Debates of Nov. 3rd, 2005

Airports

[The Speaker]

The hon. Minister of Transport.

[Jean Lapierre, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member should know that the government has addressed the problem and has corrected some of the leases that were signed by the Conservative Party when it was in power.

We had to correct the mess that it put some of the airports in, so we reduced the rent by $8 billion. Out of that $8 billion reduction, $5 billion will go to Toronto. That is quite a correction we had to make to a program that was started by a Conservative government.

Sponsorship Program

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the government has punished whistleblower Allan Cutler more severely for exposing the ad scam than it has punished Liberals for perpetrating the ad scam. As such, Mr. Cutler should not have to beg for restoration. He should not have to ask for what is rightly his. The government should go to Mr. Cutler with an offer to reimburse him for pushing him out of his job and denying him his rightful promotions.

Why will the government not commit here and now to going to Mr. Cutler and offering him rightful reimbursement?

[Reg Alcock, Liberal, President of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board]

Mr. Speaker, this is all too familiar posturing by this particular member. He raised this issue with me privately yesterday. I told him at the time that Mr. Cutler had never raised this with us and that I would be more than willing to meet with him. So, if he wishes to follow through, I will also follow through.

Softwood Lumber

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the two Canadian softwood lumber negotiators, Paul Tellier and Gordon Ritchie, have reached the conclusion that there is nothing more to negotiate and last week, they announced their intention to resign.

Now that it is clear that this conflict will not be resolved any time soon, does the government intend to grant the loan guarantees that the softwood lumber industry has been demanding for a long time now?

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, we have always maintained that we are considering a plan to help the workers, communities and companies in the softwood lumber industry. There have been some heavy discussions, and our reaction and final decision will be forthcoming in the near future.

Human Resources and Skills Development

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, over the last decade Canada has had the fastest job growth than any other G-7 country. A highly-skilled workforce is essential to Canada's economic growth and prosperity to promote innovation and, really, to ensure our economic competitiveness.

Can the Human Resources and Skills Development Minister please tell this House what the Government of Canada is doing to ensure that we have a highly-skilled workforce to ensure our nation's economic and competitive advantage in the international arena.

[Belinda Stronach, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and Minister responsible for Democratic Renewal]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for her very important question that addresses the upcoming skilled worker shortage. We want to ensure that we have enough skilled workers, so that Canada can compete in this competitive global economy.

We have already committed $125 million to a workplace skills strategy. I am pleased to remind the House that recently we launched the workplace partners panel, which is co-chaired by CME President Perrin Beatty and CLC President Ken Georgetti. It will bring business closer together with labour. We will have regional task forces. They will bring forward programs for each region to better address the future upcoming skilled worker shortage.

Presence in Gallery

[The Speaker]

I would like to draw the attention of hon. members to the presence in the gallery of the Honourable Tom Hedderson, Minister of Education for Newfoundland and Labrador.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Speaker]

I wish to draw the attention of members to the presence in our gallery of the recipients of the Governor General's performing arts awards.

For Lifetime Artistic Achievement in the Performing Arts: Peter Boneham, Jackie Burroughs, Marcel Dubé, Oliver Jones, Moses Znaimer.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Speaker]

The Ramon John Hnatyshyn Award for Voluntarism in the Performing Arts: Gail Asper.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Speaker]

The National Arts Centre Award: k.d. lang.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Speaker]

I invite all hon. members to meet the recipients at a reception about 3:15 or 3:20 p.m. in Room 216 North.

Royal Assent

[The Speaker]

I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows:

Rideau Hall

Ottawa

November 3, 2005

Mr. Speaker:

I have the honour to inform you that the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada, will proceed to the Senate Chamber today, the 3rd day of November, 2005 at 3:45 p.m., for the purpose of giving Royal Assent to certain bills of law.

