- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman
- Manitoba
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $140,796.07
- Government Page
- Oct/19/22 3:28:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise today and pay tribute to a former colleague and veteran parliamentarian, the Hon. Bill Blaikie, who recently passed away.
Bill was first elected to this place in 1979 and served continuously for 29 years. When I and others in this chamber were first elected back in 2004, the dean of the House was Bill, a position he held in the 38th and 39th Parliaments.
As we know in this chamber, the esteemed roles of Speaker and Deputy Speaker are normally shared between the governing party and the official opposition. However, because Bill epitomized what being a parliamentarian meant, he was respected right across party lines and throughout this entire House. He was appointed in 2006 as Deputy Speaker, as mentioned, serving with Speaker Milliken. He made some incredible rulings and ran the House very efficiently.
Our House leader, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, was appointed at that time as Assistant Deputy Speaker at the tender age of 26 and worked closely with Bill. I have a fun fact: When Bill was first elected to the House of Commons in 1979, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle was just two days old.
Bill was a devoted parliamentarian, a former House leader and a Deputy Speaker. Bill's reverence for the institutions of Parliament is something we will always remember about him.
When I first met Bill, he was literally bigger than life, towering over almost all of his colleagues, with the exception of six-foot-seven Brian Pallister, the former premier of Manitoba, who, at the time, was the MP for Portage—Lisgar. Back in those days, the direct flights between Winnipeg and Ottawa were done on either Dash 8s or the little CRJ jets. I can say that it was almost impossible for Bill to bend over enough to get into the airplane and walk down the aisle, never mind to fit into the extremely tight seating. I found it very uncomfortable, but Bill never ever complained.
It was on those trips back and forth between Ottawa and home that I was able to get to know Bill. I was surprised to learn that he had been a member of the Progressive Conservative Party. He was a young Conservative in high school and his early days in college. That is why I think he was so reasonable and he could always appreciate our side of the debate.
It was also on those trips, because of his long service and that I knew when he first started in Parliament he had a young family, as I did, I would ask him for advice on how to make sure we balanced parliamentary life with our responsibilities to our families. He provided me with very sound advice.
Bill also served as a reservist with the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada and shared my passion for a strong Canadian Armed Forces.
Mr. Speaker, as you and I both know, Bill was very proud of his Scottish heritage. He was one of the best pipers Canada had to offer and was instrumental in founding our annual Robbie Burns nights here on the Hill, starting back in 1988 with Speaker Fraser. I can honestly say that I have never seen a more passionate, better or comical Address to a Haggis. Bill loved performing it and we all loved watching him do it.
Following his federal career here in Ottawa, Bill was asked to run provincially and served from 2009 to 2011 as Manitoba's minister of conservation and government House leader. I got to work with him again as we dealt with overland flooding along Lake Manitoba, Lake Winnipeg and Lake St. Martin in my riding.
It was not just politics and Parliament that Bill respected. He was a man of faith. He revered God. The Hon. Bill Blaikie was also the Reverend Bill Blaikie, an ordained minister of the United Church. He found callings in both faith and politics. After he retired from politics, Bill accepted a position as adjunct professor of theology and politics at the University of Winnipeg.
When it came to politics, as Bill said in an interview after publishing his 2011 biography, his “driving force has been the social gospel in Canadian left-wing politics”. That dynamic of persons of faith in politics, perhaps, is something that has been more common in western Canada and certainly was, once upon a time, part of the very foundation of the NDP.
Bill was keen to stress, “The church and state is different than faith and politics...you notice that where the separation of church and state is very strong and constitutional that doesn’t mean there’s a separation between faith and politics because that’s something individuals bring. It’s not an institutional connection.”
Bill was a worthy successor to the social gospel heritage of the NDP and its predecessor, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, which had propelled that party to many of its historical successes on the Prairies. In fact, the House leader of the official opposition told me, “If Bill had won the NDP leadership back in 2003, I probably would never have won my Saskatchewan seat in 2004.” Truth be told, if Bill was the NDP leader, my Manitoba seat would have been at risk and I may not have made it here in 2004 either. Instead, as fate would have it, Jack Layton won, which allowed our House leader and I to be Bill's colleagues in the House and, in the case of our House leader, share your chair, Mr. Speaker.
Like many Conservatives and New Democrats, we hardly agreed on everything, but we certainly respected the fact that we each believed in things and acknowledged our respective principles.
Bill Blaikie had a life well lived, a life dedicated to service and helping others, and for that we unite today in paying tribute and giving thanks.
In closing, on behalf of my Conservative colleagues, I want to express our sincere condolences to Bill's wife Brenda, his daughters Rebecca, Jessica and Tessa, and his son, our colleague, who is carrying on Bill's legacy, the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona.
Bill will be sadly missed, but fondly remembered by all. May he rest in peace.
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- May/2/22 3:59:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Battle River—Crowfoot for splitting his time with me and for his great intervention.
We brought forward this concurrence motion last week, but because the government does not want to discuss the WE scandal in any more detail, it moved a motion to go to orders of the day, which essentially shut down the debate on the concurrence motion.
I want to thank the ethics committee from the 43rd Parliament, second session, which tabled the report “Questions of Conflict of Interest and Lobbying in Relation to Pandemic Spending” in June 2021. I also want to thank the current ethics committee, in this Parliament, which has now tabled it on March 31.
It is important that we have a chance to revisit what happened in the WE Charity scandal, why this is important and why we need to continue to look at how we can improve upon our officers of Parliament, like the Commissioner of Lobbying, the Ethics Commissioner and the Privacy Commissioner, and ensure we have better oversight of government officials who are being lobbied and entering into certain contracts that oftentimes put ministers of the current Liberal government into a conflict of interest. We have now seen multiple reports done by the Ethics Commissioner, both the previous Ethics Commissioner, Mary Dawson, and the current Ethics Commissioner, Mr. Dion.
