House of Commons Hansard #169 of the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was c-45.

Topics

Foreign InvestmentOral Questions

2:50 p.m.

Conservative

The Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

Order. The hon. Minister of International Trade has the floor.

Foreign InvestmentOral Questions

2:50 p.m.

Conservative

Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC

Mr. Speaker, it was our Conservative government that actually introduced the tabling policy for the House. Every single treaty gets tabled in the House for 21 days to give the opposition an opportunity to debate it. The Liberals have had four opportunities and they have not taken up those opportunities. Shame on them. In the House, we will continue to focus on the priorities of Canadians.

National DefenceOral Questions

2:50 p.m.

Liberal

John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON

Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday I asked how Sub-Lieutenant Delisle could make a quick trip to Brazil, return with $50,000 on his person and only be discovered through a combination of a sharp-eyed immigration officer and pure blind dumb luck. The Minister of National Defence, in his usually petulant fashion, accused me of misleading Canadians. Unfortunately for him, even Delisle's lawyer says, “It's amazing he wasn't caught long before he was—absolutely amazing”.

Does that mean the lawyer, Mr. Taylor, is misleading Canadians or just asking the same questions that Canadians and all parliamentarians are asking: how could this possibly happen?

National DefenceOral Questions

2:50 p.m.

Central Nova Nova Scotia

Conservative

Peter MacKay ConservativeMinister of National Defence

Mr. Speaker, I can assure my learned colleague that the Canadian Forces, the Canadian Border Services and Public Safety will continue to work together to keep Canadians safe.

With respect to details of this matter, I think my friend should know, as he has been here awhile, that discussing matters that are before the courts is totally inappropriate, particularly, I would suggest, on issues of national security. He is a lawyer and he should know that. I know you, Mr. Speaker, know that.

Rail ServiceOral Questions

2:50 p.m.

NDP

Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC

Mr. Speaker, consumers, as well as agriculture and forestry enterprises that must rely on rail service, are at the mercy of CN and CP, and the Conservatives are doing nothing about it.

And yet, just before the last election, the Conservatives promised to deal with these two companies' customer service problems, and the minister promised quick action.

Am I to understand that the pending legislation will suffer the same fate as the committee that the Minister of Industry promised to establish 11 months ago?

Rail ServiceOral Questions

2:55 p.m.

Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean Québec

Conservative

Denis Lebel ConservativeMinister of Transport

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to see that my colleague has taken an interest in rail service in Quebec regions.

We have been interested in this matter for a long time. We said that we would introduce something in the fall. Fall has arrived, and we will be introducing something by the end of fall.

Rail ServiceOral Questions

2:55 p.m.

NDP

Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON

Mr. Speaker, our grain farmers are losing millions because of unreliable services from CN and CP. The mining and logging industries say the same. In fact, eight out of ten rail customers are not satisfied with their services.

The Conservatives promised legislation and yet they have not done anything.

I have introduced a rail customer protection act so that shipping services can be improved. Will the minster support my bill or will he continue to do nothing while shippers lose millions of dollars?

Rail ServiceOral Questions

2:55 p.m.

Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean Québec

Conservative

Denis Lebel ConservativeMinister of Transport

Mr. Speaker, we are conducting the necessary consultations with stakeholders all across the country to ensure that the best possible bill can be tabled.

This is an important issue for our government. We have committed to tabling a bill this fall and we will do so.

Democratic ReformOral Questions

2:55 p.m.

Conservative

Dean Allison Conservative Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON

Mr. Speaker, today, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the election result in Etobicoke Centre was valid. It is as victory for the 52,000 people who cast their ballots and also for all Canadians. It is Canadians who decide the result of an election and not the courts.

Would the Minister of State for Democratic Reform tell the House what this means for the confidence in our electoral system?

Democratic ReformOral Questions

2:55 p.m.

Edmonton—Sherwood Park Alberta

Conservative

Tim Uppal ConservativeMinister of State (Democratic Reform)

Mr. Speaker, 52,000 in Etobicoke Centre followed the rules, cast their ballots and today had their democratic decision upheld. The decision of the Supreme Court of Canada states:

...we reject the [Liberal] candidate’s attempt to disenfranchise entitled voters and so undermine public confidence in the electoral process.

There is no allegation of any fraud, corruption or illegal practices. Nor is there any suggestion of wrongdoing by any candidate or political party.

The courts have confirmed that it was a fair election.

EthicsOral Questions

2:55 p.m.

Liberal

Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC

Mr. Speaker, let us talk about following the rules. There is still a cloud hanging over the head of the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. He exceeded the campaign spending limit by thousands of dollars. He obtained an interest-free loan from his buddies at the development agency for his own first nations government.