Yours sincerely,

Barbara Uteck

Secretary to the Governor General

Business of the House

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a simple question for the hon. House leader. Could he describe the government's plan for business of the House commencing this afternoon, tomorrow and the week following the constituency break? Will the government finally be furnishing the opposition parties with an opportunity, that has been denied them now for some five sitting weeks, for an opposition day tomorrow, so that we, on behalf of the 62% of Canadians who voted against the Liberals in the last election, may finally raise matters of urgent national priority?

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, we will continue the debate at third reading of Bill C-54, the first nations resources bill.

When this is complete, we will consider reference before second reading of Bill C-50, respecting cruelty to animals. I expect that this business will carry over to tomorrow. We will then add to the list second reading of Bill S-36, respecting diamonds and second reading of Bill C-44, the transport bill.

When the House resumes on November 14, we will return to second reading of Bill C-68, the Pacific gateway bill; Bill C-66, the energy bill; and Bill C-67, the surpluses legislation.

We will also then return to any business from this week that is unfinished and if time permits, consider second reading of Bill C-61, the marine bill.

November 15 and November 17, as the hon. member across the way would have known weeks ago had he been at the House leaders meeting, will be allotted days. On Tuesday evening, November 15, we will have a take note debate on the Canadian mission in Afghanistan.

Accordingly, I will propose the required motion pursuant to Standing Order 53.1(1). I move:

That a debate pursuant to Standing Order 53.1 take place on Tuesday, November 15 on the subject of Canada's military mission in Afghanistan.

[The Speaker]

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker]

The motion is adopted.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Edmonton—Strathcona has given the Chair notice of a question of privilege. I will now hear him.

Privilege

[Rahim Jaffer, Conservative, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege regarding comments made by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, as well as those made by the minister's director of communications on the minister's behalf, which have not only unjustly damaged the reputation of myself and my colleagues in the Conservative Party of Canada, but I believe are part of a coordinated plan to intimidate and harass members of the official opposition.

Specifically, the minister is menacing and using intimidation against Conservative members of Parliament sitting on the Standing Committee of Citizenship and Immigration by telling the Canadian public that we are anti-immigrant and that we failed to do our proper duty when we rejected the supplementary estimates A in committee on Tuesday, November 1.

These statements, in my opinion, constitute a prima facie case that my privileges as a parliamentarian have been breached.

I would like to provide a brief summary of the background into this issue and read the exact quotes from the minister and his officials into the record, followed by the relevant Speaker rulings and passages from the appropriate text that show this to be a breach of my privilege. If you do, indeed, Mr. Speaker, find a case exists, I will then move my motion.

First let me provide some background on the vote taken on the estimates of November 1, in the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. As you may be aware, Mr. Speaker, the supplementary estimates A, 2005-2006 for the Department of Citizenship and Immigration were tabled in the House last week and referred to the standing committee. The committee invited the minister to appear prior to our vote Tuesday and the minister did appear.

As provided by Standing Order 81 of the House and reinforced by a passage from the House of Commons Procedure and Practice by Marleau and Montpetit, page 870 states:

The Standing Orders provide for a detailed consideration of the Estimates, both Main and Supplementary, by standing committees.

Regarding what types of questions committee members are allowed to ask, on page 872, Marleau and Montpetit goes on to state:

The questioning and discussion at this meeting is generally wide-ranging, although the rule of relevance does apply.

When the committee has completed its consideration of the Estimates, each item is put to a vote separately.

The Conservative members of the committee followed this procedure but the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration did not.

For example, the members for Calgary—Nose Hill, Calgary Northeast, Fleetwood—Port Kells and myself asked very relevant questions to the estimates. I would assert that all questions were specific, such as the one regarding the Toronto waterfront revitalization project which $116 million of the money provided in the estimates is going toward.

However the minister obfuscated and treated committee members with contempt. He refused to give us clear and concise answers. Numerous times the Liberal chair of the meeting had to admonish the minister to try to answer committee members in a clear and concise manner. The minister refused to heed the chair's advise.

The Conservative members on the committee felt that the minister had treated us with contempt and decided that since the minister failed to answer our questions, we would exercise our right and responsibility as the official opposition and oppose the passage of the estimates.

