Evidence of meeting #29 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was threats.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:20 p.m.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
This isn't a determination. This isn't a court of law we're in right now. This is the political arena.
12:20 p.m.
Professor, Queen's University, As an Individual
Sir, you are part of the “High Court of Parliament”. I'm a citizen, and you're a member of the court in that sense, and you are dealing with a question of law.
I consider it a breach of privilege, and that's a personal opinion. As I said, I'm not trying to persuade the committee to do that.
12:20 p.m.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Okay.
You didn't address much in this regard.
Assuming we ever do determine who the culprit is, the committee has certainly recommended some punitive or corrective action in any number of other cases in the past. Often when material has been sent out, such as in the case of some of the ten percenters that were sent out, new material had to be corrected and the rest of it, so we've taken positions and made recommendations that were adopted by the House or accepted by the culprit.
In a situation like this, what role do we have in recommending what the penalty or the corrective action should be?
12:20 p.m.
Professor, Queen's University, As an Individual
There seem to me to be two different things. One is the penalties that the House itself can impose. If the House finds and can identify the person, it can bring that person before the bar of the House and find the person in contempt of Parliament. It can put them in jail. Jail, from time to time, has meant either the local municipal jail or a room in a hotel. The person with a jail sentence can continue to the end of the session. The other thing they can do is bring a member, even of the public, before the bar of the House—with the permission of the House, because there is a stranger there—and they can admonish and censure the person. That's it.
For a member of Parliament, you could go as far as you wanted to and declare the seat vacant if you wanted, but the House has a different power over citizens, non-members of the House, who have committed a breach of privilege.
12:25 p.m.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
In terms of the way we've approached this historically when an actual criminal act has been committed—and I have to say, Professor Franks, I haven't come across one—and findings of a breach of privilege or contempt of Parliament have been made, whether someone was convicted or not, are we responsible, whether it's been here or in England, for taking into account measures in the criminal justice system that may be applied to the culprit?
12:25 p.m.
Professor, Queen's University, As an Individual
No. Parliament is free to choose what it wants to do.
If you find a breach of privilege, I believe that the House can refer the matter to the civil authorities and that they can pursue it from then on. A court looking at it could take note of the proceedings of Parliament, and in that sense the record of this committee would be before the courts. The records of this committee would certainly be available for any police investigation.
I'm not sure that answers your question, but I think the role of this House in the matter ends with a report from this committee and what the House does with it. If the House felt that it was a criminal act that should be dealt with as a criminal act, it could be simply be, as I say, referred to the civil authorities.
12:25 p.m.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Assuming that we have not identified the culprit who made these threats by the time we complete our work, would it be within the normal scope of the work the committee does to say we couldn't identify the person but that if the person ever is identified, we would want the matter referred to the criminal justice system?
12:25 p.m.
Professor, Queen's University, As an Individual
A committee is free to report whatever it wants, as long as it's in parliamentary language and relevant to the topic. That's certainly both in parliamentary language and relevant to the topic, so the answer is yes.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Marc Garneau Liberal Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Professor Franks, for being here.
Am I correct that in your opinion it wasn't entirely clear to you that what Anonymous said on YouTube was of an offensive nature versus a threatening nature? Did you speculate and say that you weren't sure where it was located?
12:25 p.m.
Professor, Queen's University, As an Individual
Yes, because I have only a limited access to the information available. I have not looked at what happened at this committee before I got here. I don't know the other material that's available, except on the public record—in the newspapers, largely—and I find in civil life that people offer threats frequently. They can say in a joke, “I'll kill you if you do that”, but we don't take it seriously.
This is different, because it's a threat to a member of Parliament who is doing his job; the threat is on a public medium, YouTube; and it poses problems, which the minister himself I think very accurately described to the committee. Where you go with it, either as a parliamentary committee or as the police.... At the minimum, I consider it offensive, and offensive in the extreme, but was there an actual harm? I waver on that. I apologize for not being clearer, but I do waver.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Marc Garneau Liberal Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC
It's an interesting thing. I'd like to explore it a little bit more, because I think it is important to establish whether the minister was merely offended or whether he was threatened. Did you see the video or read the transcript?
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Marc Garneau Liberal Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC
I'd like to bring up that dimension, because an important element here is that sometimes when something is presented visually, it can be far more powerful in its impact than something that is merely on paper, the exception being Stephen King novels, which scare me just as much when I read them as when I see the movies.
In this particular case, I get offensive tweets on a regular basis and I recognize them clearly as that. I get offensive letters occasionally, and I recognize them as such; however, when I looked at this video, I found it threatening.
