Evidence of meeting #19 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was lee.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Noon
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Committee members, the clock says 12:01 p.m. Today we have an extra meeting from a motion that was presented.
Before us we have Mr. Derek Lee, MP for Scarborough—Rouge River.
Mr. Lee, I understand you have some opening remarks to make.
Noon
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I guess I have the consent of the committee to lead off here. I note, Madam Chair, that you did not read the order of reference for today, but that's okay, as the members have had a chance to read it.
As most of you know, I'm a House procedures guy. There might be 10, 20, or 30 of us in the House. Arising out of that predisposition of mine, I have to say that while I have a natural desire to respond to committees in the House and to help out colleagues, my appearance here today as a witness has to be conditional on the committee establishing its authority to undertake this study. It is a study cobbled together during a committee debate about me and, as I understand it, on claims made on an Internet website.
I should also say that the issues apparently raised and discussed have also been raised by other members at another committee and in the House itself. I don't have any document to show this, but I am advised that the government had undertaken a complete search of my 22 years as a member of the House of Commons, for whatever purposes, in preparing for today. You will understand my response when I say that all of this seemed to occur the very week that I and some other members of the House achieved some measure of success in the House on the issue of the House's subpoena powers. I just couldn't help but think it was payback, as members around the table will understand. There are some political equations always extant in the House and at its committees.
I am going to ask the chair and clerk to describe the committee's authority to proceed on this particular issue today. You can take a minute or two, because I have a couple of other remarks to make first, but I am inviting the chair, with the assistance of the clerk, to read to me the provisions of the Standing Orders providing a mandate or authority to this committee to my satisfaction.
In the meantime, for the committee, I will say that I am sitting before you as a member and colleague and as a lawyer. I confirm that. I've been a lawyer my entire career.
Under section 7 of the Conflict of Interest Code contained in the appendix of our Standing Orders, there are the explicit words that a member is not prevented from:
engaging in employment or in the practice of a profession.
Also, section 27 of the same set of rules provides that:
A Member who has reasonable grounds to believe that another Member has not complied with...[the] Code may...set out the reasonable grounds for that belief—
—and send those to the commissioner for an inquiry.
The House has set up a complete code of procedures to deal with these kinds of issues. This committee, of course, isn't involved in those procedures, but I just wanted to refer you to sections 7 and 27 of the code.
You should also know that I released a statement on May 6 as a result of statements made in the House by one of the government ministers, and I said then and I am repeating it now that I am a lawyer. I am not a lobbyist, and I have never been paid in any way to lobby the federal government.
I'll just check with the chair. Do you have the statement of the committee's authority there? If you're not quite ready, I have one closing piece that I'll just add.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
I want to suggest to the committee the following procedural point, that if it insists or wishes on operating knowingly outside its committee mandate, outside of the House's authority that's been given to the committee, there are the following three implications.
First, it might, depending on how the thing goes, bring the committee's procedures and the House's procedures into some disrepute.
Second, the committee will lose its ability to report to the House. The Speaker has very clearly identified this as a direct implication, saying that he will not receive reports from committees that act outside of their mandate.
Third, the committee will lose its own ability to pursue an inquiry publicly, and it would likely lose some or all of the privileges that attach to our work in the committee, including the privilege of immunity—especially where there is knowledge and malice. In a political context, you can get scenarios like that.
In my view, and I am not offering you a big legal opinion here, I think those are pretty evident implications of our rules and procedures.
I'm going to put my situation in the hands of the chair now and ask if the chair and clerk have managed to identify the mandate from the House of Commons authorizing this committee to take up this inquiry today.
12:05 p.m.
Bloc
Richard Nadeau Bloc Gatineau, QC
This morning, we were provided with a document that was in English only. Could we have the French version, please?
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Monsieur Nadeau, this motion was passed by the committee and we had it in both official languages. If you don't have it on your file today with you, we are ensuring that a copy will be made available to you. People wanted copies, and we will ensure that it is translated and will be given to you.
Everyone received a copy of the motion that was presented by Mr. Bruinooge.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
12:05 p.m.
Bloc
Richard Nadeau Bloc Gatineau, QC
Okay. So we will receive it before the end of the meeting, I hope, or in the next few minutes.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
On that point of order, will all the minutes of proceedings be translated?
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Not on that point of order, but to ask you to read out what Mr. Lee is looking for. I guess he's asking for some information. Of course, we have a rationale as to why this committee unanimously decided to move forward with this motion and these hearings. So I think it would be timely for us to get on with this. Certainly we have indicated that Mr. Lee will be the witness today on the orders of the day, so I'd like to proceed.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
I was responding to Mr. Lee. I have the Standing Orders in front of me. It's page 83, if anybody has the Standing Orders with them. The clerk is informing me that since the motion was moved and there were no procedural issues raised at that time, and since the committee accepted the motion and we were ordered to proceed, we are proceeding.
But as Mr. Lee has been a procedural expert, I would ask him to take a moment to tell us specifically, if he can, what in his opinion has been a violation of this committee's mandate.
Mr. Lee, I know you have raised points of privilege that have resulted in Speaker's rulings. You're an expert on these, and we don't claim to be experts, so could you take a minute or so to give us some idea, and then we can proceed?
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Maybe you can make a ruling, Madam Chair, and then we can proceed, because we only have one hour. I don't want this to turn into a filibuster.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
It's not a filibuster. If you would give Mr. Lee the courtesy and go to page 83 of the rules and procedures, we are actually not within our mandate. That's why I want everybody to have a look at page 83.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Madam Chair, why don't you read out what your interpretation of that is so we can have a discussion about that, please?
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Fair enough. I will read:
Government Operations and Estimates shall include, among other matters:
(i) the review of and report on the effectiveness, management and operation, together with operational and expenditure plans of the central departments and agencies;
(ii) the review of and report on the effectiveness, management and operation—
12:10 p.m.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
On a point of order, Madam Chair, I hope you don't intend to read the entire section 108. We all have it.