- Member of Parliament
- Member of the Board of Internal Economy
House leader of the official opposition
- Conservative
- Regina—Qu'Appelle
- Saskatchewan
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $172,932.98
- Government Page
- Feb/6/24 12:57:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a question of privilege about a very serious matter: the misleading comments of the Prime Minister concerning the invitation of Yaroslav Hunka, a former soldier of the Waffen-SS military unit in World War II, to attend events with the President of Ukraine during his recent visit to Canada.
As we all recall, last September this chamber was the epicentre of a grave international embarrassment for Canada when this individual, a former SS soldier, was recognized and given a standing ovation during President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's address to our Parliament. This gave Vladimir Putin a major propaganda coup and caused significant pain for Jewish Canadians and all victims persecuted in World War II.
The government, and the Prime Minister in particular, were at great pains to distance themselves from any connection to this individual, claiming that they had absolutely nothing to do with his invitation and subsequent recognition. Lo and behold, Global Affairs Canada recently released, through access to information, a copy of an email sent to Yaroslav Hunka inviting him to a reception with President Zelenskyy, which was reported on yesterday afternoon by The Globe and Mail and, subsequently, other media outlets.
Here is the kicker: It was the Prime Minister's invitation.
On Monday, September 19, 2023, some four days before the President's address to Parliament, an email account called "RSVP Official Events/Événements officiels RSVP" sent an email with the subject line, “INVITATION FROM THE PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA — SEPTEMBER 22, 2023”. The body of the email begins, “Dear Yaroslav Hunka, The Right Honourable...Prime Minister of Canada, is pleased to invite you to a special event.”
As members may recall, until the visit was formally announced a few days later, there was a lot of coded language being used, like in the case of this "special event", but the point remains, that the Prime Minister invited this former SS soldier to attend an event honouring the President of Ukraine. Of course, members will recall that the Prime Minister and his government were under sustained questioning in the House in the week following the visit about just how such a colossal mistake, with international reverberations, could take place.
There were questions like those asked by the Leader of the Opposition on the first occasion the Prime Minister appeared in the House after the scandalous events, such as, “did the Prime Minister's national security, intelligence or diplomatic officials vet the names of the people the Prime Minister allowed within mere feet of President Zelenskyy?”; and “the Prime Minister has just said that he allowed the president of a war-torn country, who is perhaps the biggest target of false propaganda and potential assassinations, to be surrounded by hundreds of people who had not been vetted for their security background, the potential risks they present or, in this case, the massive diplomatic disasters they could have brought to the event. Is the Prime Minister really saying he did absolutely nothing to protect the Ukrainian president from all those many risks?”
Repeatedly, we were assured that the blame lay exclusively at the then-Speaker's feet, as if the address to Parliament was the only opportunity for this former SS soldier to come near President Zelenskyy. For example, the Prime Minister told the House on September 27, 2023, “The Leader of the Opposition knows that not one parliamentarian was aware”, and, later, “no parliamentarian knew the name or the identity of the person he welcomed to this House and recognized”.
Now we know, that this is just not so. The Prime Minister invited this individual, by name, to an event with President Zelenskyy. The Prime Minister also said that day, “the Speaker of this House of Commons invited an individual without apparently doing that Google search, but it is not up to the government of the day to oversee or to have a veto power over those who the Speaker or, indeed, members of official parties choose to invite into this House.”
Who does the Prime Minister blame for not doing “that Google search” for his own personal invitation?
Before the Liberals jump up and claim that these are two separate events, two separate guest lists and whatnot, let me quote an interview the former Speaker, the honourable member for Nipissing—Timiskaming, gave to CTV Northern Ontario two weeks ago, explaining the central role the Prime Minister's Office plays in guest invitations for major international events held on Parliament Hill, like President Zelenskyy's wartime address, stating, “normally it goes to the Prime Minister's Office and they go through it with a fine-tooth comb” and then the invitation goes out from protocol. “So who invited him? That's up for grabs....”
