tories. This could win an Oscar by the time we are through.
When this story is finished I do not think there is an author in the world who could write anything as intriguing that would carry all the elements that people look for as entertainment.
Unfortunately this is not something the Canadian people look on as entertaining, and it should not be something the Liberals and the former government smile smugly about, thinking all the bases are covered and that this will not come out into the open. It will. Something as unholy as the relationship in the Pearson Airport deal cannot be covered up forever. It will come up.
I am familiar with this issue, having sat for a number of months on the transport committee. I appreciate the opportunity to contribute to the debate and probably expand on the truths coming from this side of the House so that the Canadian people following the debate in the media and on television will get a real grasp on what actually has happened and what will happen around the Pearson airport deal.
We are talking about something the Liberals talked about prior to the election. The Liberals actually put this in their red book. They called for openness and transparency in the operation of government. How good they said it would be to get a Liberal government that would operate in an open and transparent manner, something that has been missing in all other governments that were not Liberal.
Quite frankly, we think that is a good idea. That is why the member for Kootenay West-Revelstoke has put forward a motion that calls on the government to deal with the Pearson airport deal, this whole mess, by establishing an impartial public judicial inquiry to look at all the events surrounding this apparently clandestine deal.
My hon. friend is asking for nothing different from what the Liberals promised in their campaign, openness and transparency and truth. This type of inquiry is needed when we consider how the matter has been handled up to now by the government, the Senate and the committees. A lot of time and money was wasted on the issue. To this date we are no closer to the truth than we were before this whole thing started.
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The Liberals blame the Tories, which is not surprising. The Tories blame the Liberals, which is not surprising. I am surprised that both of them do not blame the Reformers and we were not even here yet. Make no mistake, Reformers are here now and the government has to deal with Reformers when it comes to openness, transparency and truth. There will be no more getting away with the stuff that the Liberals and their Tory friends have been doing for decades.
As I indicated, if the truth were known it would clearly show, not to the surprise of too many people, that the Liberals and Tories have been, still are and will continue to be in bed with each other until maybe we are no longer a country. Hopefully that will never happen, although the way the Liberals are treating the Bloc and the relationship developing between them, we never know what can happen.
This entire affair has been under the control of the government since the start. If there was ever a time to take an impartial look, an open look, a transparent look, a look where the criteria is truth, the time is now.
As members know, the previous Tory government signed a deal with a private sector consortium to take over Pearson International Airport. What upset the Liberals was the fact that this contract was signed during the 1993 election campaign. Their spin doctors and their strategists probably got them together and said: ``You might lose some votes around the Toronto area if this thing gets signed by the Tories, so what can we do to turn this thing around? We will call it a lousy deal and we will threaten to cancel it''. They have the money to get good spin doctors. They did put a different spin on it. They made the contract an election issue. They promised to scrap it should they be elected.
This is surprising. It seems to me they made a similar promise about the GST before the election. Am I mistaken that they were going to scrap the GST?
Nevertheless the airport deal was scrapped. In order to justify the termination of this project the government thought after it was done that perhaps some people were wondering about it. They thought they had better bring someone in to back them up, someone who would speak the truth, who would be impartial, who would be open, who would show transparency and truth, someone people could trust. They picked Robert Nixon, Liberal Robert Nixon.
Is it true that this Mr. Nixon was a Liberal member? He could not have been a Liberal member. There are allegations that he was a Liberal bagman. Could that be true? There are allegations that he had some very strong ties to the Liberal Party. Let us not forget where he is now. He could not be the CEO of some crown corporation that is controlled by the Liberal government? Could the recent round of ministerial appointments be in any way affected by the fact that Mr. Nixon was a long time friend of this Liberal government? Perish the thought.
The Liberals have said and of course everyone must believe them-
Mr. Szabo: Mr. Speaker, a point of order. I apologize for not being very familiar with the rules but this particular line is getting very close to casting aspersions upon an hon. member of this House and I think improperly.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): I give my assurance to the entire House that I am listening to the debate with great attention. Respectfully the member does not have a point of order. He is engaging in debate.
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Mr. Harris: Mr. Speaker, I was asking questions that had been raised.
Mr. Nixon reported back to the Liberals in 30 days-that was quick work-with a report that argued in favour of terminating the contracts. Were we really surprised? This was because of undue influence peddling among the chief players in the consortium and the Tory government. Can we be surprised about that?
I will not stand here and deny that I do not have any doubt that the previous Tory government may have ventured into patronage payoffs to friends of the party. Mr. Nixon had this in his report which took only 30 days and nevertheless cost $82,000. I am sorry, he got a bonus. After his bill was paid, he was then appointed as chairman of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. I missed that earlier.
