Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 17th, 2014

[A voice]

No.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Carry on, Mr. Julian.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

It's 48 hours. The Law Clerk is available on Thursday morning. We will be sitting on Thursday. If Mr. Lukiwski is thinking somehow that things are going to be wrapped up early, I would point out that Thursday is our next regularly scheduled—

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

He may be available tomorrow.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

—meeting.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Were you not listening, Peter? You don't listen to my questions to the clerk.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

The next scheduled meeting is Thursday. The chair would be putting that into place for Thursday.

Now, as far as the Thursday meeting is concerned—

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Chair, I thought you had just ruled that under the ambit of Standing Order 106(4), it doesn't have to Thursday and we can have it tomorrow if we wish. I'd just like some clarification.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Chair, this is the meeting under Standing Order 106(4). The Standing Order no longer applies. You can't schedule two meetings under the same Standing Order. You've got to be crazy.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Why don't you let the chair rule?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Okay. The 106(4) meeting is now. We just clarified that at the beginning of the meeting. There is a 48-hour notice period required if the Conservatives want to request another meeting under 106(4). But you do not get two meetings out of one Standing Order 106(4). That's not even something the chair has to rule on; that's just very clearly what the Standing Orders say for committees. If the official opposition requests a meeting under 106(4), you can't then say that the NDP has now scheduled three meetings, with five members. We've had the meeting. In fact the chair was very clear about that in response to the question by Mr. Christopherson. We've had the 106(4) meeting. It is now. It's done.

If the Conservatives want to send in another notice they could, but the 48 hours would still apply, which means that we're talking about Thursday. So we're talking about a meeting on Thursday at 11 o'clock, if we're talking about due process. Unless we have now entered a circus zone, where the Conservatives just make up their own Standing Orders as they go along, defy the Speaker's ruling and defy everything, that would be a different kettle of fish.

Now since we are talking about a Thursday meeting, we certainly agree. But this is my question for you, Mr. Chair, and I'm very concerned about this. Since we are seeing such a complete destruction of due process by this government, we want to be able to question the deputy law clerk on a whole range of issues that came up in relation to this study, including the Speaker's ruling, the concerns and cautions offered by the deputy law clerk about the study itself, and the deputy law clerk's concerns about the systematic leaks by members of this committee. We raised concerns about that at this committee, Mr. Chair, and of course nothing has been done about it yet. We keep pressing the issue and saying that the idea that somehow committees can just leak everything that Conservatives have opposed in the past.... But certainly, personally there is no doubt that the issue of leaks is an important one.

I want to ask you, Mr. Chair, about the following. I am assuming that we will be able to ask the deputy law clerk those questions. However, in other committees we have seen Conservative chairs systematically ruling out of order any question not permitted by the Conservatives. I want to make sure that is not going to happen in this case. I think Mr. Christopherson probably has some things to add to that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Sure. That can be right after Mr. Richards and Mr. Lukiwski.

Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I find it interesting to listen to Mr. Julian speak on behalf of the NDP and to indicate that they want to avoid a meeting. That's interesting to me since he spent a number of minutes at the beginning of this meeting talking about how he felt this committee was so far behind and that we should be working on things. That is what we're trying to do. We're trying to have a meeting as soon as possible to hear from the deputy law clerk. Despite that, he sits here now and is trying to avoid having a meeting as soon as possible.

It is sort of reminiscent of some of the antics in the media that he's been displaying in recent days. He's flailing about, trying to do everything he can to avoid accountability for their misuse of the money, and that seems to be what's happening here again today. It's unfortunate. I think we should get to the meeting as soon as we possibly can and hear from the deputy law clerk. I think it will be very helpful for us to hear from him.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Lukiwski, on this motion.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Despite Mr. Julian's trying to infer that you don't know how to do your job and only he can give a proper ruling and understanding of the Standing Orders—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I just question that.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

I notice your admirable restraint, Mr. Chair, with the invective and insults hurled at you from the opposition. I would just like to ask the clerk. If he doesn't believe me—which I don't expect he ever will—let's just ask the clerk whether this committee has the ability and the right to call a meeting when it wishes, and therefore, if Monsieur Denis is available tomorrow, whether this committee has the ability to call a meeting for tomorrow.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I'll make that decision on behalf of the clerk. The Chair has the ability to call meetings at any time, as long as notice—

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Then Mr. Julian once again was wrong, and I go back to my initial point. Let's find out when Monsieur Denis is available, and I would suggest we call a meeting at the first opportunity, pursuant to his availability.

You're wrong again, Peter. Eventually you'll get it right though—don't worry.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

I don't know.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

No, well, maybe not.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Julian, you put Mr. Christopherson's name on my speakers list. I don't know whether he said he wants on.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

If Mr. Julian would like the floor back, I'll give it to him.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

You'll give it to him. Okay.

Mr. Julian.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I can only say we're talking about a very unprecedented and completely different approach from what I've ever seen in the 10 years I've been here. Mr. Lukiwski can certainly throw any insult he wants. That's fine. I like him, and I think he's often right, but often wrong, but the personal attacks that we see from Conservatives don't change the fact that this is a complete shift away from the due process we are aware of.

We had a committee meeting set up for last week. It was cancelled. We had a committee meeting today that was replaced by the Standing Order 106(4). I hear the Conservatives saying that they're going to just demand a meeting any time they want, even though we have a scheduled meeting for Thursday, which is a two-hour period that is there.

That takes me back to my point that at every single point we've seen the Conservatives simply say, “Hey, we're going to throw the rules and the ruling out the window. We're going to proceed because we have that parliamentary majority”, which the former Law Clerk warned us about. The question I ask you again is this: Is the official opposition going to be allowed to ask our questions, because systematically in Conservative committees, Conservative chairs rule opposition questions out of order.

We have seen this systematically right across our committees. We have seen chairs say, “No, the study is only on the benefits of this Conservative policy. You can't ask a question about any of the problems or consequences that come out of that Conservative policy”.

We have seen that systematically. It's a huge abuse of the parliamentary process. It basically eliminates democratic debate.

I ask you again, Mr. Chair, because I'd like you to be on the record: are you going to rule opposition members' questions out of order, or are you going to allow us to ask the questions around the Speaker's ruling, around the issues that we've seen, of course, with the Board of Internal Economy and its partisan nature and the issue around the warnings that the deputy law clerk provided to us around this study itself, which said that the motion of instruction was the only thing that validated it and the motion of instruction has been ruled inadmissible.

We saw that in the Speaker's ruling. That is the ruling. Despite what Mr. Lukiwski says, the Conservatives lost that ruling. The Government House Leader was not happy when the ruling came down, but we got the ruling, and the reality is that is a ruling that members should be heeding.

Then, of course, there is the other issue, which is the systematic and planned ongoing partial leaks—not of everything. The documents that reinforced our position sometimes were withheld but systematic and partial leaks took place regularly following the warnings from the deputy law clerk that these leaks should not be taking place and that the committee should put in place every single measure to ensure that those leaks did not take place.

Those are the kinds of questions that I certainly will want to ask. My colleagues probably have other questions they want to ask the deputy law clerk. Will those questions be allowed? That is my question to you, Mr. Chair.