Besides the fact that there was no sign of a comb, fine-tooth or otherwise, to be found, yesterday afternoon's revelations add new context to the last words in that quotation: "who invited him? That's up for grabs".
According to news reports at the time, it is understood that this individual's son approached the then Speaker's constituency office about securing an invitation to the Ottawa address. Knowing on the Monday of the week of the visit that there was a personal invitation from the Prime Minister to attend the Toronto event, it is not hard to picture this invitation becoming part of the discussion in the North Bay constituency office.
One can put themselves in the shoes of the hon. member for Nipissing—Timiskaming. One is told about the individual's connection to Ukraine and is shown an invitation in the Prime Minister's name, the name of the leader of the party whose label one is elected under. Is one really going to sit there and think they better second-guess the judgment of the PMO, the PCO and the diplomatic protocol office? I sincerely doubt it.
As the member for Nipissing—Timiskaming said, “So who invited him? That's up for grabs”. That statement makes a whole lot more sense in light of yesterday's Globe report.
I would respectfully submit it is now obvious that the Prime Minister invited Yaroslav Hunka to meet the President of Ukraine, and the then Speaker took it on good faith and, in turn, authorized his own invitation. At the very least, it shows us that the protocol office itself, in the Prime Minister's Office, had the name of this individual on its guest list.
Whatever happened between the Speaker's office and the Prime Minister's Office in terms of the invitation, we now know that this individual, this former SS member, was already on the protocol list. He was already on the list of people to be invited.
On September 27, the Prime Minister told the House, “we apologized today on behalf of all parliamentarians. For the past few days, we have been saying how sorry we are about the mistake made by the Speaker of the House of Commons.” The only mistake, Mr. Speaker, was that your predecessor put blind trust in the fact that an invitation was issued by the Prime Minister.
I am aware the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs has agreed to conduct some form of a study on the matter; although, the Liberal-NDP coalition does not seem to consider the matter important given that no hearings have yet to take place some five months later.
However, these revelations and the obvious concern that the Prime Minister appears to have misled the House are of a whole new dimension, one which engages the privileges of the House and rises, in my respectful submission, to a contempt of Parliament.
Page 85 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, notes that cases of privilege have involved “the provision of deliberately misleading information to the House or one of its committees by a Minister or by a Member”.
It is a well-established principle that to make out a prima facie case of privilege in relation to a claim of misleading the House, three elements must be established.
Firstly, it must be proven that the statement was misleading. Knowing what we know now from the Global Affairs Canada access to information release, we can see it was misleading. There is no doubt that members of Parliament, of all opposition parties, were trying to find out exactly what interaction, what role, was under the purview of the PMO or the Prime Minister for inviting this individual.
There were multiple questions coming from many different angles, and the government always gave the same explanation that it had absolutely no knowledge of this individual's background and that it had nothing to do with his invitation. We now know, through this access to information release, that is false and, therefore, misleading.
Secondly, it must be established that the member making the statement knew it to be misleading. The invitation that was released is in the name of the Prime Minister. To claim he had no knowledge of this individual is now absurd.
Thirdly, the misleading statement must have been offered with the intention to mislead the House. The House was engulfed in a massive international scandal, one which saw our own Speaker resign, falling on his sword for the Prime Minister, so there is little doubt that the Prime Minister was eager to deflect his own role and responsibility and to lay the blame elsewhere.
Of course, before the Prime Minister might stand up and assert that he was blindsided by his own officials' denials, let me quote Bosc and Gagnon at page 116:
Misleading a Minister or a Member has also been considered a form of obstruction and, thus, a prima facie breach of privilege. For example, on December 6, 1978, in finding that a prima facie contempt of the House existed, Speaker Jerome ruled that a government official, by deliberately misleading a Minister, had impeded the Member in the performance of his duties and consequently obstructed the House itself.
