SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 294 - Mar/22/24

Mar/22/24 1:07:41 p.m.
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I am now ready to rule on the question of privilege raised on Wednesday, March 20, 2024, by the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes concerning the 17th report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, which was presented to the House earlier that same day. The subject matter of this report is related to the committee's 14th report, which accused Mr. Kristian Firth and Mr. Darren Anthony of disregarding the rights and privileges of the committee to summon them to appear as witnesses. The House had concurred in that report, which ordered both to appear before the committee, and both have now done so. This new report arises from concerns over the testimony that Mr. Firth furnished to the committee and his refusal to answer members' questions. Having carefully listened to the members, acquainted myself with the content of the report and consulted the few but clear precedents, the Chair finds the matter to be a prima facie question of privilege. In his intervention, the parliamentary secretary to the leader of the government raised concerns about the motion that the member has indicated he will move. While it is perhaps true that the suggested remedy is not something we have seen for some time, I am of the view that it is procedurally in order. As with the case cited from June 2021, the motion provides for a call to the bar in order to be reprimanded, and a specific remedy to the offence. Furthermore, once proposed, the motion is subject to the usual rules of debate, and ultimately it is for the House to decide whether it agrees with the motion as proposed. I would now invite the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes to move his motion.

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Context: House Hansard - 294 - Mar/22/24

Mr. Martin Champoux (Drummond, BQ)

Mar/22/24 1:32:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we agree that there is something downright scandalous about this whole thing. First of all, this is a company that greedily gobbles up all it can without a shred of restraint and, clearly, without a shred of remorse at this stage. When invited to explain himself before a House of Commons committee, Mr. Firth displayed incredible arrogance. The amount of disdain was unbelievable. We know that committees have certain tools they can use to convince or even force uncooperative witnesses to testify, but there are a few who resist, such as the one we are talking about today, Mr. Firth. I would like to ask my colleague if he believes that committees have enough tools to inspire the authority required to stop this kind of uncooperative witness behaviour. We have seen similar behaviour at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, and we saw it this week at the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, when a witness had no interest whatsoever in answering questions about the SNC-Lavalin affair. Do the committees have enough power? Should we not give them better tools so that we do not have to have a 2024 version of a pillory to make witnesses understand that they have to answer the committee's questions?

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Context: House Hansard - 294 - Mar/22/24

Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.)

