- Member of Parliament
- Deputy House leader of the official opposition
- Conservative
- Mégantic—L'Érable
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 69%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $94,201.00
- Government Page
- Apr/8/24 4:04:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this time, I will answer the question in French, because it is a little more technical in nature.
That is precisely where the problem lies. We need to understand how this could have happened. How is it that a company was asked to define the terms of a contract that it itself was awarded by the Liberal government? How could we have allowed this to happen in our system? I sincerely think that the reason is the laxness we have seen on the part of the Liberal government in the past eight years when it comes to the various scandals it has faced.
People think they do not have to be afraid and can say whatever they want in committee because there are no consequences. It is time that we put an end to that. To ensure that we can shed light on these situations and on all the other scandals that come out day after day and week after week, we need to adopt the motion of privilege to send a clear message to witnesses that they should not play games with the House of Commons or with Canadians.
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- Dec/4/23 12:50:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I understand. However, I think it is very important that all of the French speakers are able to hear about the facts that were reported and the articles that were published in the English newspapers directly from a member.
I will continue by quoting a few things from House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition. Chapter 7 very clearly states the following:
...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.
A new fact has come to light. Today, in the House, a political party asked the Speaker to step down. That is a new development that occurred after my colleague from Regina—Qu'Appelle raised the question of privilege.
Chapter 7 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice also states the following: “In order to protect the impartiality of the office, the Speaker abstains from all partisan political activity”.
To show how much I respect the fact that the Speaker asked me to be brief, I will end with this. The participation of the Speaker of the House of Commons in a partisan Liberal activity, whether at the federal, provincial or even municipal level—if there were municipal Liberal activities—is simply unacceptable. The Speaker must be the arbiter of House debates and deliberations.
Mr. Speaker, for all these reasons, I ask that you rule in favour of the question of privilege put by the House leader for the opposition and member for Regina—Qu'Appelle.
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- Dec/4/23 12:41:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment on this very serious question. I wish to do so so that the people watching us in Quebec and all francophone communities across the country understand what we are talking about right now in the House of Commons.
Today, we provided notice of a question of privilege concerning the Speaker's public participation in partisan events over this past weekend.
As the Speaker himself indicated this morning in his statement, I hope that he will recuse himself from the deliberations concerning this question of privilege. This is an extremely sensitive issue, especially since the question of privilege has been compounded by a number of other issues.
The Conservative Party asked that the question of privilege be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to study the event and recommend any appropriate remedies. Today, another political party asked that the Speaker simply resign. This is an extremely serious matter that deserves to be looked at very seriously.
Words and deeds matter. I am going to quote the member for Hull—Aylmer, before he took the role of Speaker, from the speech he made in the House to all his colleagues and to all Canadians. Let us not forget that before the vote, all those running to become Speaker were given the opportunity to make a speech in the hope of winning the support of their peers, their fellow MPs. The member for Hull—Aylmer took advantage of his speaking time to call for respect, saying, and I quote:
The words we use matter. Symbols matter. I know this all too well.
These are weighty words in relation to the events reported to us by The Globe and Mail this weekend. Subsequently, we have had the opportunity to see them on social networks and, today, they are being repeated just about everywhere on all platforms and in all media.
Let me remind members what happened. The Globe and Mail published an article on Saturday under the following headline, “John Fraser finishes his time as interim Ontario Liberal leader as party elects permanent replacement”. The article was written by Laura Stone. She quotes the Speaker of the House quite remarkably. Here is how the member for Hull—Aylmer referred to Mr. Fraser: “He's demonstrated so much calm, and conviction and resolve and determination, and he's held it all together at a very challenging time in the history of our party.”
Let me repeat that last part because it is very important for what happened next: “He's held it all together at a very challenging time in the history of our party.”
I will now quote an excerpt from the statement made by the Speaker of the House this morning, at the opening of the House, speaking about that video.
Hon. colleagues, it was played at a convention for a party that I am not a member of, in a province where I do not live in and where I have been unable to vote for nearly three decades.
I can remember the Speaker's exact words in the video, which was viewed by a number of Canadians. The Speaker of the House, wearing his robes and standing in his office, said of Mr. Fraser that he “demonstrated so much calm, and conviction and resolve and determination”, and “held it all together at a very challenging time in the history of our party”.
That is the opposite of the statement the Speaker of the House and member for Hull—Aylmer made this morning. What does he mean by “our party”?
