Evidence of meeting #30 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was flyer.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
I'm asking you a question. It's the identical mailing, but you state that it went to another riding.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Having not seen the mailing from Mount Royal, I couldn't answer whether it was identical or not.
Mr. Poilievre.
December 8th, 2009 / 11:10 a.m.
Conservative
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you.
That being the end, do we have consent for Mr. Lauzon to take the chair?
Then I will recuse myself and allow Mr. Lauzon to do so.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
The Acting Chair Conservative Guy Lauzon
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you for putting your trust in me as chair.
I understand that according to our agenda we have until 12:30 to deal with this matter, and then we're going in camera at 12:30 to deal with committee business.
Please forgive me; it's been a long time since I've been chair of a committee, but I do appreciate the honour of having this opportunity. When I was a chair, as some members will know, I was rigorous with time allotments. If the decision is for seven-minute rounds, and it is, it will be seven minutes both for the member and for the witness to answer. I'm going to hold to that, and I'll try to be as fair as possible through this whole process.
I welcome the Honourable Irwin Cotler. I understand you have an opening statement, and we'll invite you to make that statement now, please.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
Irwin Cotler Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Mr. Chairman, my statement is along the lines of others who have appeared before you. It may be a little more than 10 minutes, because I want to refer to certain precedents and principles. Citing those precedents and principles takes a bit of time.
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
Irwin Cotler Liberal Mount Royal, QC
I think the initial presentation will be done, I trust, in 15 minutes.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
Just for your clarification, you may not have been here when we had other witnesses, including one specifically on another reference on breach of privilege, but the witness was not held to any timeline. The witness was allowed to make the statement to the fullest--
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
No, that's not what I understood. I understood Mr. Cotler to say that he believes his statement might take 15 minutes; it could take longer.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
Irwin Cotler Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Mr. Chairman, as I say, I have not timed the referencing, but I--
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
Irwin Cotler Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I am pleased to meet this committee pursuant to a motion adopted by the whole House, which referred the finding of the Speaker that there had been a prima facie breach of my privileges as a member as a result of false, misleading, prejudicial, and rather pernicious ten percenters targeting the Jewish members of my constituency of Mount Royal and other Jewish residents in urban ridings across the country.
I might add that the specific content in these ten percenters, to which the Speaker referred and to which I'm referring, accused the Liberals of having, and I quote, “willingly participated in the overtly anti-Semitic Durban I”, thereby effectively associating the Liberal Party and me, as a member, with identifying with and supporting anti-Semitism. These flyers, as the Speaker determined, damaged my standing and reputation amongst my constituents and impeded thereby my functioning as a member of Parliament, and accordingly was a breach of my privileges as a member of Parliament.
May I in that regard quote the ruling of the Speaker on November 26 as follows. I quote:
...the Chair has no difficulty concluding that any reasonable person reading the mailing in question, and this would, of course, include the constituents of Mount Royal, would have likely been left with an impression at variance with the member's long-standing and well-known position on these matters.
He continues:
Therefore, I must conclude that the member for Mount Royal, on the face of it, has presented a convincing argument that the mailing constitutes interference with his ability to perform his parliamentary functions in that its content is damaging to his reputation and his credibility.
O'Brien and Bosc, in the successor to Marleau and Montpetit, quote Maingot as follows on this point:
The purpose of raising matters of “privilege” in either House of Parliament is to maintain the respect and credibility due to and required of each House in respect of these privileges, to uphold its powers, and to enforce the enjoyment of the privileges of its Members. A genuine question of privilege is therefore a serious matter not to be reckoned with lightly.
So we see here that it is not only the privileges of the member, but effectively, we are talking about the privileges and the dignity of Parliament as an institution.
This committee therefore is now entrusted with investigating this breach and reporting to the full House. Accordingly, I will organize my submission around two themes: first, to present before you the clear and compelling evidence in support of a breach of privilege; and second, to outline the remedies the committee may wish to include in its report to the House for the purpose of...as O'Brien and Bosc put it, and I quote, “to respect and enforce the privileges of its members”.
Let me begin with the Conservative ten percenter, which I will table for this committee, that targeted Jewish constituents in urban areas, as I mentioned, such as my riding of Mount Royal. As I attested to in the House, the contents of these ten percenters contain serious falsehoods and misrepresentations that not only--to put it mildly, Mr. Chairman, and as the Speaker found--distorted my true position and created confusion in constituents' minds, which would be bad enough, but they also, as the Speaker determined, had the prejudicial effect of unjustly damaging my reputation and my credibility with the voters of my riding. As such, again as the Speaker ruled, it infringed on my privileges by prejudicing my ability to function as a member.
