- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman
- Manitoba
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $140,796.07
- Government Page
- May/28/24 10:39:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the comments just made by the government House leader, the member for Gatineau, are contemptuous at best.
What we are debating here right now is closure on a decision made by the Deputy Speaker that the Speaker has a prima facie case of violating the privilege of the House. Just to remind the government House leader, “The rights accorded to the House and its Members to allow them to perform their parliamentary functions unimpeded are referred to as privileges or immunities.”
On page 323 of the procedure and House affairs book, it says, “When in the Chair, the Speaker embodies the power and authority of the office, strengthened by rule and precedent. He...must at all times show, and be seen to show, the impartiality required to sustain the trust and goodwill of the House.”
The Speaker has lost the goodwill and trust of the House, and that is why the Deputy Speaker found him in contempt of Parliament and found it to be a prima facie case at that.
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- May/28/24 10:18:28 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the comments by the government House leader are so disappointing. He is not protecting the sanctity of this place. The House of Commons is our House of Commons, and that is our chair; however, the current chair occupant has proven that he is not fit to be in that chair.
We had a decision by the Deputy Speaker about the partisan activities of the Speaker. I do not know what type of baseball the Liberals play when empowered by their NDP coalition to shut down debate on a privilege motion, but the last time I looked, in baseball, it is three strikes and a player is out. On three different occasions, the Speaker has been involved in partisan activities and given partisan speeches. This is the fourth occasion. It has been found each and every time that he has violated the rules of this place.
We have a question of privilege in front of us. Turning to chapter 3 of the third edition of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, on page 150, it says:
Once the motion is properly moved, seconded, and proposed to the House, it is subject to all the procedures and practices relating to debate on a substantive motion. The speeches are limited...
The House has considered all the conduct of the member, in this case, the Speaker. It goes on to say:
A privilege motion once under debate has priority over all Orders of the Day including Government Orders and Private Members’ Business. However, the debate does not interfere with Routine Proceedings, Statements by Members, Question Period, Royal Assent, deferred recorded divisions or the adjournment of the House [or other] scheduled...Private Members’ Business...
We have done our orders of the day, but now we have the Liberals, empowered by their NDP coalition partners, shutting down debate and moving closure on a question of privilege that relates to the very confidence that all of us in the House of Commons have in the Speaker.
The Speaker should do the honourable thing and resign. The House Leader should do that instead of forcing us to—
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Mr. Speaker, I will just continue addressing the question of privilege that was raised on Friday by the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.
I had gotten to the point in my dissertation as to the ruling that Speaker Milliken made in 2002 about the minister of national defence at that time. He is quoted as saying that misleading a minister or a member has been considered a form of obstruction and, thus, a prima facie breach of privilege. The Speaker accepted the minister's assertion that he had no intention to mislead the House and made the following statement: “Nevertheless this remains a very difficult situation.”
The Speaker went on to say:
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. I therefore invite the hon. member for Portage--Lisgar to move his motion.
On November 4, 2003, the member at the time for Scarborough—Rouge River presented to the House the ninth report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, which documented how the former privacy commissioner had deliberately misled the committee and provided false and misleading information to it. The member for Scarborough—Rouge River rose later in the sitting on a question of privilege to charge the former commissioner with contempt of Parliament based on the contents of the report. On November 6, the Speaker delivered his ruling and found the matter to be a prima facie question of privilege.
On April 10, 2008, the member for Charlottetown at the time raised a question of privilege alleging that the RCMP deputy commissioner provided false and misleading testimony to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts at a meeting on February 21, 2007. The Standing Committee on Public Accounts reported the matter to the House. and the Speaker found that a prima facie case of contempt had been established.
On February 17, 2011, the member for Scarborough—Guildwood and other members argued that a minister had made statements in a committee that were different from those made in the House or provided to the House in written form. These members argued that the material available showed that contradictory information had been provided. As a result, they argued that this demonstrated that the minister deliberately misled the House and that, as such, a prima facie case of privilege existed.
In a ruling of March 9, the Speaker said:
The crux of the matter, it seems to me, is this: as the committee has reported, when asked who inserted the word “not” in the assessment of the KAIROS funding application, in testimony the minister twice replied that she did not know. In a February 14 statement to the House, while she did not indicate that she knew who inserted the word “not”, the minister addressed this matter by stating that the “not” was inserted at her direction. At the very least, it can be said that this has caused confusion. The minister has acknowledged this, and has characterized her own handling of the matter as “unfortunate”. Yet as is evident from hearing the various interventions that have been made since then, the confusion persists. As the member for Scarborough—Rouge River told the House, this “has confused me. It has confused Parliament. It has confused us in our exercise of holding the government to account, whether it is the Privy Council, whether it is the minister, whether it is public officials; we cannot do our job when there is that type of confusion”.