I do not think we need to spend a lot of time reminding everybody of the unethical behaviour of the current Prime Minister. Again, during question period I asked him about the criminal investigation the RCMP had started with respect to the luxury vacation gift he got on a tropical island. Not only was he found in violation of the Conflict of Interest Act by the former Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson, contravening sections 5, 11, 12 and 21 of the Conflict of Interest Act, but we also know that the RCMP investigated him under paragraph 121(1)(c) of the Criminal Code for fraud in relation to the government.
We also know the Prime Minister was found guilty of contravening section 9 of the Conflict of Interest Act over the issue of SNC-Lavalin and the prosecution going on there with respect to influence. He essentially had a concerted campaign against Jody Wilson-Raybould, our former Attorney General, who refused to offer a plea deal to SNC-Lavalin, what we call a deferred prosecution agreement, and stood on her principles as the Attorney General of Canada to ensure that it faced the music. However, she lost her job because she stood up to the Prime Minister and stood up for the principles of justice. We know that the Treasury Board president of the day, Jane Philpott, who sided with Jody Wilson-Raybould, was also fired from cabinet, and ultimately the two of them were kicked out of the Liberal caucus. That scandal in itself had huge overarching impacts on the Liberal Party of Canada. The principal secretary to the Prime Minister at the time, Gerald Butts, had to resign. The Clerk of the Privy Council at the time, Michael Wernick, also resigned. They both resigned in disgrace.
The Prime Minister is not the only person who has acted unethically. I want to get to former finance minister Bill Morneau right away, but when the current Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities, who is the MP for Beauséjour, was Minister of Fisheries in the last Parliament, he was caught up in a lucrative clam scam because he practised nepotism and made sure that family members received lucrative $24-million contracts for clams.
Then we come to Mr. Bill Morneau, our former finance minister, who was found guilty of violating the Conflict of Interest Act when he failed to disclose to the Ethics Commissioner that he had a luxurious villa in the French Riviera. It took him two years to disclose his property, when all members of Parliament, and especially public office holders, whether members of cabinet or parliamentary secretaries, are required to submit all of their financial information to the Ethics Commissioner for review and public disclosure so that people will know if there is any way members of this House, and public office holders in particular, can be influenced.
As I mentioned already, the Prime Minister was found guilty on four different charges for the luxurious vacation that he took on the private island and he has been investigated for fraud, but it is important to point out that both the Prime Minister and Bill Morneau failed to recuse themselves from discussions around WE Charity. We know that We Charity was offered a chance to develop a program for summer students and to support students during the pandemic. That was over half a billion dollars.
Both Bill Morneau and the Prime Minister had relations with the Kielburger family, as well as with WE Charity. Bill Morneau's daughter worked for it. Bill Morneau and the Prime Minister had received benefits directly from WE Charity. They were both close personal friends of the Kielburgers. Because they failed to recuse themselves from the discussions at the cabinet table, awarding a sole-sourced contract to WE Charity, that is what was found to be in contravention under the Conflict of Interest Act. We know that because of it, Mr. Morneau was removed from cabinet and resigned as a member of Parliament.
We also know that WE Charity produced 10 videos of the Prime Minister, which were essentially campaign-style videos. They were valued at over $217,000. To make the point, in one of the videos, the Prime Minister said he pledged to work hard for all Canadians, something that we hear from him in question period. Then he went on to say that he is going to invest in our youngest leaders: the students. This is a campaign-style promise by the Prime Minister to these future voters. It clearly was a political message.
We also know that the Prime Minister's wife had received a $20,000 getaway vacation to speak at a WE Charity event in London, England, and that was just a week or two after the Liberal government awarded the Kielburgers and WE Charity the half-billion-dollar sole-sourced contract.
As we dive into this report, we find out that there were multiple people in Morneau's office and the Prime Minister's Office, as well as the member for Waterloo, who were working directly with the Kielburgers on how to design the program. Why did they have to work with WE Charity to design the program? It was because WE Charity had never done a program like this, ever. It did not have the capabilities to offer this program and it was designed specifically for it to orchestrate this program. Because of the hand-holding that took place, we know, as the member for Battle River—Crowfoot just said, that public trust in our democratic institutions was eroded.
On Thursday, March 25, 2021, some of those staffers who worked in the Prime Minister's Office and Minister Morneau's office were asked to appear at committee by a House order. Ben Chin, Rick Theis and Amitpal Singh were all ordered to appear. Ben Chin was senior adviser to the Prime Minister and directly messaged with Craig Kielburger of WE. We know that Rick Theis, who worked in the Prime Minister's Office as director of policy and cabinet affairs, met with the Kielburger brothers from WE as well, and then Amitpal Singh, who worked for Bill Morneau, also worked directly to make the tailor-made program for WE Charity. All these people failed to comply with the order from the House and are in contempt of Parliament. Because we had an election and we are in a new Parliament, that does not purge them of their contempt of Parliament. We also need to dive more into the role of the MP for Waterloo.
I wish to move an amendment to the motion. I move:
That, the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following: the Third Report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, presented on Thursday, March 31, 2022, be not now concurred in, but that it be recommitted to the Committee for further consideration, provided that (a) the committee be instructed (i) to make every effort possible to receive evidence from Ben Chin, Rick Theis and Amitpal Singh, the witnesses who did not comply with this House's Order of Thursday, March 25, 2021, to appear before the Committee, (ii) to consider further the concerns expressed in the Report about the Member for Waterloo's failure “in her obligation to be accurate with a committee”, and (iii) to report back by Monday, October 17, 2022; and (b) the committee be empowered to order the attendance of the Member for Waterloo, from time to time, as it sees fit.
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