Regardless, the video went even further. The Speaker of the House took part by video in the election of the leader of the Ontario Liberal Party. This is an excerpt of what he said in the two-minute video produced as part of a tribute to Mr. Fraser, and I quote: “We had a lot of fun together through the Ottawa South Liberal Association, through Liberal Party politics, by helping Dalton McGuinty get elected. This was really a seminal part of my life. When I think of the opportunities that I have now as being Speaker of the House of Commons, it's because of people like John and Linda, and especially you, John, that I am the person I am today.”
In that same video, once again, the Speaker himself mentioned his affiliation with the Liberal brand. He was wearing the Speaker's robes and standing in the Speaker's office, and the video was probably filmed using House of Commons resources. For the benefit of the people tuning in, I will just remind them that the video was played at the Ontario Liberal leadership convention as a message from the Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada. As I mentioned earlier, he made these remarks while standing in the Speaker's office in West Block and wearing the Speaker's robes.
The decision to take part in a political convention is in and of itself very ill advised for someone who must be seen to be non-partisan. Some people may say that the situation would have been different if the member for Hull—Aylmer had done this wearing jeans in his backyard and using a personal computer rather than House of Commons resources, but that is not true. The Speaker of the House is the Speaker of the House, regardless of the circumstances and regardless of what he is wearing. When he does something like this while deliberately dressed in the full regalia of his non-partisan position in the offices of the Speaker of the House of Commons, that is what we would call a partisan gesture on the part of someone we would expect to show absolute non-partisanship.
I thought it was important, and I still think it is important, that we inform all of the francophones across the country who watch our proceedings of what is going on. It is important to remember that the House of Commons Procedure and Practice is very clear on the non-partisan nature of the position of Speaker of the House of Commons.
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- Oct/17/23 4:20:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to comments made yesterday by the member for Winnipeg North on the question of privilege raised by the member for Calgary Nose Hill on Thursday, October 5. Yesterday, in his remarks, the member for Winnipeg North misled the House. I would like to quote a few of his statements concerning the question of privilege raised by the member for Calgary Nose Hill.
The issue we are discussing has to do with the government's written responses to questions about the Prime Minister's travel. I submitted those three questions to the government myself, in writing. Yesterday, the member for Winnipeg North spoke about the last two questions that I asked. I would like to quote what the member for Winnipeg North said yesterday:
The crux of the questions posed is based on the notion of “total costs incurred by the government”. The government takes the view that “the government” includes all core departments of the public service and not independent arm's-length agencies, such as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
This is what the member for Winnipeg North stated and alleged yesterday. I will continue with the quotation:
The fact is that neither of these questions specifically asked for that information. It is not for the government to make assumptions about what the member means to ask when submitting an Order Paper question. The government simply responds to the precise question that was asked.
I feel that the questions were well formulated, that they were entirely in order and that the government was asked to provide all the information requested. The proof is in Question No. 1180, which I asked on January 31. I will read the questions that were asked and the specific requests that were made at the time:
(a) what were the total costs incurred by the government for (i) accommodations, (ii) per diems, (iii) other expenses for the flight crew and government officials who travelled to Jamaica in connection with the Prime Minister's trip....
That was the wording of the question asked on January 31.
I will now read Question No. 1417, which I asked on April 19 and to which the member for Winnipeg North referred yesterday:
(a) what were the total costs incurred by the government for (i) accommodations, (ii) per diems, (iii) other expenses, for the flight crew and government officials who travelled to Montana in connection with the Prime Minister's trip....
Other than the destination, both questions are identical. The difference is that, in its answer to Question No. 1180, the government included all the costs, including those incurred by the RCMP. This leads me to conclude that the government deliberately omitted the costs incurred by the RCMP in its answers to the two subsequent questions. All three questions were written in the same way.
I thought this was extremely important information for the House to consider, especially given that the answer to Question No. 1180 was signed off on by the members for Winnipeg North and Hull—Aylmer. The people saying that the questions were not properly written, specifically the member for Winnipeg North, actually answered the first question properly. They should have answered the other two in the same way by including the costs related to the RCMP's participation in the other two trips.
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- Jun/16/23 2:35:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, when employees from a minister's office or any department devise strategies to avoid answering legitimate questions from members of the House of Commons, it is, for us, a prima facie question of privilege. I therefore wanted to advise you that the member for Calgary Nose Hill wishes to reserve the right to respond to the comments made by the deputy government whip.
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