SoVote

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

Mr. Michael Barrett (Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, CPC)

Mar/22/24 1:09:55 p.m.
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moved: That the House, having considered the unanimous views of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, expressed in its 17th Report, find Kristian Firth to be in contempt for his refusal to answer certain questions and for prevaricating in his answers to other questions and, accordingly, order him to attend at the Bar of this House, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions on the third sitting day following the adoption of this Order, for the purposes of (a) receiving an admonishment delivered by the Speaker; (b) providing responses to the questions referred to in the 17th Report; and (c) responding to supplementary questions arising from his responses to the questions referred to in the 17th Report.

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

Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP)

Mar/22/24 1:39:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like you to stick to the normal rotation when it comes to the speaking time of the three other parties after the motion is presented. I would ask you to continue that tradition. Obviously, the NDP fully supports this motion, particularly when it comes to ordering Mr. Firth to appear before the bar of the House to be reprimanded and, more importantly, to answer the questions raised in the 17th report. I want to thank the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes for his question of privilege, which I thought was solidly grounded in the traditions of the House as he presented it. I thought it was very effective. The reality is that New Democrats intervened at the time to say we believe the conditions were there for a prima facie question of privilege because of the lack of respect for the House. The Speaker's ruling, I think, confirms that, and we are now seized with the debate. It is a motion that allows for the ability of the House to reprimand Mr. Firth, call him to the bar and ensure that Canadians receive answers. We saw with the ETS scandal under the Conservative government there was $400 million involved, and now this scandal under the current government involves $60 million. We need to ensure these things never happen again. Would my colleague agree with the NDP that this is not the kind of thing that any Canadian should be tolerating?

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

Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP)

Mar/22/24 1:54:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I hope this signifies we will have a consensus on the important consideration around the contempt shown by Mr. Firth to the House, through the committee report and through the question of privilege that we are now debating, that the questions Mr. Firth refused to answer will be answered. It appears that we are getting to a consensus around that fact. That is important, because it is fundamental to the process and to ensuring that we get answers for Canadians and accountability from the government. It seems that the issue to work through is the procedure around that. We will certainly take into consideration the amendment, but as far as the NDP is concerned, what is absolutely vital is that the admonishment be delivered to Mr. Firth and that we have in place a method to get all of the answers that Canadians are demanding. This is fundamental, because it has gone on now for 20 years. There have been procurement scandals, the ETS scandal under the former Harper government, and now the ArriveCAN scandal under the current government, with $59.5 million that was clearly misspent, $19.1 million of it connected to GC Strategies. Would my colleague from Kingston and the Islands agree with the NDP that we need to stop the scandals, whether Conservative or Liberal, and that we need to put in place measures to ensure that this kind of scandal, this kind of misspending, never happens again?

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Harper
Firth

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

Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP)

Mar/22/24 2:27:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, all parties clearly agree that we need answers. We have lived through too many scandals. There was the ETS scandal under the Conservatives. Now we have the ArriveCAN scandal under the Liberals. It is important that we get all the answers in order to put an end to all these scandals. The procedure being proposed has not been used in over 110 years. The last time was before we had simultaneous interpretation, before television, and even before microphones were installed in the House. It is important that we establish a solid foundation for this procedure. That way, the House will be able to follow it in the future, too. We all agree on the importance of calling this person, Mr. Firth, to the bar. I believe we are all united in our desire to get answers. Does the member agree with me that the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs could actually sit over the next two weeks to put in place recommendations on how to follow this unusual procedure?

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