On February 25, 2014, the then House leader of the official opposition raised a question of privilege regarding statements made in the House by the member for Mississauga—Streetsville. He claimed that:
...the hon. member for Mississauga—Streetsville had deliberately misled the House on February 6, 2014, during debate on Bill C-23, the fair elections act, when he stated that he had witnessed evidence of voter fraud firsthand. He further argued that the matter was not resolved by the statements made by the member for Mississauga—Streetsville on February 24 and 25, where he admitted that, contrary to his original claim, he had not actually witnessed what he had originally claimed to have witnessed. In his view, this was not a simple case of someone misspeaking; he argued rather that it was a case where the member deliberately chose to take something he knew not to be true and present it as eyewitness evidence—something so egregious, it constituted contempt.
In delivering his ruling, on March 3, the speaker at the time cited that:
Speaker Milliken was faced with [this] in February 2002 when the then Minister of National Defence, Art Eggleton, provided contradictory information to the House. In ruling on a question of privilege raised about the contradiction, Speaker Milliken stated on February 1, at page 8581 of Debates:
I am prepared, as I must be, to accept the minister’s assertion that he had no intention to mislead the House.
The same Speaker went on to conclude:
In keeping with that precedent, I am prepared to accord the same courtesy to the member for Mississauga—Streetsville.
At the same time, the fact remains that the House continues to be seized of completely contradictory statements. This is a difficult position in which to leave members, who must be able to depend on the integrity of the information with which they are provided to perform their parliamentary duties.
Accordingly, in keeping with the precedent cited earlier in which Speaker Milliken indicated that the matter merited “...further consideration by an appropriate committee, if only to clear the air”, I am prepared in this case for the same reason to allow the matter to be put to the House.
On November 3, 1978, the member for Northumberland—Durham raised a question of privilege and charged that he had been deliberately misled by a former solicitor general. The member had written in 1973 to the solicitor general, who assured him that, as a matter of policy, the RCMP did not intercept the private mail of Canadians. On November 1, 1978, during testimony before the McDonald commission, the former commissioner of the RCMP stated that they did intercept mail on a very restricted basis and that the practice was not one that had been concealed from ministers. The Speaker ruled on December 6 that there was indeed a prima facie case of contempt.
I will go back to the original question raised by the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot. He said on November 4 that he had been told by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence that a decision had not yet been made in answer to a question that he had here on November 21 about the replacement of our CP-140 Aurora aircraft.
The parliamentary secretary stated:
Mr. Speaker, I agree with the hon. member. We need to replace the CP-140 Aurora patrol aircraft. However, we need to replace them with something that will serve the operational capability of the armed forces. No decision has been made yet.
The parliamentary secretary's second answer was even more specific. She said, “Mr. Speaker, I want to be very clear today. No decision has been made.”
A few days later, on November 28, in an answer to questions from the member, the Minister of Public Services and Procurement said:
Mr. Speaker, I thank our colleague for acknowledging the expertise of aerospace workers not only in Quebec, but also in Canada. That is why the decision we will soon be making is an important one....
We know that the next day, November 29, there were multiple media reports that the government was going to be buying the Boeing Poseidon P-8A patrol aircraft.
Global News stated, “sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said that last week”, which was November 23, “cabinet green-lit the purchase of 16 P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft to replace the half-century-old CP-140 Auroras.”
It went on to say:
Two of the sources, including a senior government official, said the Treasury Board held a special meeting Tuesday night [November 28] and approved the contract, which a U.S. agency has listed at US$5.9 billion (C$8 billion).
Therefore, the announcement did finally get made officially on November 30 to sole-source the P-8 from Boeing.
This question of privilege does not call into question the replacement of the CP-140 Aurora patrol aircraft or the process of awarding that contract to Boeing. To be clear, Conservatives want to procure equipment for the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Canadian Armed Forces; we just want to do it faster, and we want to make sure we are procuring the kit and equipment our armed forces are asking for.
This question of privilege is with respect to whether the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence and the Minister of Public Services and Procurement intentionally misled the House.
Based on the timing of events I just laid out, I support the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot's question of privilege. The answers from both the Minister of Procurement and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence were misleading to the House and the defence industry, and I would suggest that this constitutes a prima facie breach of privilege.
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- Oct/19/22 3:28:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise today and pay tribute to a former colleague and veteran parliamentarian, the Hon. Bill Blaikie, who recently passed away.