Let me emphasize that point. It is not the role of the official opposition to blindly rubber stamp the estimates. In our system of responsible government, it is the role of the opposition to scrutinize the estimates and make sure the government stays responsible to the House of Commons and Canadians. It does not matter if this is a budget vote or an estimates vote in a standing committee, it is the job of the official opposition to scrutinize government spending.

If in our opinion the minister fails to be responsible to Parliament by failing in the simple task of answering questions, we have every right and responsibility to vote against the estimates.

In the end, the estimates were defeated by a 6-5 vote, with the Bloc and Conservative members exercising our rights as opposition. We even put out a press release the next day explaining our rationale and left the door open to the minister to return to committee to reconsider these estimates if he was willing to do his part by answering questions.

The official opposition did its job. It should have ended there but, unfortunately, it did not. The minister, instead of recognizing the will of the committee, spoke to the media the next day on November 2 and made comments which I now believe constitute a breach of my privileges.

Specifically, on page A8 of today's edition of the Toronto Star, the minister made the following comments:

The first chance they had to show support for an immigration plan that is comprehensive ... for settlement and integration programs and they said 'no.' They shut the door down.

The Conservative party's attitude to immigration is keep those people out and send them back.

They're either hypocrites or liars.

In effect, he has called the Conservative members on the committee anti-immigrant as we did not pass his estimates.

Additionally, Stephen Heckbert, the communications director for the minister, has begun a full assault to attack our reputation. I have obtained a copy of an email he sent out to Kim Klaiman of Sponsor Your Parents. I believe the existence of this email proves my contention that there is a coordinated plan to attack the reputations of Conservative MPs and to intimidate the official opposition.

I will table the email but I want to first read from it. It states:

For your information, yesterday, November 2, 2005, the Conservative members of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration rejected our request for supplementary funding to help our increased processing of parents and grandparents in 2005.

If this decision stands, the government will not be able to process the additional parents and grandparents the minister committed to processing in April.

[The member for Vegreville—Wainwright] and his Conservative Party colleagues rejected the supplementary estimates after asking only one question about the additional funding the minister was requesting--funding that is essential in part to address the issues your group has raised in the past. Unfortunately, the Conservative members of the Standing Committee chose to reject your requests and to deny the government the funding it needed to address this issue.

You and others may want to ask the Conservative members of the committee why they rejected the funding we have requested to begin addressing the backlog.

Yours sincerely,

Stephen

This letter is a clear attempt by the minister to have public interest groups intimidate Conservative members of Parliament into restoring the funding.

Not only that, but the letter is clearly false in content. For one thing, the member for Vegreville—Wainwright was not at the committee meeting and did not vote. Second, as I have stated, we asked a variety of specific and relevant questions, which the Speaker can read for himself if he chooses to read the blues of the committee meeting. Finally, this was not a deliberate action on our part to deny funding to any particular group as the letter proposes.

We are doing our job as outlined to us by the Constitution. However, instead of accepting this verdict, the minister and his staff are engaging in a smear and pressure campaign. This is a clear campaign to intimidate Conservative MPs who were doing their job as committee members and, I would argue, results in a direct breach of our privileges.

The second edition of Maingot, on page 160, clearly states:

Members are entitled to go about their parliamentary business undisturbed. The assaulting, menacing, or insulting of any Member on the floor of the House or while he is coming or going to or from the House, or on account of his behaviour during a proceeding in Parliament, is a violation of the rights of Parliament.

I would submit that the minister's intimidation tactics are a direct menacing of myself and my colleagues because of an action or a behaviour during a proceeding of Parliament, namely voting against the estimates.

Pages 83 to 86 of Marleau and Montpetit specifically deal with this type of intimidation tactic. I would like to draw the Speaker's attention to one specific passage on page 84 which reads:

Speakers have consistently upheld the right of the House to the services of its Members free from intimidation, obstruction and interference.

Mr. Speaker, I believe I have outlined a clear and unequivocal case that my privileges as a parliamentarian have been breached. If you do agree with me, I will be prepared to move the appropriate motion.