I don't know if I would have found it threatening reading it, but I certainly found it threatening looking at it, the reason being that, first of all, you had this character with a mask who was speaking with an artificial voice and was basically saying things to the minister that in my opinion were clearly of a threatening nature. I think that is an important element here. I bring it up because I'm not sure we want the RCMP investigating something that's merely offensive, but we definitely want to get the RCMP investigating something that's threatening.
I'd like to have your views, please.
12:30 p.m.
Professor, Queen's University, As an Individual
That's for the committee to decide. As I said, I've had limited opportunities to see the videos and other things.
If this committee feels there is a threat involved and that it's a serious one, rather than being offensive—and I would hope that both sides of the House and both sides of the committee would agree—then I think you have a duty to report that. My recommendation would be for the House to report the whole matter to the civil authorities to pursue it from there.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Mr. Zimmer is next.
We'll try to do one round, and I think we're going to time out.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River, BC
I'll try to talk faster this time.
Thanks for coming, Mr. Franks.
First of all, when you appear before a committee specifically to deal with the video issue, I would question why you didn't know what the script was before you came. You seemed to offer quite a strong opinion toward Minister Toews. You seemed to feel that what he said was really antagonistic and that what he received was somewhat justified. To me, it is striking that you didn't look at the conversation.
12:30 p.m.
Professor, Queen's University, As an Individual
I can plead two things there. One is ignorance: I didn't realize the video was available. I'm not very good at dealing with the Internet. That's a failure on my part, for which I apologize.
The second reason is that I was before another parliamentary committee yesterday. I try to give the best I can to a committee when I appear before it. I put a lot of work into yesterday's presentation; I'd been working flat out for over a week. I've tried to do the best I could on this by dealing with the material I had available.
If I could do it again, I would like to look at the video, but for my own mind I did not really want to get into trying to make a judgment on the threat. What I tried to do was to present how I would approach the subject rather than give you my conclusions.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River, BC
My time is short, but with such an important issue, to me it seemed as though you said the ends justified the means. I suppose I have a problem with your speaking at a public broadcast and sounding as though you're condoning the behaviour as though it were simply another offensive term.
12:30 p.m.
Professor, Queen's University, As an Individual
I did not try to suggest that, sir.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River, BC
I would just challenge you that the next time you appear before a committee you know the script.
12:30 p.m.
Professor, Queen's University, As an Individual
I make no apologies for that. I have done the best that I could. I have no research resources available to me, and what I tried to deal with—I make no apologies for this—is not to give an answer to this committee that I believe there was a threat here or I don't believe there was a threat.
I've tried to give to this committee how I approach an issue like this and the things that I take into account. I still maintain it is not my job to give you my opinion on whether this is a threat or not and whether there is a question of privilege or not. It is my job to try to discuss it in terms of the history of parliamentary government and the rules regarding Parliament on what has to be taken into account by this committee.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River, BC
I would just put it back to you, since I guess you don't fully understand the threat that was made, as Mr. Garneau alluded to. I would put it in perspective. I think all Canadians are watching this issue. They need to put it in their perspective, as Minister Toews is a regular Canadian citizen.
How would a regular Canadian citizen feel if they were threatened—had not had just offensive language used toward them, but threatened—with no act or no result to counter that threat? How would you feel sitting in your house with that threat being lorded over you? How would you feel walking out the door the next day?
12:35 p.m.
Professor, Queen's University, As an Individual
Many citizens are often threatened, and the threats can be for serious damage. It's a fact of life. I think that it's reprehensible when a public official, doing what he feels is his duty, is threatened for doing it. I'm glad the committee is looking at it.
I'm not sure if I'm answering your question, but as I said, I'm not going to tell this committee what I think it should decide on this issue. I think the threat itself came at the end of a process of other actions and statements, some of which, I think I made clear, I do not like, and that the threat itself was made as a consequence of these previous things.
As a committee you can certainly deal with the issue of the end threat as an issue in itself. I, as a citizen and a student of Parliament, want to again make the point that the threat came as a consequence of other statements and other actions. I will again make the statement that I personally, and I can just say personally, consider Mr. Toews' statement—that those who aren't with us on this are with the child pornographers—to be offensive.
After all, the duty of the opposition is to oppose. If the government, every time a bill comes before Parliament, says that anybody who disagrees with this is with the villains of this world in the sense that was stated so firmly in Parliament, I think our parliamentary democracy is in a sorry state.