Bill was first elected to this place in 1979 and served continuously for 29 years. When I and others in this chamber were first elected back in 2004, the dean of the House was Bill, a position he held in the 38th and 39th Parliaments.
As we know in this chamber, the esteemed roles of Speaker and Deputy Speaker are normally shared between the governing party and the official opposition. However, because Bill epitomized what being a parliamentarian meant, he was respected right across party lines and throughout this entire House. He was appointed in 2006 as Deputy Speaker, as mentioned, serving with Speaker Milliken. He made some incredible rulings and ran the House very efficiently.
Our House leader, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, was appointed at that time as Assistant Deputy Speaker at the tender age of 26 and worked closely with Bill. I have a fun fact: When Bill was first elected to the House of Commons in 1979, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle was just two days old.
Bill was a devoted parliamentarian, a former House leader and a Deputy Speaker. Bill's reverence for the institutions of Parliament is something we will always remember about him.
When I first met Bill, he was literally bigger than life, towering over almost all of his colleagues, with the exception of six-foot-seven Brian Pallister, the former premier of Manitoba, who, at the time, was the MP for Portage—Lisgar. Back in those days, the direct flights between Winnipeg and Ottawa were done on either Dash 8s or the little CRJ jets. I can say that it was almost impossible for Bill to bend over enough to get into the airplane and walk down the aisle, never mind to fit into the extremely tight seating. I found it very uncomfortable, but Bill never ever complained.
It was on those trips back and forth between Ottawa and home that I was able to get to know Bill. I was surprised to learn that he had been a member of the Progressive Conservative Party. He was a young Conservative in high school and his early days in college. That is why I think he was so reasonable and he could always appreciate our side of the debate.
It was also on those trips, because of his long service and that I knew when he first started in Parliament he had a young family, as I did, I would ask him for advice on how to make sure we balanced parliamentary life with our responsibilities to our families. He provided me with very sound advice.
Bill also served as a reservist with the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada and shared my passion for a strong Canadian Armed Forces.
Mr. Speaker, as you and I both know, Bill was very proud of his Scottish heritage. He was one of the best pipers Canada had to offer and was instrumental in founding our annual Robbie Burns nights here on the Hill, starting back in 1988 with Speaker Fraser. I can honestly say that I have never seen a more passionate, better or comical Address to a Haggis. Bill loved performing it and we all loved watching him do it.
Following his federal career here in Ottawa, Bill was asked to run provincially and served from 2009 to 2011 as Manitoba's minister of conservation and government House leader. I got to work with him again as we dealt with overland flooding along Lake Manitoba, Lake Winnipeg and Lake St. Martin in my riding.
It was not just politics and Parliament that Bill respected. He was a man of faith. He revered God. The Hon. Bill Blaikie was also the Reverend Bill Blaikie, an ordained minister of the United Church. He found callings in both faith and politics. After he retired from politics, Bill accepted a position as adjunct professor of theology and politics at the University of Winnipeg.
When it came to politics, as Bill said in an interview after publishing his 2011 biography, his “driving force has been the social gospel in Canadian left-wing politics”. That dynamic of persons of faith in politics, perhaps, is something that has been more common in western Canada and certainly was, once upon a time, part of the very foundation of the NDP.
Bill was keen to stress, “The church and state is different than faith and politics...you notice that where the separation of church and state is very strong and constitutional that doesn’t mean there’s a separation between faith and politics because that’s something individuals bring. It’s not an institutional connection.”
Bill was a worthy successor to the social gospel heritage of the NDP and its predecessor, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, which had propelled that party to many of its historical successes on the Prairies. In fact, the House leader of the official opposition told me, “If Bill had won the NDP leadership back in 2003, I probably would never have won my Saskatchewan seat in 2004.” Truth be told, if Bill was the NDP leader, my Manitoba seat would have been at risk and I may not have made it here in 2004 either. Instead, as fate would have it, Jack Layton won, which allowed our House leader and I to be Bill's colleagues in the House and, in the case of our House leader, share your chair, Mr. Speaker.
Like many Conservatives and New Democrats, we hardly agreed on everything, but we certainly respected the fact that we each believed in things and acknowledged our respective principles.
Bill Blaikie had a life well lived, a life dedicated to service and helping others, and for that we unite today in paying tribute and giving thanks.
In closing, on behalf of my Conservative colleagues, I want to express our sincere condolences to Bill's wife Brenda, his daughters Rebecca, Jessica and Tessa, and his son, our colleague, who is carrying on Bill's legacy, the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona.
Bill will be sadly missed, but fondly remembered by all. May he rest in peace.
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