He issued an 11-page report which works out to $7,000 per page-
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): Order. I regret interrupting but member's interventions are limited to 10 minutes and I must resume debate. The hon. member for Mississauga South.
Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Motion No. 167 which proposes the government strike an impartial inquiry into the process of awarding and cancelling the 1993 Pearson airport redevelopment contract.
I have every sympathy for the hon. member's idea of an impartial inquiry. I am all for openness and impartiality. However, I am also in favour of protecting the Canadian taxpayer from a terrible waste of money. The motion would inflict this waste on the Canadian taxpayer because the cancellation of the Pearson airport contract has already been reviewed. It has been reviewed by the Senate and now it is being reviewed by the general division of the Ontario Court of Justice.
First I will discuss the Senate inquiry. The issue of the awarding and cancellation of the Pearson airport redevelopment contract was subject to a very lengthy inquiry by a special committee of the Senate. The special Senate committee was created for the express purpose of looking into all aspects related to policies and negotiations which led to the conclusion of the Pearson airport redevelopment contract, as well as the circumstances which led to its cancellation.
The committee was given the power to compel witnesses to appear under oath and to produce documents. The special committee heard more than 130 hours of testimony given by more than 65 witnesses, including all of the main players in this matter. Among the witnesses to appear were interveners from the private sector involved in the redevelopment project as well as high ranking civil servants representing the government. The witnesses who were called and who appeared were the people who were most aware of the stakes, the negotiations and the decisions surrounding the contracts. Their testimony was given in a very public manner with ample media coverage.
The inquiry resulted in the facts coming to light in a very detailed manner. The volume of documents alone provides evidence of the thoroughness of the review conducted. In order to assist the inquiry, the government reviewed hundreds of thousands of Department of Transport documents. It organized and shipped roomfuls of these documents to the Senate committee. I understand those documents are available to the public. The hon. member is perfectly free to visit that document room and review each and every one of those documents if he so wishes.
After such extensive consideration of the awarding and cancellation of the redevelopment contract, it would appear to me to be a waste of time and money for another inquiry to be called to look into the same issue. The process was very open and public and Canadians are now well aware of the main elements of the awarding and cancellation of that contract. To contend that another inquiry would somehow be beneficial to Canadians is to say the least misleading. Furthermore such an exercise would be a waste of precious tax dollars at a time when fiscal responsibility is the order of the day.
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In the same breath with which the Reform Party is calling us for cutting spending, it is again also calling for the government to take steps which would involve the irresponsible spending of precious dollars in an inquiry into an issue which has already been the subject of very extensive and public inquiry. This is difficult to understand, irresponsible, and I stress, another clear indication that
the Reform Party is out of touch with what is most important to the Canadian people.
Let me turn to the other important review that the hon. member appears to have forgotten in presenting this motion to the House. The crown and the T-I, T-II partnership are currently engaged in litigation in the Ontario Court of Justice, general division. In short, the issues raised by this motion are already the subject of court proceedings. Why would the government duplicate that court process with a separate, expensive judicial inquiry? Surely a judicial inquiry is completely redundant to the process that is presently under way.
I would like to review very briefly what is at stake in the ongoing litigation. Hon. members opposite should know that the damages, if any, to the partnership will be very thoroughly reviewed by the court. The partnership originally informed the judge that it intended to present over 50 days of testimony to her. That is 50 days of examination by the partnership's lawyers, 50 days of detailed information by expert witnesses and others on the ins and outs of the Pearson agreement. Those 50 days do not even include the cross-examination by the crown's lawyers.
Now that the court has begun its hearings it is clear to everyone that those hearings are going to stretch well into the summer and likely into the fall. The first witness for the T-I, T-II partnership testified for over 10 days before the crown's lawyers even had a chance to cross-examine. Many other witnesses will be put through a similar process by the lawyers. Surely the hon. member does not really intend to duplicate that process.
Once the partnership has submitted its case, the crown will put its case to the judge. The Department of Justice has its own team of expert witnesses who will testify in open court. Those witnesses will also be cross-examined in detail by the lawyers for the T-I, T-II partnership. Then after all the examinations and cross-examinations, the lawyers on both sides will make weeks of closing arguments on the evidence and on the law.
The hon. member opposite surely cannot be seriously asking that we duplicate this process on the backs of the Canadian taxpayers.
In summary, the hon. member's motion is asking Canadians to pay for yet another expensive inquiry into the Pearson airport transaction. The Senate has conducted an extensive and expensive public inquiry already. The Ontario Court of Justice, general division, is currently reviewing the contracts in detail. These issues have already been very thoroughly reviewed.
