Opposition Motion — Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics

Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, I hate to disagree with the hon. parliamentary secretary, but the Liberal leader has taken many solid positions since he became leader. Most of them are absolutely terrible. He supports the Keystone pipeline. He supported the sale to Nexen. He supports more deals with China. The only policy he has taken, with which I agree, is the one people keep vilifying him for.

I want to put this motion in context. This is about behaviour in the Prime Minister’s Office. It is not about the generalized problem of the Senate. I put this for my friend, the hon. parliamentary secretary. In today’s Globe and Mail, one of his former colleagues, Inky Mark, describes the Prime Minister’s modus operandi. He said:

[The Prime Minister’s] biggest weakness is that he doesn’t listen to anyone. He thought he knew more than all of us put together. He didn’t trust anyone. He operated through his bullies.

I ask the hon. parliamentary secretary this. How do we jive the Prime Minister’s reputation for being in total control of all aspects of his operations at all times with what must have only been wilful blindness to what was going on all around him in the cover-up?

 

Paul Calandra: Mr. Speaker, I hate to disagree with the Green Party member, but the Liberal leader supports Keystone when he is in front of oil people, but he does not necessarily support it when he is in B.C. or Ontario.

We have seen this with the Liberals before. We remember the former Liberal leader who supported the auto sector when he was in Oshawa, but when he was in British Columbia, he was not so supportive of the auto sector.

The Liberal leader supports the oil sands, but not taking it out of the ground. Anybody can support it, but if they do not support the pipelines that get it to market, what is the point to that? I am not sure the Liberal leader has figured out that the pipes we are talking about are not the ones used for smoking. They are the ones that actually deliver oil to the market.

With respect to the Prime Minister, he has been very clear. Had he known that this scheme was being hatched, he would have in no way endorsed such a scheme. Nigel Wright has accepted full and sole responsibility.

What we are asking for now is that the senators do the same. They are not, so there is a motion in front of the Senate which would give Canadians the accountability that they cannot extract from a ballot box when it comes to the senators.

We are learning now that the Liberals are going to sit on their hands and abstain from voting. When it comes to accountability, Canadians can always count on the Conservative Party to provide that accountability.