Mar/22/24 1:42:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to this debate on this question of privilege and the motion that has been put forward by the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes. I want to thank him for bringing this forward. I would agree that this is an extremely serious matter. What we have seen occur at committee is the individuals in question being asked to appear, being summoned to appear, completely ignoring those requests and demands and then, finally, appearing after the threat of arrest was made. This is not conduct that any member of Parliament or any Canadian citizen should expect in order for our democracy to function properly. The committees that support the work in the House of Commons here, that perhaps a lot of Canadians are not completely familiar with, do very important work to inform the House, bringing forward various different proposals, policies and positions from committee members after having the opportunity to sit down and hear from actual witnesses at the ground level. That is why getting information to committee in a timely, co-operative and, most importantly, truthful manner is of critical importance. When we have people who arbitrarily decide that they do not think they need to tell the truth, or they do not think they need to appear, because they do not feel like it or do not want to, then we have a big problem. It is a problem when we are talking about something as serious as this, in terms of how public money was misused by individuals, perhaps in a fraudulent manner. I would agree with the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes when he speaks very passionately about the need to get this information and to deal with the individuals in question properly. If we do not ensure that we are doing that, we are basically setting a precedent and opening the door to others who might feel the same way, as though they do not feel obligated to appear before a committee when they are summoned, to tell the truth or to provide information in order for parliamentarians, vis-à-vis their constituents and the Canadian population, to get to the bottom of things. When we look at the ArriveCAN situation specifically, I would like to point out a few things where I perhaps disagree with my colleague who introduced the motion, namely, the fact that the Government of Canada has been seized with this issue since it was brought forward by CBSA and the officials to the minister. As soon as the minister was made aware of this, he directed the appropriate individuals to conduct audits and to figure out exactly what was going on. To suggest this was not the case would be void of reality of what actually happened. Once it was discovered that work needed to be done in terms of getting to the bottom of things and figuring out exactly what happened, the minister and his officials proceeded to ensure that this would happen. As we know, as a result, at least three contracts were suspended by CBSA. Those were contracts specifically with GC Strategies, Coradix Technology and Dalian Enterprises. The manner in which that was dealt with was extremely prudent. It was the proper way to conduct this. I am open to hearing the debate and what people have to say today. My concern about the manner in which the member has brought this forward is how we would conduct this operation, exactly. He wants to call the individuals to the bar. I do not know if that means we dissolve into committee of the whole or something, in order to ask questions. This, quite frankly, is not something that has been done in over 200 years. We really do not have a practice or a proper procedure for doing this. This is why, when I intervened on the question of privilege earlier today, I specifically talked about the fact that we need to establish how we do this. What does this look like from a practical, implementing perspective? I was unfortunate to be one of the participants during the middle of the pandemic when we were in the House. I may have been the only Liberal member who was physically present in the House of Commons when we called another individual to the bar. All we really got out of that was people yelling and shouting and screaming from their seats while the individual stood there and was scolded and chastised. I assume, and I have faith, that the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes genuinely wants to get to the bottom of this and that this is not about political theatre, as that tended to be. That is why I stress the fact that it is extremely important that we develop how we will go about conducting the manner in which we will call somebody, how questions will be asked and how the House will genuinely function during that time, again, given the fact that this is not something we have done in over 200 years. That does bring concern for me. I would like to move an amendment to the motion. I have the amendment here, which I will provide to the Clerk after I read it out. I move: That the motion be amended by: (a) deleting the words “, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions on the third sitting day following the adoption of this order,”; and (b) adding the following: “provided that, (d) it be an instruction to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to study the procedure for questioning Kristian Firth at the Bar of the House and report back to the House with recommendations within 10 sitting days following the adoption of this order; and (e) Kristian Firth attend the Bar of the House no later than three sitting days following concurrence in the report.”. What I am asking for is that we let the standing committee, very quickly, develop the procedure by which we would entertain the individual and proceed with the individual once they get here, and then also that we add the words to ensure that the appearance occurs within a limited time, three days, as I indicated. That is my amendment and I will submit that to the Clerk.

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Context: House Hansard - 294 - Mar/22/24

Mr. Luc Berthold (Mégantic—L'Érable, CPC)

Mar/22/24 2:24:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are currently witnessing a historic debate in the House of Commons, since it has been over 100 years since someone was called to testify in this way for contempt of Parliament before all parliamentarians. This is a serious moment, but it is also essential to ensure that the people who testify before committees understand that, when members of this Parliament ask them to appear before a committee and answer members' questions, they must tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I myself had the opportunity to take part in a few committee meetings on the ArriveCAN issue. Let us not forget that ArriveCAN was supposed to cost $80,000, but it ended up costing around $60 million. No one can even say how much the app cost because the companies involved refused to hand over all the information. It is important that we send a clear message that Parliament and its committees will not tolerate witnesses coming here and telling only part of the truth. I think that is exactly what my colleague's speech was about. I would like her to expand on the importance of witness appearances so that committees can function properly in the future.

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Context: House Hansard - 294 - Mar/22/24

Ms. Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné

Mar/22/24 2:25:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there are two committees that are conducting a very intense study of the ArriveCAN issue. There is the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, which we have talked about at length, and the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, of which I am a member. We have been studying this issue for a long time. It is thanks to the questions that members ask and then relay through the media that the public finds out what happened. It is our work in committee and the responses that we get from witnesses that help us shed light on this story. As we know, it is a wild story. As I said in my speech, certain people disrespected our institutions. They may have stolen taxpayer money, because receiving money and not providing any services in return is called stealing. The answers we get to our questions are very important for ensuring that democracy continues to work and for building public trust in democratic institutions. That is why a person who purposely refuses to answer questions has to be charged with contempt of Parliament so that this does not happen again. It sends a signal to all witnesses, present and future, that when they appear in committee, they have to answer the questions.

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