Therefore, this House should conclude that the review proposed by this motion is in fact redundant. The taxpayers of Canada should not be asked to spend any more money on yet another review.
In the last moments that I have in the time allotted to me I want to comment on the last speaker's presentation to the House. I can tell you as a member of Parliament I was quite disturbed by the references to a member sitting in this place by casting aspersions on the minister of revenue's personal integrity and ability to do the job.
As a seatmate of that person over the last two years, and having participated with that member in the finance committee and in other matters to do with this honourable place, I can tell you I know of no finer, capable minister of revenue.
Mr. McClelland: Mr. Speaker, a point of order. I listened intently to the speech previous to the one of the hon. member. I did not detect the slightest reference to the present minister of revenue.
Mr. Szabo: Cabinet appointments.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): Respectfully I would rule that the member for Edmonton Southwest does not have a point of order. It is a matter of debate.
Let me take the occasion, as members from both sides of the House have intervened, to remind hon. members to be judicious with their our words.
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Mr. Ian McClelland (Edmonton Southwest, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, I have just a few words I would like to have on the record.
My experience in the House with the Minister of National Revenue would reflect the same as the member who just spoke: a very capable and a very hardworking member. I do not think we should leave on record the thought that there is any aspersion cast on that particular minister.
Having said that, there is aspersion all around. There is a saying that if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck in so far as it quacks, if you find it in your water and you see it in a group of other ducks, the chances are it may well be a duck. That is the underlying principle this motion tends to speak to.
We know full well, and those who have been in politics understand, that it is possible to promise much during an election campaign and deliver little or nothing after the election. The important thing is getting elected. Once you have been elected and if you have power then, as members opposite and the government have so ably shown in the distasteful handling of the GST promise, you can promise one thing and then do quite another and claim all kinds of reasons for doing this.
In the case of the Pearson airport deal, a deal was launched for well over a year. Whether we liked it or not, there were people involved from both political parties, the Liberals and the Tories, who had in good conscience come together to take over the Pearson airport.
This deal was signed by a Conservative Prime Minister. There are those around who feel that signing it during an election campaign, which I submit was very poor timing although the deal had been concluded by Treasury Board officials well before the election was called, did not show good judgment. In any event, it did become a political football during the election campaign.
During the campaign, the Liberals decided they would cancel the deal. This points out one of the weaknesses in the political process in our country. If someone of high enough stature within any political party, including our political party, but in the political world says something and then instead of saying: ``Whoops, maybe I should not have said that'', or: ``Whoops, I was wrong'', all the king's horses and all the king's men are rallied to support whatever position the person in power might have presented. Whether that position was right or wrong, good or bad, whether it was wise or just ill-tempered, it always seems that we have to salute the flag. No matter what flag is on the pole when we go by it we salute it. This is the genesis of the whole Pearson airport problem.
During the thrust of the election debate, because of the perception that this was an ill-timed move by the Conservatives to perhaps reward their friends before their government fell, the Liberals during the heat of the campaign said that they would cancel the Pearson airport deal. It was a campaign promise just like: ``We will scrap, abolish, get rid of the GST''.
Had the Liberals opposite worked with the same dispatch to get rid of the GST, there would be rejoicing in the land. But they did not. What they did do was work with dispatch but without much reason to cancel the Pearson airport deal. Why? Pourquoi? Because it was perceived to be a sweetheart deal that would favour some of the Tories that were part of it. That is the political reality of the situation.
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As it turns out, this whole deal starts to unravel. After it was cancelled, and after the people who were negatively impacted were able to prove that they had gone into a deal with the Government of Canada in good faith, the Government of Canada in order to save any semblance of face or any semblance of honesty to ensure that the Government of Canada's word was its bond, had to buy its way out.
Now we have a situation where the taxpayers of Canada have to cough up something like half a billion dollars or $800 million because someone, probably the Prime Minister and those on the Liberal side, made an ill-timed, ill-tempered campaign promise. He should have said: ``We will review it carefully and if it turns out that it is wrong, we will cancel it''. He did not. He said: ``We are going to cancel it''. Eight hundred million dollars later we have no change in the airport, we have no new airport. It is the busiest airport in the country and nothing is happening.
This motion and the situation represented by the Pearson airport deal is perhaps a lesson to all of us in politics. Our fiduciary responsibility is not to ourselves, it is not to the parties that we represent, it is to the people whom we represent. It is to the individual citizens of Canada whether they voted for us or not.
