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House Hansard - 298

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 11, 2024 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 298 - Apr/11/24
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)
  • Apr/11/24 12:58:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am rising to respond to a question of privilege from the member for La Prairie with respect to announcing certain policy initiatives. Page 899 of the third edition of House of Commons Procedure and Practice states, “Speakers have maintained that [budget] secrecy is a matter of parliamentary convention rather than one of privilege.” On November 18, 1981, in relation to budget secrecy, Speaker Sauvé noted, “[budget] secrecy has no impact on the privileges of a member”, and goes on to say, “but [further]...has nothing to do with [the] privilege.” The House will have opportunities to consider the budget when it is properly before the House. The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance has announced that she will be presenting the budget to the House at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, April 16. Following the presentation of the budget, the House will have four days of debate, and the opposition parties will be able to move an amendment and a subamendment to the budget motion. Following a vote on the main motion for the budget, the House will consider a ways and means motion, and, following its adoption, will see the introduction of the budget implementation bill. Where privilege arises is the period between when notice is given of the budget bill and its subsequent introduction. However, if the measures to be contained in the budget implementation bill are tabled in the form of a notice of ways and means motion while the bill is on notice, members of the House will already have the contents of the budget implementation bill to consider, which by its very tabling in the House of Commons obviates the ability to raise an associated question of privilege. Budget secrecy is a matter of convention. The executive has the right and the ability to communicate with Canadians about proposed budget measures in advance of the tabling of the budget. This represents the fundamental right of the duly elected government to present its plan to Canadians about how it will help them, as is the case with the Speech from the Throne. These are policy proposals, and their announcement does not, in any way, interfere with the rights of the members of the House. The matter in no way interferes with the rights and privileges of members, as has been established by precedent. Perhaps it is due to the popularity of the proposals with the public that the member may seem be taking some offence.
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Context: House Hansard - 298 - Apr/11/24
Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP)
  • Apr/11/24 4:54:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is not on the same point of order, but I am glad the government is making amends. The member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford submitted those questions in good faith, and I am glad we will be getting the information Canadians require. I thank the parliamentary secretary for doing the right thing, making amends and apologizing for the lack of information around subsidies going to Loblaws and some of the other grocery chains that have been guilty of food price gouging. I am actually rising on another point of order, and that is the matter of privilege brought forward by the member for La Prairie concerning the convention of budgetary secrecy. The principle of budgetary secrecy is an important one, as leaks and premature disclosure sometimes have unintended and, in some cases, market-moving impacts. Despite this, we know that governments of all stripes, both Conservative and Liberal, have been known to use selected and targeted pre-budget leaks to their advantage as a way to control the narrative leading up to the budget. They love to point fingers at each other, but they both do this. There is no doubt that this is done for their political advantage; otherwise, they would not do it. While a number of Speaker's rulings have found no breach and, to date, no Speaker has wanted to put an end to this practice, the fact that it has been raised as a matter continuously for many years means that it merits review on the Speaker's behalf. Let us not forget the time former Conservative finance minister Jim Flaherty decided to give a fiscal update not to the House of Commons but to a private audience of financial professionals. The House of Commons is the purview of elected members, who have been chosen by Canadians to represent them; however, he did not present the update here. The Speaker of the House at the time was the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, who found in favour of the government. In his ruling, he cited as precedent a decision by Speaker Milliken, which was also made as a consequence of the Conservative finance minister's actions. The example at that time was the government's decision to release a report on the economic action plan at a media event in Saint John rather than here in Parliament. The Speaker's ruling of October 5, 2009, included the following: It is very difficult for the Chair to intervene in a situation where a minister has chosen to have a press conference or a briefing or a meeting and release material when the Speaker has nothing to do with the organization of that [event]. Speaker Milliken was also asked to judge an incident where specific information about the main estimates was published in a newspaper article, as well as a blog and Twitter. On March 22, 2011, he ruled: The member argued that the Speaker had ruled on a number of occasions that the House had an absolute right to expect the government to provide information, whether on a bill or on the estimates, to the House before it was disclosed elsewhere. For him, it was a matter of being able to respond, as a member of Parliament, to enquiries in a meaningful and intelligent way. In his response, the President of the Treasury Board admitted that the untimely release of the material in question was improper and not in keeping with past procedures and practices of this House. Furthermore, he committed to taking steps to prevent it from happening again. The minister went on to cite House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, at page 894, thus quite rightly pointing out that, in the past, similar matters, namely of budget secrecy, have been treated more as matters of parliamentary convention rather than matters of privilege. The member for Windsor—Tecumseh is certainly not misguided in his expectation that members of the House, individually and collectively, must receive from the government particular types of information required for the fulfillment of their parliamentary duties before it is shared elsewhere. However, in such instances when there is a transgression of this well-established practice, the Chair must ascertain whether, as a result, the member was impeded in the performance of parliamentary duties. Simply put, I agree with the member for La Prairie. These practices that we saw under the Conservatives and are now seeing under the Liberals have to change. This practice of disclosing all the budget information must change. We should align these budget practices more and more with House of Commons procedure and privilege. I hope that my intervention will help the Chair make a ruling on the intervention of the member for La Prairie.
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