Transport Committee on April 13th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, meeting number eight.

When we last adjourned we were in the middle of a question of privilege.

We do have guests who are joining us in a half hour. I've allotted that much time, and I was going to suggest--and again, it's the will of the committee--that we would hear the point of privilege and we would hear from one member of each party, and obviously then wrap it up. Then if there is a vote called, we'll do the vote. And then we'll move into committee business within the half hour.

Is that agreeable?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Okay, then we will open with Mr. Jean. You can either take up from where you left off, or I think you were just in the process of introducing your motion. Please go ahead.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Sorry, if I may, I would like to try to stay in that half hour, so maybe five minutes a party and then we'll make a decision.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to again just outline this breach of privilege question in a clear and concise manner, if I can.

The meeting on Thursday, March 25, of this committee was an in camera meeting. Although the member for Parkdale—High Park is not a regular member of our committee, the member decided to attend our meeting on that day and put forward a motion on behalf of the regular member, who was present at the committee at that time.

On Tuesday, March 30, Mr. Kennedy sent an e-mail to all members of the Liberal caucus stating that our committee would “review the government's stated deadline of March 31, 2011 and its impact on municipalities, as proposed by Sukh Dhaliwal and myself”. They expected “the committee to schedule meetings for mid-April”.

He attached a template letter and a questionnaire and asked Liberal members to “send to your municipal contacts in your riding”. The attached letter stated that “Gerard Kennedy's motion” had passed on March 25, and received “all party support”.

The public minutes did not mention these transient facts that were contained within the letter, which I think everybody has received a copy of. They did not mention whose motion it was, nor that it received all-party support, a fact that could be seen as misleading without the context of the debate that occurred on March 25.

I might remind all colleagues that, indeed, Mr. Kennedy proposed a motion that would take the meeting from an in camera meeting to a public meeting, and the committee said no. I would suggest that is in fact an aggravating circumstance. The public meetings also did not mention when the committee would be hearing testimony or the statements that they expected committee to schedule meetings for mid-April. That could also be seen as intentionally misleading, taken out of context of the debate that occurred on March 25.

Mr. Chair, this is clearly a breach of privilege on the facts and pursuant to the rules of the House. It is a breach of privilege on the behalf of the member for Parkdale—High Park, and I believe the committee should report this matter to the House immediately as a result.

As you are aware, we cannot find a breach of privilege; only the Speaker can do that. But we are under obligation to report it to the House if we believe that it may have taken place.

To be clear, what use is an in camera meeting if we can't trust other members of Parliament to keep the information confidential? This House operates on the basis of rules and trust. In this case, I would submit that both of these have been breached by Mr. Kennedy.

I also have drafted a report that was utilized by the environment committee in relation to a similar breach that took place with Ms. Linda Duncan, and I would like to submit that for distribution.

That is my submission.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Kennedy.

[Gerard Kennedy, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the member opposite for raising this point.

First off, I'd like to apologize to the committee. There was an error on my part. I had inquired, very specifically to respect the committee, whether or not the motion had been brought forward to the open committee and then passed. I was given the information, and I accept responsibility for the way I inquired and the way I received information, which indeed had been done. What I should have done was availed myself of minutes to see expressly whether anything was different from what I understood. Let me offer that to the committee. There was no intent on my part whatsoever to divulge anything from an in camera committee meeting.

Let me further explain that to the big city mayors caucus, to municipal officials individually, and to members of the Liberal caucus, I had stated publicly, in different contexts, my intention to raise a motion of this intent. Properly worded, this should have said, “a similar motion”. It should not have attributed authorship, because when I read the minutes, that was not expressly clear. I would say, though, that the existence of the motion itself had previously been made public in many other forums to people who would be concerned with this particular resolution.

Further, I do note that the motion, without authorship, was passed in the public minutes. That constitutes support of the committee, and that's all I ascribe to it. I did not, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, ascribe any opinions. I did not divulge any arguments. I did not divulge any aspects of what members of this committee said in camera. I would further say that while it's my hope--and again I will not divulge the content of the in camera meeting publicly--that the meetings would take place as quickly as possible, there have been 47 sessions of the committee without consideration of infrastructure. This is a decision the committee made, I think, and there is a particular inherent timeliness to municipalities learning whether or not there would be any flexibility, whether or not our considerations would be listened to by others, and so forth.

There was a reference to timing. There was nothing in the discussion that I recall--and I would happily be corrected by members of the committee--that actually spoke to timing. I don't think it's divulging anything to say that the schedule and so on were actually outside of the actual committee deliberations and were in the hands of the chair in that respect, in terms of timing and schedules. So it would be as though any other member of committee were speculating.

So again, to go to the express points, the idea of my bringing forward a motion or a similar one was already public. Second, the actual motion was agreed to by the committee. There were no objections. There was no request for a vote. There was no deliberation. Therefore, I think it's fair to say there was all-party support. All members who were here agreed to the motion as it came forward.

Third, the speculation around date was certainly in no way meant to undermine the privileges of the committee as a whole or of members to set their date. I was simply expressing my opinion and motivating people who I think are interested in this. Ultimately, it is a public subject, and I think it was intended to be, and the motion does read as an invitation to people to come forward. The motion following also asked people to submit the names of people who they thought would be useful witnesses. In effect, I was seeking useful witnesses for the purposes of furthering the committee business.

