Mr. Speaker, as always, it is an honour to be able to enter into debate on the important matters that are before the House. We are soon coming to the close of what I believe is the 13th day of debate on a question of privilege.

The many Canadians who I know are watching, and watching with great concern, may ask, “What is ‘privilege’ and why does it matter?” It is a word that is used in many different contexts across society, but when it comes to the idea of privilege within Parliament and within our parliamentary tradition, the Westminster system of governance that goes back more than eight centuries to the mother Parliament in the United Kingdom, there are constitutional principles that speak to the idea that members of Parliament have a thing called “privilege”.

To unpack that just briefly, it has to do with Parliament and its members, of which a Parliament is made up. That is why, after an election, there is a Parliament. We are in the 44th Parliament, which is made up of 338 MPs. A government is not the Parliament, but rather a Parliament empowers and gives authority to a government to be able to make decisions. The Prime Minister and the government have survived only because a majority, which includes the NDP and often the Bloc Québécois, has given the authority for the government to continue to survive.

It speaks to the idea of privilege and the foundational principle that in our democratic system, it is elected members of Parliament who make up a Parliament. This place and the institutions; the traditions; and the constitutional conventions, both written and unwritten, an important aspect that sets our parliamentary democracy apart from, for example, that of our American counterparts, speak about what our parliamentary system is.

Part of what that is, and a key part of why we are having the debate and discussion here today, is that the government finds itself in conflict with the very constitutional foundation of what our democracy is. When I first spoke to the motion 13 days ago, I outlined some of the specifics surrounding that. I now have the opportunity to once again enter into the discussion and to highlight again how important it is that this place be allowed, be empowered in, and above all be respected in its ability to call for, in this case, documents.

In the aftermath of the privilege motion's having coming forward, I wrote a news column to share with my constituents what was happening and what is so important about documents. As with the idea of privilege, it is about more than just a stack of documents that would highlight something about the issue at hand. It is about the ability for Parliament to ensure that it has access to something that it, only by its power, is able to inform. In fact I remember that there was some controversy a number of years back when a reporter, I believe, said that Parliaments come and go but the government stays.

The only reason the government stays is that Parliament, the supreme law-making authority of the land, allows it to. The only reason a prime minister can be in office is that Parliament allows that prime minister to be, in what we call “confidence”. I do not think that my constituents have ever had confidence in the current government, the Prime Minister and the coalition, but certainly from coast to coast to coast we are hearing increasingly that Canadians do not have confidence.

There is the idea that a Parliament has the ability to have unfettered access to documents to ensure that, in this case, there is significant alleged criminality. A whistle-blower has made the statement that it was a sponsorship-level type of scandal.

We will look back to the Chrétien and Martin era and the Gomery inquiry. I remember in fact that when I was a young politico, my then MP, Kevin Sorenson, sent me the abridged copy of the Gomery inquiry, which it outlined some of the incredible corruption perpetrated by then prime minister Jean Chrétien and followed by former prime minister Paul Martin. That brought in some of the most significant accountability reforms in our nation's history when former prime minister Stephen Harper was elected.

With that push to ensure mechanisms, we brought in the Ethics Commissioner and ethics rules for parliamentarians to ensure that there were conflict of interest rules, which the Prime Minister has been found guilty of breaking, like many other cabinet ministers.

However, it comes back to the very idea that Parliament is the supreme law-making authority of the land, and Parliament represents democracy. Before us we have an almost $400-million scandal with conflicts of interest and hand-picked Liberal appointments. Quite frankly, it just stinks. Whistle-blowers have come forward, putting their careers on the line, to say that this is wrong. They could not in good conscience continue to operate within the context of not letting people know the level of corruption.

That is why over the last 13 or so days, it has been bewildering that, despite Parliament and the constitutional conventions that have established this place and its more than eight centuries of history, those Liberals are so quick to dismiss the whistle-blowers to cover up their corruption.

It would be very straightforward. That government could release these documents. It could do it today and then this Parliament could get on with its business, but the Liberals refuse, and one has to ask “why?” It seems like each and every day there is a different excuse as to why they will not do it. They say one thing one day and one cabinet minister stands up and peacocks about something, and then another will stand up and say something else. It seems like their message is always changing, but Canadians are asking the simple question “why?”

Why are they unwilling to allow full transparency on the $400 million? It would not be for MPs to simply peruse these documents, but to give the RCMP unfettered access to ensure that we can get answers to the very foundational questions about this scandal and the alleged corruption that were brought forward, not by Conservatives, but by whistle-blowers, in some cases within the Liberals' own department.

I look forward to being able to pick up on a series of further points tomorrow. I would simply conclude my speech today by saying this: The government has created a circumstance where it has normalized constitutional crises, and that is where we are today. We have seen it before when the Liberals tried to have unfettered taxation ability, and because of Conservatives pushing back, that was rejected.

We see on a regular basis that the Liberals are willing to throw the Constitution under the bus for their narrow political interests, and it is time for that to end. It is time for accountability. It is time for Parliament, and the supremacy that it should enjoy in our democracy, to be restored, and when Conservatives are elected, that is what we will do.

Damien Kurek

$606,673.00