Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Dec. 11th, 2023

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

May I ask who you called?

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I called my chief of staff and we started to go through it.

I did not personally call Mr. Fraser. I'll be honest with you; the reason why was that I knew this was such a situation, and I did not want anyone to think that I was calling Mr. Fraser to influence what he would say. I was going to let the process play out. I knew I had truth on my side. I didn't want to play around with that so that I would be accused, post that, afterwards, “Did you call Mr. Fraser? Did you try to work things out? Are you close friends?” and the like. I made sure that this did not happen.

Regarding the Washington, D.C., trip, Mr. Julian, certainly we did contemplate cancelling the trip. We actually went back and forth on this and had a huge discussion on this matter. We realized that perhaps because of the recusal.... Of course, on the Monday morning at the first opportunity I recused myself from any matter that would be coming forward to this debate to make sure that I wasn't going to be a part of the decision-making as to what the decision of the Deputy Speaker would be. We then found ourselves saying, “Okay, well, should we cancel or should we continue with this?”

We had meetings set up with just over a dozen representatives and with senators, and we also had diplomatic meetings that had been cancelled beforehand. When the previous Speaker had designed these meetings, they were set up in terms of the Speaker receiving diplomats and some of them were accredited from the United States. There were a couple that had been cancelled, so while I was going to be there, I was going to take up the flame and do that. We didn't want to cancel a second time.

That was the reason why we decided, let's go down to Washington, we'll continue with the responsibilities and we'll be back in time for the decision by the Deputy Speaker.

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

This is a minority Parliament, and it is unprecedented. What the Clerk, the law clerk and the deputy clerk cited earlier were majority legislatures. Do you feel that your actions were appropriate in responding to the crisis, in learning what you learned on Saturday night, given the fact that this is a minority Parliament where all parties have to work together?

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I thought that the right action immediately was to recuse myself from any termination that would happen. That way, members could feel that it was being done fairly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you—

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

If I had stayed in the chair, it would not have been. There's no possibility that people could have seen that it would have been fair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

We're going to go into our fourth round. We will start with five minutes for Mr. Calkins, followed by five minutes for Mr. Noormohamed, and then we'll have Madame DeBellefeuille and Mr. Julian.

If we keep it tight, we will do five more minutes for the Conservatives and five more minutes for the Liberals. Then we'll have a 10-minute health break and will start with Mr. Fraser at about 20 minutes to.

Mr. Calkins.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Through you, Madam Chair, Mr. Fergus, when exactly did you do the interview with Laura Stone?

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Through you, Madam Chair, I'll get back to the committee after checking my agenda.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Okay.

Mr. Fergus, you've been a member of Parliament now since 2015, if I remember, when you arrived here on Parliament Hill.

In the eight years that you've been a member of Parliament have you ever had a conversation with any of your communications people, either in your constituency office or in your Hill office, in saying, “No, we can't send this out because it's not saying something that I want to get into the public domain”, or something to that effect?

I'm not asking you to name staff and I'm not asking you to name an issue, but have you ever had a conversation with anybody, saying, “We have to be careful what we send out because we don't know if it's going to be in the public domain”?

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thanks for the question, Mr. Calkins.

Nothing comes to mind.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

You're saying that you don't vet or you've never ever redacted or changed anything that anybody has written or done for you on your behalf as member of Parliament. You've never made an edit to a letter that's gone's out.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

No, I'm sorry. I apologize. I misunderstood—

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

You've never made an edit to a social media post. You've never done anything to that effect that's going to go out into the public domain.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

No. I misunderstood your question.

Of course, yes, that has happened several times.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

You do this, I'm presuming.... I do this as a member of Parliament, because once it leaves my office and leaves my care and control, I have no control over what that message actually is once it leaves my office. Experience teaches you that very early on in your career as a member of Parliament—does it not, Mr. Fergus?

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

That is correct, Mr. Calkins, but—

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Well—

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

May I answer your question, sir?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

I think you already did. The premise of my question.... I think you'll be able to get to where you want to go as I follow up with you here.

The entire argument that I'm hearing here at this committee is that things are right or wrong depending on who is the recipient of the information. We fully know, as members of Parliament, that anything we send beyond the care and control of our offices, and in your case the office of the Speaker, once it leaves, there is no guarantee that it will end up in the public domain. You've just told me.... It's common sense, because every member of Parliament does this. Every member of Parliament has this experience. You are an experienced member of Parliament. You ought to have known...and you've apologized. You ought to have known that something like this could end up in the public domain.

How is it that with that experience, with all of the years of experience of sending out correspondence, letters and social media posts, that you didn't consult with somebody in the non-partisan aspect of your office?

You, sir, have more staff than any other member of Parliament here, except for maybe a ministerial office. You have the most resources out of anybody at this table to help you in the administration of your duties and responsibilities. How is it that nobody in the non-partisan portion of your office was even asked or approached before you sent this out, even though it's a typical practice for a member of Parliament, even within his own office, to vet these things, knowing full well that they could end up in the public domain? I'm flabbergasted that this happened.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Through you, Madam Chair to Mr. Calkins, it's a difference of kind. I don't know about you, Mr. Calkins, but I perhaps have a much lower threshold for when I send out private messages than when I send out public messages. On things that are going out to be published and displayed publicly, I'm very careful about what is sent out. I'm a lot less cautious in messages that I would send to a long-time friend, my family or even you, Mr. Calkins, if we were corresponding by text—

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

With the greatest of respect, Mr. Speaker, you weren't sitting in a lawn chair on a dock at the beach.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

You are interrupting.

I get it. It's your time, but I do need the person that we've invited here to provide information to be able to provide information. That opportunity will be given.

Mr. Speaker.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I'm finished with my comments.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Given the fact that you were in your regalia in your office, apparently doing a personal message and not an official message, as you've now tried to reassure us, the issue is one of confidence, trust and judgment. You're now trying to reassure members of this committee that putting protocols in place will somehow give you the compass that you need in order to fulfill your job in a non-partisan way, when the reality is that all you have to do is stop doing partisan....

How hard is it to stop doing something that's partisan? It's not like you need protocols on how you do things. You just need to stop doing some things. How hard is that?