No matter how one cuts it, the House was misled. Its privileges were breached, and action should be taken immediately.
Should the Speaker agree with me that the Prime Minister's words amount to a prima facie contempt, I am prepared to move the appropriate motion.
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- Nov/8/23 4:19:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the hon. whip, has raised a very important point. Your ruling is that you are not in a position to make a determination. The Canadians who saw that gesture can and clearly are, and they know what the hon. member did; they can see the obvious gesture.
Mr. Speaker, you have said that you are not in a position to take one member's word over another, which is fine. It is now on social media. It lives on there. Canadians, especially the voters in Avalon, can make their own determination about whether they think it is appropriate, when people are struggling with their home heating bills, to get the finger from a member who was voting against our common-sense motion.
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- Oct/16/23 4:31:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I just want to add my voice in support of the comments made and the point raised by my colleague in the official opposition.
I will endeavour to not repeat what she has so eloquently put before the House, but I want to stress a couple of points. The first is that there is definitely precedence on things, such as legislation being leaked, constituting a breach of privilege. That has been well established. My colleague very skilfully underlined the fact that that was a new precedent at the time Speaker Milliken made his ruling.
This is an unprecedented situation, to find ourselves in this part of the life cycle of our Parliament, where the Speaker's position has now been filled by someone who was a parliamentary secretary right up until the moment of the Speaker election. It is new territory for parliamentarians.
The fact that the Speaker has had to rule on something that he himself was implicated in, in his previous position, is unprecedented. That is why our suggestion was that the proper way of recusing himself would be to put it to the House to decide.
It is important for parliamentarians to remember that the Speaker does not, formally, rule that a breach or a contempt has taken place. All the Speaker does is act as a filter, to say that a situation, on its face, or prima facie, rises to the level that we set aside all other business of the House to allow members themselves, and the House itself, to determine whether or not there is a breach or a contempt.
Our suggestion was that putting it to the House and removing the Speaker from that filtering position would not set a precedent in the case of the Order Paper question that prompted the original question. It would not bind future Speakers to rule that incomplete answers would necessarily, on their own, rise to that level. It would just say that, in this specific case, because of the Speaker's involvement in his prior role, the Speaker would remove himself from that filtering role.
The decision that was made today by the Speaker to recuse himself by way of allowing or empowering the Deputy Speaker to make the ruling was not something that the opposition had considered before the last break week. We had proposed an alternative. The Speaker had not yet ruled on that.
To find out by way of a public blog that that is the course of action that the Speaker is taking rises to the level of raising this question of privilege here today.
It also does not address the points that we made about the Speaker's conflict on the original point. It is true that the Speaker did underline for the House this morning that the Deputy Speaker is selected by the House. That is true. There is a motion that is put forward to the House and the House agrees with it, but that motion is proposed by the Speaker.
The Speaker is the one who consults with other party leaders and proposes that name to the House. The Deputy Speaker is not fully removed from, at the very least, that perception of a conflict of interest. Having been in the roles of both the Deputy Speaker and the Speaker, I can also speak to the dynamic way that the Deputy Speaker works with the Speaker. It is very clear that the Speaker is at the top of the list for chair occupants, and that deputies and assistant deputies are his or her subordinates.
That is why the statement by the Speaker this morning still does not address that aspect of the conflict. I would also pose the question to the Chair, because this decision was made on the Friday, not in the House but through what seems to be some kind of a political blogger, and that parliamentarians have not had the opportunity to raise this concern about even having the Deputy Speaker make this decision, we still believe that there is a point there that needs to be addressed.
I just want to stress that I believe the best way to move forward on this is to have the Speaker fully recuse himself by not delegating it to a Chair occupant, not delegating this question to his deputy, but by just stepping back and saying that he would let the House decide this one because he is not in a position to act as that filter.