We are charged with the responsibility of using our best efforts to do the right thing for the right reason at the right time. We need to put politics behind us and put principle ahead of us. That is what this issue is all about: politics before principle. In my opinion, we should be making sure that the foundation of everything we do is based on principle and not politics.
Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in this debate.
Mr. Gouk: Oh no, not the red book.
Mr. Thompson: Put it down, put it down.
Mr. Boudria: I hear a few cat calls from across the way. I cannot understand why I would get Reform MPs so agitated. That being said, I want to assure my colleagues that I do not intend to agitate them any more than is absolutely necessary.
The motion before us today proposes that the government establish an inquiry into the process of awarding the Pearson airport contract, an award that occurred under the previous Tory government.
I have had some opportunity to deal with the issue of judicial inquiries. I would like all Canadians to understand the following.
The commission of inquiry into the Sinclair Stevens affair which I think was quite necessary was not exactly free. It cost the taxpayers of Canada millions of dollars. The commission of inquiry into reproductive technology I believe cost the taxpayers of Canada $97 million-
Mr. McClelland: What did it happen to do? It happened to get the Liberals elected. And you would put a price on integrity.
Mr. Boudria: The hon. member across asked whether I would put a pricetag on integrity. No, because the integrity is already there, it is not necessary to put a pricetag on it. The integrity is there. That is not the issue.
The issue is whether in addition to the inquiries that have already been held we need to waste taxpayers' dollars so that we can please the hon. member across the way. For months and months he was asking questions here in the House, questions that the lobbyists for the Pearson airport project just loved. They were applauding all over the place. They were breaking open the bottles of champagne
after listening to the hon. member from Kootenay West asking all those questions. The lobbyists loved him.
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I was not elected to please those lobbyists. The hon. member across the way is quite free to love lobbyists. However, when we on this side of the House were elected during the 1993 election-
Mr. Gouk: It was a mistake.
Mr. Boudria: No, the people of Canada when exercising their democratic rights do not make mistakes. I have more respect for them than that. Notwithstanding what the Reform Party just said, that the people of Canada made a mistake in electing the present government, I do not think they did. Had they elected the people across the way, even though I would not have particularly cherished that proposition, I would not have called that a mistake either.
That would be disrespectful of my constituents and I do not intend to do that. I do not intend to leave a remark like that on the floor of the House of Commons without responding to it. I am sure on second thought the hon. member will want to withdraw that remark.
Let us get back to the issue at hand.
[Translation]
The issue before us is as follows. A contract was signed by the previous government at a most inappropriate time-a few days before an election, which it knew it would lose. This contract was particularly rewarding-juicy even-for those who stood to benefit from it.
When we came to power, we did what the Prime Minister had promised we would: we set up a commission of inquiry headed by Mr. Nixon, a very distinguished Canadian, a former minister of finance in Ontario, the son of a former premier of Ontario. I would add, without fear of contradiction, that Mr. Nixon is probably Ontario's most respected citizen.
Mr. Nixon conducted the inquiry and concluded that the Pearson contract was particularly generous to those who had signed it and not so to Canadian taxpayers.
The government therefore took the necessary measures and proposed the bill before this House. The House passed it and sent it to the other place, which chose not to pass it. They will get to it later, no doubt, but in the meantime the House, the Prime Minister and all of us on this side of the House did what had to be done for Canadian taxpayers, that is to say, we cancelled this contract. I think that that was the right decision.
Now, the hon. member across the way, who for months has been siding with the lobbyists, would like another inquiry. One has to ask oneself what is the reason for this inquiry, which is being requested by someone who is sympathetic to the lobbyists, someone who kept telling us for months that the contract, which had already been signed, the lucrative contract which benefited the companies in question, should go ahead.
Why did he want this contract to go ahead? I do not know. Today he wants a commission of inquiry, he wants to spend more of the taxpayers' money, on top of the money that would have been squandered if we had allowed the airport contract to go ahead. No, Mr. Speaker, I myself am not ready, in any case, to launch into something like that, which would waste perhaps $100 million of the taxpayers' money, when we already know that the people of Canada did not want the Pearson contract. The people of Canada elected us to office, and one of the things they asked us to do was to examine it. We did so, we cancelled it, and we are proud to have done so. Now we must see to it that the people in the other place respect the wish of Canadians and of parliamentarians in this House.
Let us leave all this behind and move on with an offer of good government for the people of Canada.
[English]
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired. The order is dropped from the Order Paper.
[Translation]
It being 2.30 p.m., the House stands adjourned until next Monday at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24.
(The House adjourned at 2.30 p.m.)