44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 5, 2023 10:00AM
- Oct/5/23 4:32:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege regarding a response to Order Paper Question No. 1417 and one additional matter with regard to the same. Out of respect for the time of the members present, I will not read the entirety of the question put to the government; instead, I will cut to the heart of the matter. I request that you examine two matters at hand.
On the first matter, this morning, the CBC reported having obtained information clearly demonstrating that the government misled the House of Commons in response to Order Paper Question No. 1417 and, thus, breached members' privileges.
The CBC report stated that the Prime Minister's trip to Montana over Easter cost far more than the government reported to the House of Commons through Question No. 1417. The government reported to the House that the trip cost $23,846. However, the information obtained by the CBC discovered that the trip actually cost $228,839. Part of the cost of this trip is the provision of security for the Prime Minister, which is a necessary function of this role. To be clear, no one here is questioning the need for the Prime Minister to have access to security. However, the issue at hand is that, from the CBC story, the government appears to have hidden the total cost from a member of Parliament in an official request for details of this expenditure.
Canadians have a right to know how their tax dollars are spent and if they are spent wisely. In the instance of the story at hand, this principle translates to the public having a right to know such things as why the cost of the Prime Minister's trip was so high and whether, as it was a personal trip, he personally paid for the full value of his accommodations. It is impossible for members to debate this issue without the information, which is why it was requested from the government via an Order Paper question. As a member, I was not able to make an accurate determination on this matter, as I was misled by the government's response to Question No. 1417. Recourse on this breach of privilege should be explored.
Recently, the government has been castigated by your immediate predecessor for its response to Order Paper questions. On June 20, your predecessor made a ruling on a question of privilege that I raised when I received an ATI showing how the natural resources department sought not to fully respond to an Order Paper question I posed. When I rose in the House on June 15 to explain this question of privilege, I noted:
In the ATI, the minister's regional adviser for Quebec asks in an email, “What is the jurisprudence on those [types] of Points of Order?” The minister's deputy chief of staff, Kyle Harrietha, responds: “Thanks, heard it after QP and did the inbox search of Q-974. Already in touch with GHLO. I'm expecting the Speaker to tut tut and then say it is not for him to judge the quality of a response.
In your predecessor's response to me on June 20, he did not seem to take too kindly to the statement. He chastised the government, saying:
However, the Chair would like to note that it finds the remarks of public servants reported by the member very troubling. I am especially troubled by the comments from the public servants to the effect that the Chair could not intervene in case of a point of order and that this could justify an incomplete response.
Your predecessor went on to say:
It is true that, based on many precedents, the Chair does not judge the quality of responses, and the reasons for that fact are understandable. However, my predecessors and I have repeatedly emphasized the importance of providing members with the information they need to do their work properly.
Your predecessor continued on and concluded by saying:
In the meantime, the Chair encourages ministers to find the right words to inspire their officials to invest their time and energy in preparing high-quality responses rather than looking for reasons to avoid answering written questions.
However, in the case of Question No. 1417, it appears the government not only did not heed the advice from the Speaker but also went one step further and, per the information disclosed in the CBC article, misled the House. In doing so, it both violated members' privileges and demonstrated blatant disregard for the Speaker's words.
There is precedent for this situation. On December 16, 1980, at page 5797 of Hansard, the Speaker said:
While it is correct to say that the government is not required by our rules to answer written or oral questions, it would be bold to suggest that no circumstance could ever exist for a prima facie question of privilege to be made where there was a deliberate attempt to deny answers to an hon. member.
Mr. Speaker, I would argue that this is one of those circumstances. However, there is another problem related to this matter that you must address. There is one more element to this question of privilege that is completely unprecedented, which I checked, in the history of our House of Commons. Typically, the task of examining evidence on this matter would fall to you. However, the problem now facing the House of Commons, and your office, is that the government representative who provided and signed off on the potentially misleading response was yourself, in your former role as the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister.
Question No. 1417, the Order Paper question at the heart of the CBC story about the cost of the Montana trip, concerns the Privy Council Office, which supports the Prime Minister's Office and the cabinet. The PCO was asked to disclose the cost of the trip; however, per the CBC story, it did not. The Privy Council Office would be responsible for planning the logistics around travel and have oversight on budgetary matters. Again, in your role as parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister, you signed off on the response to Question No. 1417, which the CBC reported on today.
I believe this situation may present concerns with regard to your ability to impartially rule on this matter. With deep respect to you and the institution of the Chair, I will now argue why this is so and what action I believe you must take in considering a matter in which you may have a conflict of interest.
Prior to making these arguments, I want to be clear that I bear you no ill will, nor am I challenging your office. At the time of your election, there were no rules preventing parliamentary secretaries from occupying the Speaker's chair during the same Parliament. I respect that you occupy the Speaker's chair by virtue of your legal election to it, but here is the rub of the matter: Under normal circumstances, it would be virtually impossible for the Speaker of the House of Commons to ever be in a potential conflict of interest situation when making one of these rulings. That is because the Speaker is a member of Parliament elected to the office by their peers at the start of a Parliament, immediately after an election. Elections wipe the slate of Parliament clean.
However, this week, members had to elect a new Speaker in the middle of a Parliamentary term. The problem in this instance is that you, prior to your election as Speaker, held several official governmental roles. Until September, you served as the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister, and you signed off on Question No. 1417. Now you have to rule on whether there is enough evidence for the House to consider if you, in your former role as parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister, potentially breached members' privilege by misleading the House when signing off on Question No. 1417.
We both know that the occupant of the Speaker's chair must be viewed as an unimpeachable, neutral arbiter of House proceedings. A Speaker having to rule on a question of privilege on a matter caused by them during their former role in government is an incredible matter without precedent. To re-emphasize, I am honour bound to afford you the respect you deserve in the role of Speaker, out of respect for the office of the Speaker and its essential functions within the institution of Parliament.
However, out of that same responsibility, I believe you are also honour bound to recuse yourself from ruling on this matter. This is a matter that affects the privilege of all members. Speakers' rulings set precedents, and it could breach all members' privilege if you make one ruling for which you cannot conceivably be impartial because of the nature of your previous government roles and your actions within them.
Mr. Speaker, you have the ability to recuse yourself by allowing the House to consider the matter at hand. In this instance, the correct course of action should be to allow a motion to be moved on the matter and allow the House to determine the outcome. Then the outcome would be a decision of the House, not the Speaker, and a perception of loss of neutrality and a further potential breach of privilege could perhaps be avoided. After the last couple of weeks, the Speaker could use a bit of a boost.
There is some relevant precedent on this matter. On December 12, 2021, on a question of privilege concerning allegations pertaining to the former clerk, the Speaker pointed out at the beginning of his ruling that the clerk recused himself from the matter and did not participate in the preparation of the ruling. This would be in keeping with the reference from Bosc and Gagnon, at page 323, which states, “When in the Chair, the Speaker embodies the power and authority of the office, strengthened by rule and precedent. He or she must at all times show, and be seen to show, the impartiality required to sustain the trust and goodwill of the House.”
Representative democracy only functions when ordinary people have confidence that the institutions that uphold their representatives' ability to make decisions on their behalf are working. Any issue that erodes that confidence should be immediately and forcefully addressed. Out of respect for Parliament, I ask that you recuse yourself from this matter and allow the House to debate it. Doing so would not be an admission of anything other than your deep respect for the necessity of perception of neutrality by the Chair. However, failure to do so could present problems in this regard, at a time when all of us here need to do our utmost to respect the dignity of Parliament.
In any event, should a case of privilege be found, I am prepared to move the appropriate motion.
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