Mr. Chair, what was specifically damaging, and wherein the breach of privilege is most evident, is in the false and cruel characterizations of my party and me, and I quote, as “willingly participating in the overtly anti-Semitic Durban I”. This is a particularly outrageous accusation for Jewish constituents who are so targeted, because, as I wrote on the occasion of Durban I at the time, and as I have written and spoken about since--and I will table my articles in this regard for the committee as well--“Durban I has emerged for Jews as a metaphor for the most virulent and lethal anti-Semitism”; accordingly, “To identify any political party, let alone a Jewish MP, with willingly participating in such an anti-Semitic event, is the most loathsome and dangerous accusation that one can make against that party and that member.” It is particular odious, and, I might add, personally painful in my case, as one who has spoken and written consistently against it. Simply put, Mr. Chairman, I was at Durban not to willingly participate in an overtly anti-Semitic Durban I; I was at Durban to willingly combat the anti-Semitism that took place at Durban I, and I will table testimonies to that effect as well, one of which was set forth in a letter that was published fortuitously par hasard today in the National Post on that particular point, headlined, at the risk of sounding self-serving, “Cotler's great work at Durban”, written by Rabbi Michael Melchior, identified therein as the head of the Israeli delegation at Durban.
But for the benefit of members, I will table as well two articles of mine setting forth the radical anti-Semitic evil that constituted Durban I, and why such an accusation associating me with Durban I is as false as it is absurd and as damaging as it is damning. Here are the two articles I'm going to table in that regard.
Indeed, these accusations, as the Speaker found, have had damaging and prejudicial effects on my reputation and standing in my constituency. The composite of the three accusations in the flyer—I'm not going into the others, though I'll be pleased to do that as well, but for reasons of time I will just deal with the first one—constitute the most damning accusations one could make, a vicious attack on me as a person, as an MP, and as a member of the Jewish community.
If I may cite principle and precedent in this regard, Speaker John Fraser once ruled that, and I quote:
...anything tending to cause confusion as to a Member’s identity...[can] impede a Member in the discharge of his duties is a breach of privilege.
In his ruling, he said, and I quote:
It should go without saying that a Member of Parliament needs to perform his functions effectively and that anything tending to cause confusion as to a Member’s identity creates the possibility of an impediment to the fulfilment of that Member’s functions. Any action that impedes or tends to impede a Member in the discharge of his duties is a breach of privilege. There are ample citations and precedents to bear this out.
For reasons of time, I won't cite any of the others; I'm just citing Speaker Fraser, incorporating, by reference, all those other ample citations and precedents reaffirmed by the Speaker to which reference was made in his ruling.
I bring up the issue of the member's identity as put forward in the previous precedents and citations, in my case because there can perhaps be no greater betrayal for people of the Jewish faith than the portrayal of one of their own as being anti-Semitic. This accusation, as set forth in these mailings, is utterly abhorrent.
Further, these mailings have even been posted by some in synagogues in my riding. Constituents have even reported receiving this mailing more than once. I have, frankly, been excoriated by constituents asking—and indeed some of the members in the House asked that question—how could I remain with a party that is anti-Semitic? How could I willingly remain with a party that is so identified as being anti-Semitic? How, as a Jew, could I be engaged in such self-hatred? I'm pleased to table representative e-mails that I have received in that regard as well.
Accordingly, Mr. Chairman, it is precisely this sort of breach—and this is an understatement to simply call this a breach of privilege, but that is the formal parliamentary language in that regard—that impedes me in the exercise of my duties, with the attending prejudice. For my constituents--and, again, using principles and precedents and citations from previous Speakers' rulings, summing it all up--are misled as to my identity, my record, and even my moral character, analogous grounds to reputation, standing, and credibility that are the benchmarks of a breach of privilege as found in previous Speakers' rulings.
There's another issue that may also impede members in the discharge of their duties and constitute, thereby, a breach of privilege. I'm referring to how the targeting of Jewish residents was compiled, their reaction to being so targeted, and the concern of a violation of privacy in the creation of such lists.
I find it offensive enough, Mr. Chair, that the Jewish community is reduced in a stereotypical way to a single set of Jewish-related issues, to a kind of single-issue voting bloc, without reference in the contents of this flyer to such other issues as environment or health care, etc., which presumably Jewish residents of my riding concern themselves about.
Dealing now with this stereotypical targeting, I'd like to draw attention in this regard to the fact that this targeting may also be a breach to the extent that constituents may become hesitant to communicate with MPs if they feel their personal information is somehow being compiled and manipulated. Simply put, the targeting of specific and identifiable communities on the basis of their religion with respect to issues of pressing importance to them may be regarded by them not only as an abuse of parliamentary resources—which I believe it is—but also as one that violates privacy expectations and also further impedes members in the discharge of their duties.