I do not think it is too late. I understand the Speaker did make that statement this morning. I would urge him to look at the intervention by my colleague, my remarks and comments by the House leader for the New Democratic Party, and come back to the House with the tidiest solution that keeps the Speaker, as an individual and his entire office, out of the appearance, or even the suggestion, of a conflict of interest by putting it to the House to decide.
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- Apr/17/23 3:38:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would just like to signal to you we would like to reserve the right to come back on this point after having time to analyze what the member just raised.
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- Oct/21/22 12:09:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege concerning misleading comments made in the House by the Minister for Emergency Preparedness.
In late June, it came to light, in evidence presented at the Mass Casualty Commission, that the Liberal government was heavily involved in the RCMP's communications about the April 2020 Nova Scotia tragedy, which, as things would turn out, was followed, mere days later, by a firearms announcement by the Prime Minister on May 1, 2020.
That involvement came to a head in a hastily arranged teleconference between RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki, other top brass at RCMP headquarters and several Nova Scotia RCMP members, where those Nova Scotia officials were called out onto the carpet.
Contemporaneous notes of that teleconference taken by Chief Superintendent Darren Campbell, well-trained in documenting conversations, as any veteran police officer would be, recorded that Commissioner Lucki spoke about a promise she had made to the minister and had linked its importance to that forthcoming order in council announcement. Understandably, the former minister of public safety was vigorously questioned about those events here in the House.
On June 21, he said, on page 7,094 of the Debates, “no direction on an operational matter was given to the commissioner of the RCMP by me or any member of this government.” The following day, the minister said, at page 7,140 of the Debates, “At no point did our government pressure or interfere with the operational decisions of the RCMP, including their communications strategy.”
On the last day of the spring sitting, June 23, he added, at page 7,242 of the Debates, “neither the Prime Minister's Office nor the Minister of Public Safety's office had any role in interfering or pressuring the RCMP to make any operational decisions with respect to the investigation or with respect to RCMP communications around the investigation.”
The Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security and the Mass Casualty Commission itself heard from several witnesses over the summer months about their recollections of that teleconference. For his part, the minister doubled down on his own position, saying, unequivocally, at the committee on July 25, at page 1 of the evidence, “I did not ask them to release any specific information, nor did I receive a promise for them to do so.”
Later, in the meeting, at page 5 of the evidence, the minister reiterated, “I did not ask her to release that information. It wasn't required.”
In other evidence at the committee and commission, we heard Commissioner Lucki's claim that the minister's chief of staff was curious as to whether the types of firearms involved would be named in a press conference and, in turn, the RCMP commissioner dutifully inquired whether that would be the case. She asserts that she was so informed and passed the information back.
When it did not come to pass, we are supposed to believe that she felt embarrassed for having given the minister wrong information and convened the teleconference with senior Nova Scotia RCMP officials to address the miscommunication.
Subsequently, it was revealed that this conference call had been recorded by Dan Brien, an issues management adviser with the RCMP and a former longtime Liberal staffer, including serving as communications director to the previous public safety minister, Ralph Goodale. Lo and behold, those recordings had gone missing. Nonetheless, they were recovered somehow. Just yesterday, the recordings of this conversation and transcripts of them were published by the Mass Casualty Commission. That has shed a much brighter light on the infamous April 28, 2020, teleconference.
In the transcript, titled “Audio file 3 of 3 - Recorded: 2020-04-28 8:48:57 PM”, the commissioner is quoted, at lines 15 to 17 on page 1, as saying, “the little one line that I needed to be put into Darren’s speaking notes; how did it get to me that that one line was going to be in his speaking notes and it wasn’t?”
The keywords there are “one line that I needed to be put in”. It is pertinent because, as we know, the claim had been made that innocent questions had been asked by or on behalf of the minister.
In fact, the commissioner offered this explanation of the minister's interest in this issue in the following exchange with the Liberal member for Fleetwood—Port Kells, at page 24 of the evidence for the public safety committee of July 25 meeting. This is the question: “A critical piece here is, when the question was asked, was the question asked 'if' it would be disclosed, or did they ask 'for' it to be disclosed?”