What is worse, a local airline gave him plane tickets, which is another apparent breach of the Canada Elections Act. In the meantime, he is laughing it off and claiming it was a rookie mistake.

The minister can correct his mistake; he can resign. What is he waiting for?

EthicsOral Questions

2:55 p.m.

Nepean—Carleton Ontario

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport

Mr. Speaker, through false robocall allegations that proved only true about themselves, through false allegations against the member for Etobicoke and, now, through additional false and unproven allegations, the Liberal Party continues to try and invalidate the decision that Canadians made in the last election to chose a strong, stable, national Conservative majority government.

I think it is time, if the member wants to examine rule breaking, that he look at the half million in illegal loans that Liberal leadership candidates have had outstanding for six years. Why does he not ask them a few questions?

Canadian Broadcasting CorporationOral Questions

2:55 p.m.

NDP

Pierre Nantel NDP Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC

Mr. Speaker, we just learned that CBC executives have told employees that programming will be slashed by $28 million.

To explain these new cuts, the executives said that they had no choice, because the CRTC killed the local programming improvement fund, the LPIF, in July. This fund helped improve local television services in small markets. As the head of the CBC said in his letter to employees, regional programming is key to helping the corporation fulfill its role as a national broadcaster.

Can the minister tell us just how much will be cut from our public broadcaster and from the local programming all Canadians are entitled to?

Canadian Broadcasting CorporationOral Questions

3 p.m.

Oak Ridges—Markham Ontario

Conservative

Paul Calandra ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage

Mr. Speaker, this government was elected on a promise to restore balance to the budget, to continue to build on hope and opportunity and to create jobs. Part of that, of course, is to review the spending of all departments, and that includes our friends at the CBC. We have asked them to participate in this and they have done so in a way that maintains the CBC's ability to reach all Canadians in all parts of the country and perform its mandate in both official languages.

EmploymentOral Questions

3 p.m.

Conservative

David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON

Mr. Speaker, our government is supporting the Canadian economy from coast to coast to coast. Indeed, since July 2009, our government has created 820,000 net new jobs.

The key part of Canada's success are the oil sands, which are creating jobs across Canada.

Would the Minister of Natural Resources update the House on just how many jobs the oil sands are creating?

EmploymentOral Questions

3 p.m.

Eglinton—Lawrence Ontario

Conservative

Joe Oliver ConservativeMinister of Natural Resources

Mr. Speaker, the Conference Board released a new report showing hundreds of billions of dollars in economic activity and over 880,000 jobs from the oil sands across the country, with Ontario benefiting to the extent of 15%.

The NDP should stop undermining this important sector by calling it a disease and proposing a $21 billion carbon tax.

I encourage the NDP to join us and the Government of Ontario in supporting jobs right across the country.

Post-Secondary EducationOral Questions

3 p.m.

NDP

Ryan Cleary NDP St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL

Mr. Speaker, collectively, Canada's students are on the hook to the federal government for more than $15 billion of debt, a record high, and that does not include private debt, such as bank loans and credit cards. With that kind of debt load, how will this generation be able to contribute to the economy?

The Canadian Federation of Students has a plan to cut student debt in half by 2015. Will the Conservatives work with us, the New Democrats, students and their families to reduce student debt?

Post-Secondary EducationOral Questions

3 p.m.

Haldimand—Norfolk Ontario

Conservative

Diane Finley ConservativeMinister of Human Resources and Skills Development

Mr. Speaker, in the process of job creation, we ensure that we have people with the skills and talents to fill those jobs. That is why our government has been proud to streamline and improve Canada's student loans program.

However, we also brought in the Canada student grants program that allows up to $250 a month per student. This is non-repayable. That helps reduce their debt.

We have also restructured how they can pay it back so that it is not impinging upon their lifestyle.

All these efforts to help students get the education they need, unfortunately, were not supported by the NDP.

Budget ImplementationOral Questions

October 25th, 2012 / 3 p.m.

Bloc

André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC

Mr. Speaker, when the second mammoth budget bill was introduced, the Conservatives said that it could not be divided and had to include all the budget measures. And yet, they divided it for MPs' pensions. Yesterday, they confirmed during a public relations operation that this was an all-purpose bill and put nine different committees in charge of examining it, but without allowing substantial amendments or separate votes. In short, they are trying to avoid a real democratic process.

Does the Minister of Finance realize that his logic does not stand up and that the only thing to do is to divide the second mammoth budget bill into separate bills so that we can do our work and so that Canadians can be heard?

