James Bezan

[Privilege, December 4th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to add to the question of privilege raised by the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot on Friday, December 1. This is the first opportunity for the official opposition to address it.

The member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot was talking in quite a bit of detail about the potential misleading of the House by the Minister of National Defence and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence as it related to answers in question period. Intentionally misleading the House is always a grave matter, and countless Speakers have ruled that it is essential to our democracy that information provided to Parliament be accurate and complete.

I think it is important to put on the record other examples that were found to be prima facie questions of privilege.

On February 1, 2002, the Speaker ruled on a matter in regard to the former minister of national defence. The former hon. member for Portage—Lisgar alleged that the former minister of national defence deliberately misled the House as to when he knew that prisoners who were taken by Canadian JTF 2 troops in Afghanistan had been handed over to the Americans.

In support of that allegation, he cited the minister's responses in question period on two successive dates. The Speaker considered the matter and found that there was a prima facie case of privilege. He said, “The authorities are consistent about the need for clarity in our proceedings and about the need to ensure the integrity of the information provided by the government to the House.”

The authorities to which Speaker Milliken was referring included, but were not limited to, House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, which states on page 115, “Misleading a Minister or a Member has also been considered a form of obstruction and thus a prima facie breach of privilege.”

The Speaker in 2002 accepted the minister's assertion that he had no intention to mislead the House and made the following statement: “Nevertheless this remains a very difficult situation.” The Speaker went on to say, “ On the basis of the arguments presented by hon. members and in view of the gravity of the matter”—

[Privilege, December 4th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, just to add to my comments on the bylaws, I should also draw your attention to section 7, which says:

Except as may be approved by the Board and subject to subsection (2), a Member may not use funds, goods, services and premises provided by the House of Commons for the benefit of any person, association or organization, or for the promotion of a product, service or event of any person, association or organization.

This is very clear, that when the Speaker addressed the Liberal convention this past weekend, it was to the benefit of a third party. There needs to be actions taken to prevent that from ever happening again.

[Privilege, December 4th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, on this question of privilege, I wanted to provide some extra information, because, like everyone else, I was shocked when I saw the Speaker in his robes addressing a leadership convention. I wanted to look at the use of the House of Commons resources as described under the bylaws of the Board of Internal Economy.

Under “Parliamentary functions”, section 4(1), it says:

The funds, goods, services and premises provided by the House of Commons to a Member under the Parliament of Canada Act, this By-law or any other by-law made under that Act may be used only for carrying out the Member’s parliamentary functions.

It goes on to say, under “Partisan activities”, section 4(2):

The funds, goods, services and premises provided by the House of Commons to a Member may be used by the Member for partisan activities only if those activities fall within the parliamentary functions of the Member.

It goes on to say, “Not parliamentary functions”, under section 4(3), “For greater certainty, the following activities, when performed by a Member, are not parliamentary functions.” Clause (b) goes on to say:

activities related to the administration, organization and internal communications of a political party, including participation in a party leadership campaign or convention, solicitations of contributions and solicitations of membership to a political party;

It further says under “Precision”:

For greater certainty, a Member’s parliamentary or constituency office shall not be used as a meeting or organizational location in relation to any of the activities referred to in subsection (3).

This is very clear, that all of us are prohibited from using our House of Commons resources, including our staff, our premises, being our offices, for any partisan activity.

Here we have the Speaker himself using his office, dressed in his House of Commons Speaker robes, addressing a Liberal provincial leadership election.

I lose complete faith and trust in the Speaker for violating the rules that he is supposed to enforce himself.

[Business of Supply, November 28th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, as someone who is proud of my Ukrainian heritage, I am disgusted by that tirade from the member.

He is sitting here, defending putting more taxes on our farmers and creating more food insecurity at a time when we have record numbers of people lining up at food banks across this country. Does the member not realize that the food insecurity he is creating here in Canada is the very same food insecurity that he is aligned with, with Putin in Ukraine?

[Business of Supply, November 28th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order, I want to correct the parliamentary secretary on his comments. As he knows, it was the Liberal Prime Minister who appointed all those senators, making them Liberal senators.

[Business of Supply, November 28th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals and the New Democrats continue to come here with their carbon-tax religion, failing to recognize that carbon is actually a building block of life and it is plant food, and that the carbon tax is not a climate change policy and has nothing to do with the environment.

Does the member think the carbon tax is making our farmers less competitive, less productive and less profitable? At the end of the day, it is creating food insecurity in the country. Like the Liberals are doing in Canada, Putin is doing the same in Ukraine?

[Points of Order, November 28th, 2023]

I am making a point of order.

Madam Speaker, in consideration of Russia and a reference made by the government House leader, I want to remind the Chair that on March 17, the International Criminal Court issued a warrant, a red notice, for Vladimir Putin for crimes against humanity and for the unlawful deportation of population and the unlawful transfer of population from the occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russia Federation, in prejudice of Ukrainian children.

As members know, currently over 110,000 war crimes are being investigated by Ukraine against the Russian Federation during its war of aggression. We know that over 9,000 children are currently being held in military camps in Russia and are being reprogrammed or brainwashed by the Russian Federation. All these are crimes against humanity and are war crimes. These atrocities have to stop.

For anyone to imply that the Conservative Party supports Russia is unparliamentary and is in contravention to the ruling that the Speaker made earlier yesterday, saying that we could not make these correlations.

I would ask that this is taken into consideration as the Speaker rules on whether those types of utterances are allowed.

[Points of Order, November 28th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I want to add some extra information to the point of order that was raised yesterday after question period with respect to the government House leader, the member of Parliament for Burlington, when she said, “Is it because there is a group of Conservative members of Parliament who are pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine and they have to cover for them?”

Yesterday, the Speaker ruled that the Conservatives could no longer say the NDP were Hamas supporters. In that light, we are saying that the Liberals should not be saying that we are pro-Putin when we are not. The Conservatives stand with Ukraine. We have always, unequivocally, stood with Ukraine in their fight.

I want to bring to the attention of the Speaker, when he considers his ruling, that—

[Business of Supply, November 28th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North is my neighbour in Manitoba. He should get out of the city more often to talk to some farmers. He says there is so much great stuff for farmers. I wonder why farmers are not voting for the Liberals if they are doing so many great things.

I would like to explain something to the member for Winnipeg North. When carbon taxes are put on the cost of growing our food, it increases the cost of food for everyone, whether it is because of the propane or natural gas used for drying grain or to heat the barns that keep our poultry and livestock warm. The member would just as soon let all those animals freeze to death and allow piles of crops to go unharvested because we would not be able to dry it and properly store it.

The policies the Liberals are pushing upon Canadians are creating food insecurity. He is doing no different than what Putin is doing in Ukraine in creating food insecurity. Why does the member of Winnipeg North hate farmers?

[Committees of the House, November 27th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, we are all shocked to find out that the government spent the past eight years talking about drones and that it never, ever crossed the Liberals' minds that the drones would have to be capable of flying in the Arctic to do the surveillance that we need to do. It is one thing to have RADARSAT, to have a north warning system and to have over-the-horizon radar systems, but having the drones flying up there, eyes on the ground at all times and doing surveillance, is one thing that has proven itself over and over again as being very effective. For the government not to even think that we had to fly in very cold temperatures in the Arctic just speaks to the incompetence of the current Liberal government.