Let me say, Mr. Chair, that even among the members present at this meeting, I'm not the only one who received an unfavourable ten percenter in his riding. I'm sure that all of us or many of us may have had in one form or another that kind of experience. It is the particular gravity of the accusation and the falsehoods contained in the flyer that compelled me to bring this matter to the House. I want to say again, Mr. Chair, for the record that I rose on a question of privilege for the first time in my ten years as a member of Parliament. I would not have done it had it not been for the utter scurrilous character and falsity of this accusation. In other words, Mr. Chair, there have been bad ten percenters. If I may, I will quote the words of my colleague Joe Comartin from the NDP on the occasion of debate on the motion to refer:
I have been extremely offended by the tactics and the use of this ten percenter and the content of the ten percenter. Tomorrow, I will be here nine years and this is absolutely the worst ten percenter I have seen. I say that without any reservations. It is absolutely the worst one.
This is a view echoed by other members in the course of this debate. Mr. Chair, the evidence of this breach of privilege and the damage and prejudice to the member is as clear as it is compelling. Let me move now to the second theme, and I'll do this more briefly, because I have to lay out all the principles and precedents.
What is of particular concern to this committee? What then needs to be done? I would have hoped, Mr. Chair, that the Conservative Party or the offending members who mailed the ten percenters would have acknowledged the wrong and apologized even before I rose on a question of privilege. I have to tell you that the pain and anguish that I personally suffered, knowing some of the people who sent those ten percenters, knowing that the ten percenter that I received in my household came not only from a colleague but a person who I regarded as a friend, the President of the Treasury Board.... I would have hoped that those who sent those ten percenters—if not the party as a whole—would have had the decency to get up and apologize, and that would have put an end to it.
I wouldn't have had to get up on a question of privilege. Others have come before this House and said that they were sorry, that they were wrong, and that they shouldn't have sent out a ten percenter. I would have hoped that at least after I got up on a point of privilege and before the Speaker ruled, somebody would have had the decency to get up and say “We were wrong. We made a mistake.” I would have hoped that at least after the Speaker's ruling the Conservative Party and its members would have had the decency to get up and say “We were wrong, and now that the Speaker has ruled, we'll put an end to it.” No. I would have hoped that after the motion was referred—and we shouldn't even have had to refer the motion—somebody would have gotten up and said that they were wrong and that they shouldn't have done this. This has not only been a breach of the member's privileges, but it has in fact brought disdain to Parliament as an institution. It has breached the privileges of Parliament.
No. Nobody got up at any point when people could have gotten up, when that would have been the issue of decency. That's why we are here now, Mr. Chair. I regret that we have to be here for something that would have just taken a little bit of elementary decency, if someone had gotten up and said, “Sorry. It was a mistake, and we were wrong.” No, people got up in the House and continued to compound the felony with continued misstatements in that regard.
The question is, what needs to be done? I want to say, as O'Brien and Bosc noted, that the committee does not have the power to punish. This power rests with the House. But they note that the committee's report to the House “may or may not contain recommendations for action or punishment and, if the Committee so orders, it may also have appended to it dissenting or supplementary opinions or recommendations”. Herewith, Mr. Chairman, are a number of specific actions or remedies in that regard.
Number one is directed at the Conservative Party. I say the Conservative Party because the imprimatur on this flyer is unmistakable. It is not the flyer of an individual member, though that would be bad enough. It is a flyer with the imprimatur of the Prime Minister, with his picture on the flyer, and it is set forth in the form an electoral choice between Conservatives and Liberals. It is a party-oriented flyer. In my view, the Conservative Party and the imprimatur of the PM, which almost invites the reader to make an electoral choice, constitute not only an individual MP's recommendation but also the recommendation of a party. Therefore, the party and the individual MPs who sent the flyer should acknowledge the wrong perpetrated and the damage caused by this false and misleading flyer to the members.
The second, following from the first, is the simplest remedy we know: an apology for the wrong. It appears to me that after the grievous and false accusations in these targeted mailings, after the Speaker's ruling, and after the motion to refer, it is not too much to ask for a simple apology requiring those responsible to admit their wrongdoing in the House, on the record, without reservation or qualification. Simply put, these ten percenters are false and injurious on their face, as the Speaker found, and therefore should be apologized for in the same simple and unreserved terms in which the accusation was set forth.
Third, since these false and prejudicial ten percenters were paid out of public funds, since in effect the breach of privilege was accomplished using parliamentary resources, the cost of the production and mailing of these ten percenters, not just to my riding but to the others as well, should be determined and this amount should be paid to the House either by the Conservative Party on the part of those members whose names appear on the ten percenters or by the members themselves.
Regardless of how the Conservative Party may operate, each MP makes a conscious choice to send or not to send mailings in accordance with his or her parliamentary privilege. These members could have said no. They should have said no. They should have said they would not be a party to these flyers. Frankly, it is hurtful to think—
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Excuse me, Mr. Cotler, but at 12:30 we are going to be convening to an in camera discussion on future committee business. I know there are a number of people here who want to have a dialogue with you. I'm just wondering how long—
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Irwin Cotler Liberal Mount Royal, QC
I'll be through very soon. Thank you for mentioning that point. I'm concluding on the remedies, and probably within three minutes, I will close.