Budget ImplementationOral Questions

3 p.m.

Macleod Alberta

Conservative

Ted Menzies ConservativeMinister of State (Finance)

Mr. Speaker, as is the standard practice in this House, we debate budget implementation bills. We did that in the spring and then moved it to committee. We are doing the same thing here. We have four more days of debate on the budget implementation act and then it will be moved to the finance committee. We are encouraging the finance committee to perhaps recommend that it be sent also to other committees.

Budget ImplementationOral Questions

3 p.m.

Conservative

The Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

The Chair has notice of a question of privilege from the hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway.

Alleged Misuse of Email AccountsPrivilegeOral Questions

3 p.m.

NDP

Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC

Mr. Speaker, as you know from the letter I deposited with your office just over an hour ago, I am rising on a question of privilege relating to an unfortunate incident that began this morning and has been continuing throughout the day.

I will, through the course of my remarks, ask you, Mr. Speaker, to rule in favour of my belief that there exists a prima facie case that my privileges as a member of Parliament have been breached.

For those watching at home or reviewing the Hansard, I will remind the House that Erskine May’s Treatise on The Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament defines privilege in the following way on page 75:

Parliamentary privilege is the sum of the peculiar rights enjoyed by each House collectively…and by Members of each House individually, without which they could not discharge their functions....

Mr. Speaker, I beg your indulgence for a minute or two because, in order to get the proper context of what happened today, I am forced to step back and give an account of events leading up this morning.

As the international trade critic for the official opposition, I have been working to have Parliament study the recent Canada-China foreign investment protection agreement. This afternoon, for example, in the Standing Committee on International Trade, I will be moving that the committee undertake a study that would do just that.

Over 60,000 members of the Canadian public have written to the NDP asking that Parliament examine this trade policy and, in response, I suggested that these concerned citizens write directly to the members of the standing committee to ask them to support my motion. I also helped to facilitate them sending messages to the correct addresses.

Members of Parliament get this type of mass email regularly as a matter of course. All MPs have a publicly available email address, phone and fax numbers for this purpose, and letter box addresses, again for the very purpose of providing Canadians the channels through which they can communicate with their elected representatives. In fact, all Canadians are able to write to any member of Parliament without having to buy a stamp precisely so that we remove any impediment to making contact with MPs through the appropriate channels. It is part of the democratic process. It is healthy. I am proud to have encouraged so much engagement from the public through the appropriate channels available to all.

However, to the contrary, beginning this morning and throughout the day, I have been receiving thousands upon thousands of emails from the same email address, that of the member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex. He is forwarding me the messages of those thousands of concerned Canadians who are urging him to support my motion at committee. In other words, he is taking the emails sent to his public address and he is sending them to my personal email address as an MP.

The problem is that these messages are being sent to my personal email account, not the email address that is publicly available and, therefore, not the one meant as the appropriate channel to receive such a high volume of mail.

My personal email account is the one on which I rely to execute any number of tasks crucial to my work as an MP, as all MPs know. The effect was that my email account froze and I was unable to use my Blackberry's email function or any email function of my personal account to carry out my duties as a duly elected member of Parliament. I am unable to send or receive and was unable to send or receive important communications to and from staff, constituents and colleagues.

Perhaps there was a day when the use of our Blackberrys would not be considered an indispensable tool for our work but I would submit that in this day and age there is simply no question about the fact that it is.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I urge your agreement with my belief that this indispensable tool to which unhampered access is covered by the provision of O'Brien and Bosc House of Commons Procedure and Practice at page 89 where it lists the quote “freedom from obstruction” among the rights and privileges of all members of this House.

On page 83 of O'Brien and Bosc, the description is a bit more complete, where it reads, “...obstructing...a Member or officer of the House in the discharge of their duties” would constitute “contempt”.

At page 108, it states:

Members are entitled to go about their parliamentary business undisturbed.

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

As Speaker Bosley noted in 1986:

Should an Hon. Member be able to say that something has happened which prevented him or her from performing functions, that....would be a case for the Chair to consider.

Mr. Speaker, you will no doubt be aware that there have been other questions of privilege raised on this type of obstruction where MPs' faxes and public email accounts are flooded to the point of dis-use and you may be tempted to dismiss my case based on those rulings.

For the record, I respect the decisions that have been made against such claims, including that of your immediate predecessor Speaker Milliken, who on June 8, 2005 ruled that the simple fact that emails and faxes were flooding public email accounts was not sufficient to rule that a prima facie breach of privilege existed.