Commissioner Brenda Lucki responds, “To my recollection, like I said at the very beginning, it's 'if' the weapons information would be included.”
Clearly, it was not mere curiosity whether the guns would be named. It was a line the commissioner “needed to be put in”, to use her own words. Was it at her own behest, or on behalf of someone higher up?
We must recall that the minister told the House on June 23 that the government had not played “any role” with respect to RCMP communications. Turning back to the transcript, I would refer the Chair to lines 19 and 20 on page two: “yet I got hit again, um, not being able to come through for the Minister, um on - on the simplest of requests”.
Lest we might think it is ambiguous from that question whether the commissioner may have been meaning to simply do a big favour for the minister, this next quote should leave the House with no doubt. I will now cite the transcript entitled “Audio file 1 of 3 - Recorded: 2020-04-28 8:34:52 PM”. At lines 11 and 12 on page one, we read the commissioner saying, “Flew it up the flagpole because it was a request that I got...from the Minister’s office.”
There we have it. The request came from the minister's office, but we might ask what that request was, that one line the commissioner needed to have added. It was to pre-position, as communications folks would say, for the May 1, 2020, Liberal firearms announcement.
Referring to the transcript entitled “Audio file 2 of 3 - Recorded: 2020-04-28 8:42:48 PM”, we read at lines 10 to 15 on page two, “Does anybody realize what’s going on in the world of handguns and guns right now? The fact that they’re in the middle of trying to get a legislation going”. That is the key point. That is the quote from that testimony, and I will read it again very quickly: “Does anybody realize what’s going on in the world of handguns and guns right now? The fact that they’re in the middle of trying to get a legislation going”.
There is the direct link between the government's partisan political agenda and the interference in an active investigation into a tragic shooting that left 22 innocent Canadians dead. The RCMP on the ground had reason not to release that information. The government was putting political pressure on those officers to release that information, which could have jeopardized their ongoing efforts to track the events that led to the tragic shooting.
This June, the minister asserted there was no direction, interference or pressure. If the minister were to come down to the House and say that what I just quoted to the House does not add up to that, the next quotations I will offer should remove any ambiguity about the nature or tone of that so-called request from the minister's office.
Members will recall that at the July 25 public safety committee meeting, the commissioner tried to brush off the urgency of these details coming out. Answering the Liberal member for Fleetwood—Port Kells when he asked why it was important this information be released at page 25 of the evidence, she said, “It wasn't important whether or not it was released.” The commissioner may have been on message with the minister's own committee statement, but the teleconference recording would prove them both wrong.
At lines 31 to 33 of page two of the transcript of audio file three, Commissioner Lucki is documented saying, “I already have a request sitting in my phone that the Minister wants to speak with me, and I know exactly what it’s gonna be about. And I can’t even, you know, I can’t uh, I – I – there’s not much I can say except that, once again, I dropped the ball, so that’s gonna be the fourth time I’m gonna say that to him”. She had already made one apology to the minister about her dropping the ball on pre-positioning for the Liberal gun announcement.
At lines 39 to 41 of page one of the transcript of audio file one, the RCMP commissioner says, “it’s pretty difficult when you have to tell, I have apologized to the Minister; I’m waiting for the Prime Minister to call me so I can apologize”. She is apologizing for not including that information the Liberal government decided would help it in a partisan way, despite the impact it may have on an ongoing police investigation.
It turns out that it was very important that the firearms information be released, despite what both the minister and the commissioner told the committee.
Let me put all these pieces together into one succinct summary. The RCMP commissioner is now on tape saying she “needed” a line to be put in. There are press conference remarks about an RCMP investigation in order to be able to “to come through for the Minister...on the simplest of requests” to accommodate information relevant to soon-to-be announced firearms laws.