Again, I apologize for the error of not confirming the exact wording of the minutes, which did not include an attribution of this motion. That is my fault, and I apologize without reservation to the committee for that. I did not, though, knowingly or willingly undermine any of the.... I agree with the foundation Mr. Jean brings forward, which is that there needs to be privilege for members' comments made in camera. There is nothing, I think, in my remarks, in the documents brought forward, or in any others that takes what any member of this committee said and characterizes it to anyone outside of those deliberations. I was careful to preserve that confidence. And I hope the committee will understand that I had to give my seat back to the regular committee member, that I followed up, and that it was my mistake of not knowing that the motion was brought forward without its authorship into the public forum.

That is the explanation I give. I'm not going to embellish it, and I hope the members can see that there was no intent and no effort made to go against the in camera nature of the discussion.

Merci.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Laframboise, go ahead, please.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Chairman, first of all, I understood what Mr. Kennedy just said. It is a serious matter when a motion constituting a breach of privilege is introduced in committee. The only explanation that must be given by a member and the only conclusion a member must reach is that an error was made. That member must also apologize.

The more I hear Mr. Kennedy's explanation, the less I'm satisfied he understood the error he made, which is dangerous. I remember very clearly what Mr. Kennedy wanted to do, he wanted that motion to be made public, whereas we had previously discussed the motions of other colleagues in camera. It is not that we had anything against Mr. Kennedy's motion; it's that we were at a stage in the meeting where we were sitting in camera.

Mr. Kennedy should have had a debate at the start of the discussion on all members' motions. In that way, we could have had a debate. The committee is master of its own agenda. The meeting was held in camera and we decided to continue sitting in camera. This is not a matter of infrastructure or subject; it was an in camera discussion.

You made a mistake, Mr. Kennedy, and you should apologize for it. It was a strategy on your part, and you had planned your entire speech. At least that's what this leads me to believe. Your strategy was ultimately simple: you wanted this to be made public because you intended to send it to all the cities. It was a strategy on your part. You're engaging in politics, and you're entitled to do so.

When you interfere with member privilege in committee, you must apologize. Obviously, if you think there was no breach of member privilege, you say so. At that point, we will support the Conservative Party motion and we will see that the Speaker of the House of Commons decides.

One thing is certain: if you make a mistake, the only thing to do is to apologize to the committee. I will accept that apology. Any other explanation is merely politics on your part. If you want to apologize to the committee, you will have the opportunity to do so. You made a mistake, that's all, and we'll stop talking about it.

However, if you try to explain to me that that was not what you wanted to do, there's a problem. You had a strategy and today it's clear. You wanted this to be made public because you intended to send it to all the cities. I'm sorry, but I hadn't seen that. You spoke to no one about it and that's your political choice. In doing so, however, you committed a breach of the rights and privileges of the members sitting on this committee. The meeting was being held in camera. No discussion was to be made public, but you did so. You made a mistake. If you apologize for that, this is not a problem for me, but don't try to give me an explanation; otherwise that looks like a political strategy and I'm not going along with that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Bevington, do you have a comment?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

I want to thank Mr. Kennedy for his apology. I want to confirm that I agree with Mr. Laframboise that all we need is a simple apology here, and then we can continue with our business.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Go ahead, Mr. Kennedy.

[Gerard Kennedy, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

I wish to agree with Mr. Laframboise in the sense that I am not trying in any way to exculpate myself. Responsibility is accepted. I was hoping that I would explain intent, that's all. There is nothing else. I think I'm in the hands of the committee in terms of whether the apology is acceptable. There's nothing that takes away from the fact that I made a mistake. It's my responsibility and not anyone else's. I respect the privileges of Parliament. I served 12 years in the legislature and Parliament combined, ten of them as chair of a committee, so I have great respect for the function of the committee. While I engaged this committee actively, that is my position. And I would certainly uphold that, by all means, in future participation in this committee and others.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Do you have a final comment, Mr. Jean?

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think this is the point. Mr. Kennedy has served for more than a decade in houses of Parliament, and he should know better, quite frankly.

I want to be clear--I did bring this forward last time, Mr. Bevington--that according to the rules, only the House can decide that a breach of privilege or contempt has been committed. I know that Mr. Kennedy already agrees that there has been a breach. But certainly it's the role of the chair to determine whether the matter touches on a breach. It's our job to refer it to the House so that the Speaker can then rule on it. It's not our job to determine the breach and accept an apology; it's our job, and we're under mandate, to report it to the House and to the president.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Okay. The motion is on the floor. The debate is over and I will call for the vote.

(Motion agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

I'm not sure we heard from all the Liberals, because there are four.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

The vote is carried. I would ask the committee that if the report you have in your hand is adequate, it will be the report I will present to the Speaker. Is there any comment on that? If there is agreement, then we'll move on.

Mr. Kennedy.

[Gerard Kennedy, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

When it says “a report”, what is the nature of the report?

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Basically it's the report that you have in your hands that has been circulated.

[Gerard Kennedy, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Chair, I just ask for a moment then.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Yes, sure.

[Gerard Kennedy, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Thank you for that, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Seeing no objections, this is the report that I will present to the Speaker.

Okay, moving into our next order of business, I'll invite our guests to please come forward. It will just take a second to get organized. Maybe we'll even take a one-minute recess, if anybody wants to freshen their water glass.