In fact it was my own colleague from Windsor—Tecumseh and the current Deputy Speaker who so eloquently put it on February 28, 2012 that the intent of the inundation is the key question. He said, “The test is: What is the intent of the calls coming in, the emails coming in and the faxes coming in? Intent is the key component”. I agree with this assertion. Intent plays a key component in the determination of whether or not a breach of privilege has occurred.

In this case I submit that there could be no doubt that the member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, or other staff for which he is responsible, knew that such an inundation of email messages to my personal account would have a damaging impact on my ability to carry out my duties as an MP, which constitutes a deliberate, malicious and frankly childish attack on me and my privileges as a member of Parliament.

In addition to being a technical breach of privilege on which you, Mr. Speaker, will rule, the illustration of the cynical approach of the member, and I dare say many of the members from the governing party, is being clearly displayed here.

I as a member of Parliament and critic for the official opposition asked Canadians to get involved in an issue of huge importance to me and, more important, to millions of Canadians. I asked them to engage in the process using the appropriate channels available to the public. It is beyond dispute that encouraging Canadians to contact their government to express their views is a positive and important function of democracy. I am pleased that the response was of such magnitude that the member opposite took note and felt compelled to act.

However, that member decided to take this civic engagement and proper use of resources of this Parliament and use the email messages of these thousands of Canadians as a tool to deliberately and malevolently undermine the ability of one of his colleagues to do his job as an MP. He could have sent those emails to my public account, as I directed Canadians to direct their views to his public account.

What the member did is improper. Directing the public to proper channels of communication with MPs is one thing, and again, the member could have done so to my public account. However, he chose not to do so, knowing that sending those thousands of emails to my personal account would inhibit my ability to discharge my functions as an MP.

The member should be embarrassed by his actions today. I hope he will apologize not only to the House for his behaviour but also to each of those Canadians whose good faith emails he used as a cynical tool to undermine democratic engagement and interfere with the rights of another MP to discharge his duties.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If you rule in my favour, I am prepared to move the appropriate motion.

Alleged Misuse of Email AccountsPrivilegeOral Questions

3:10 p.m.

York—Simcoe Ontario

Conservative

Peter Van Loan ConservativeLeader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I do not know a great deal about the facts of this situation but as I understand it I can tell the House that as a member on this side of the House, and I know many of my colleagues experience the same thing, we very often have correspondence forwarded to us from members of the opposition on subject matters that are our responsibilities. I have never considered such forwarding of correspondence in the area of my responsibility to be a breach of my privileges.

I find it particularly ironic in a case like this that the member himself says he has been trying to stimulate this kind of feedback, except the feedback apparently is good when it goes to everyone except for him. I find that a bit unusual as a claim of privilege but I am interested in learning a bit more about it and we may come back to you, Mr. Speaker, with further submissions.

Alleged Misuse of Email AccountsPrivilegeOral Questions

3:10 p.m.

Liberal

Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS

Mr. Speaker, I want to speak in support of my hon. colleague's submission. This is in fact a breach of privilege. This is not a case of seeking public feedback and of that feedback going to an individual MP's account. This is a case of one MP or that MP's office directing thousands of emails to another member's private MP account. That account was on his Blackberry, therefore making it impossible to use that Blackberry, to know what is on his schedule or to do his work during the day. That is clearly an interference with his work as a member of Parliament and a breach of privilege.

Alleged Misuse of Email AccountsPrivilegeOral Questions

3:10 p.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

Mr. Speaker, obviously I rise in support of my colleague. I just have a comment for my colleagues across the way in the Conservative Party. Essentially, this was a tactic. It was a conscious tactic to shut down a member of Parliament's ability to do their work with a vital tool that we all use in this place.

If the House leader of the Conservative Party is suggesting this was a known and acceptable tactic on behalf of the Conservative Party and that this is the path Conservatives want to use to take members of Parliament down and that jamming other people's email accounts is a good idea for a democracy and a good idea for MPs doing their work, I am not sure this is the type of battle they actually wish to enjoin.

This is something that the member obviously did with full conscious knowledge as to what effect it would have on my colleague's ability to do his job. This is the area we are talking about in privilege.

I do not know why the Conservatives would not take this matter seriously because simply by dismissing it and waving it beyond would invite such further attacks on their own personal accounts, which is something we are not in a position or willing to do. We think the idea of public discourse is a good thing. We think the idea that members of Parliament would consciously try to disrupt and inhibit the behaviour and work of other MPs is a bad thing and that is why we have rules in this place about privilege, the privilege to do our work as members of Parliament, as my friend from Vancouver has so ably done.

I hope you find in favour of this case, Mr. Speaker, and I would hope the Conservatives would take an issue as serious as this a little more seriously.