Not having succeeded and not being satisfied with one apology, the minister was on the line looking for accountability because the commissioner had dropped the ball. The minister's comments to the House in June simply do not hold water. There is no other way to put it. He has misled this House, and he and the commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have both misled the public safety committee.
It is a well-established principle here that to make out a prima facie case of privilege in relation to a claim of misleading the House, three elements must be established.
First, it must be proven that the statement was misleading. The recordings and the transcripts taken in their entirety baldly contradict the minister's own assertions on the floor of the House in June.
Second, it must be established that the member making the statement knew it to be misleading. The RCMP commissioner herself said in these recordings that the minister had asked to speak to her and she said, “I know exactly what it’s gonna be about.” We know exactly what it was about.
Third, the misleading statement must have been offered with the intention to mislead the House. In June, when the revelations about this conference call first broke, the minister was under a political firestorm here in the House. He was in full-on damage control mode. In the circumstances, there is no way to view his comments other than as an attempt to be a wet blanket to smother yet another political scandal of the current Liberal government, interfering in police criminal investigations for political advantage.
It is my respectful submission that the three-part test concerning misleading the House has been satisfied. As Mr. Speaker Milliken ruled on February 1, 2002, at page 8,581 of the Debates:
I believe that both the minister and other hon. members recognize that two versions of events have been presented to the House.
...On the basis of the arguments presented by hon. members and in view of the gravity of the matter, I have concluded that the situation before us where the House is left with two versions of events is one that merits further consideration by an appropriate committee, if only to clear the air.
The air here certainly needs to be cleared. The stench must be purged, even if the minister heeds Conservative calls to resign.
Finally, before concluding, there is one potential hurdle the Liberals might try to identify that I want to address up front. That is that the Mass Casualty Commission's recordings and transcripts have not yet been formally placed before the House. However, I would refer members to the decision of Mr. Speaker Jerome on December 6, 1978, at page 1,856 of the Debates, where a prima facie case of privilege was established in relation to misleading information on the strength of evidence that was given before the Commission of Inquiry Concerning Certain Activities of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, also known as the McDonald commission.
Today's circumstances are, frankly, no different. In both cases, we have evidence from an RCMP commissioner given to a royal commission established under the Inquiries Act that contradicts the information which is before the House. Just as Mr. Speaker Jerome was prepared to find a prima facie case of privilege then, I believe that the Speaker can and must find one in the present circumstances to allow the House to address the misleading claims of the Minister of Emergency Preparedness.
I would just remind the Speaker, and I remind all hon. members, that we are not expecting the Speaker himself to make this determination. We are not expecting the Speaker himself to rule unilaterally that the minister is in contempt of the House or that the minister deliberately misled the House. All we are asking the Speaker to do is to allow the House to come to that decision and to make its own decision on this issue. The role of the Speaker is not to make this determination on his own. The role of the Speaker is to decide whether this rises to the level of allowing the House to study the matter and the House itself to pronounce on whether the minister is in contempt or has deliberately misled the House.
The gravity of this situation should not be forgotten. We are not simply pointing out a time when the minister was caught up with a contradiction about a minor issue or got some details wrong. We are talking about the allegation that in the middle of an ongoing investigation, mere days after a tragic shooting, the government was putting political pressure on the RCMP communications around the issue.
The RCMP officers who were conducting the investigation felt that releasing the specific information around the firearms that were used in the shooting could jeopardize their ability to find out where these firearms came from or other details around the case. It was the officers' discretion and their expertise that led them to the conclusion that they should not divulge that information at that time in the investigation.
For its own partisan political purposes, the government broke all bounds of decency and violated that independence between the executive branch of government and our national police force. It was all for political gain. That is why the situation rises to the level of justifying a finding of, at least at first glance, a breach of privilege.
Should you find that we are correct in this assertion, Mr. Speaker, I would be prepared to move the appropriate motion.
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