Scott Reid

[Privilege, March 20th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I want to point out something that I think is highly relevant but has not been mentioned in the previous submissions. I think it will be of use to you in coming to a decision.

We know that it was one minute, more or less, before the end of the debate that this was raised—

[Business of Supply, March 18th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the key thing here is that we cannot expand the scope to take in more subject matter than was in the original motion. We see that one of the amendments proposed by the government would expand to deal with settlements on the West Bank. This is not a motion about the West Bank. It is about Gaza. Indulging in a discussion about aspects of Israeli policy that deal with some other area, with Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Syria and the occupation of the Golan, is outside the original scope.

It is very nice that the government would like to add the settlements on the West Bank. Perhaps they should have been in the original motion, but they are not. They are part of a separate topic. The government cannot now violate parliamentary practices based on the fact that its members think they should have been included.

The government should have debated this before introducing the motion and not change it now at the end of debate. That is well beyond the scope of the original motion.

[Constitution Act, 1867, January 31st, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to address Bill C-347, an act to amend the Constitution Act, 1867 regarding the oath of office. The bill would, as its proposer said a moment ago, if enacted, amend section 128 of the Constitution Act, 1867 to allow individuals who have been elected to the House of Commons or appointed to the Senate to select between three different oaths of office.

The first option would be, “I ... do swear that I will carry out my duties in the best interest of Canada while upholding its Constitution”; the second option would be the oath of office that has been required since Confederation, which is, as the member noted, “I ... do swear, That I will be faithful and bear true Allegiance to [His Majesty King Charles III]”; and the third option would be to take both oaths.

I have personal views on this subject, but I am going to put them on hold, because I think it is important to address the constitutional technicality of how the bill is being proposed.

Let me start by observing that a version of the current oath is contained in the fifth schedule to the Constitution Act, 1867, where it is written as follows: “I A.B. do swear, That I will be faithful and bear true Allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Victoria.” The following wording is also contained in the fifth schedule: “The Name of the King or Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland for the Time being is to be substituted from Time to Time, with proper Terms of Reference thereto.”

The fifth schedule is referenced in section 128 of the Constitution Act, 1867, which declares, “Every Member of the Senate or House of Commons of Canada shall before taking his Seat therein take and subscribe before the Governor General or some Person authorized by him ... the Oath of Allegiance contained in the Fifth Schedule to this Act”.

The next legal technicality to remember is that the Constitution Act, 1867 is a part of the Constitution of Canada, and therefore any change to the act, including a change to section 128, to the fifth schedule or to both can only be made if it conforms to the amending formulae that govern how such constitutional amendments can be made. These amending formulae are contained in sections 38 to 49 of the Constitution Act, 1982. There are five different amending formulae.

The most restrictive amending formula applies to a narrow list of subjects that can be amended only by means of identical resolutions adopted in Parliament and in the legislatures of all the provinces. A second formula provides that in other cases the Constitution can be amended by means of identical resolutions adopted in Parliament and in the legislatures of at least seven provinces with at least, together, half the population of the country. A third formula provides that in the case of amendments that affect some provinces but not others, the Constitution may be amended by means of identical resolutions in Parliament and in the legislatures of the affected provinces, but not in the rest of the provinces.

A fourth formula is of particular interest. Section 44 of the Constitution Act, 1982 states, “Subject to sections 41 and 42, Parliament may exclusively make laws amending the Constitution of Canada in relation to the executive government of Canada or the Senate and House of Commons.” Finally, section 45 provides for the legislatures of each province to have the ability to “exclusively make laws amending the constitution of the province.”

Although the assertion is nowhere made in Bill C-347, it is clear that a claim is implicitly being made that this amendment to the Constitution would be made under the authority of the section 44 amending formula, as the oath of office is, in essence, asserted to be an aspect of the Constitution in relation to the House of Commons and Senate of Canada, which, as we will recall, was specifically referenced in section 44. Thus, the claim is being made that the oath can be altered by means of a simple act of Parliament.

I can certainly understand why this is being asserted, but I am not certain that this assertion is accurate. I note that a similar claim was made only a little over a year ago, when on December 9, 2022, the National Assembly of Quebec enacted a bill that abolished the traditional oath of allegiance to the monarch, the wording of which was identical to the oath for MPs and senators. As with the federal oath, the oath for provincial legislatures is mandated in section 128 of the Constitution Act, 1867 and is spelled out in the fifth schedule to the act. The Quebec law replaced this with something very similar to the federal oath proposed in Bill C-347: “I, (name of the Member), declare under oath that I will be loyal to the people of Québec and that I will perform the duties of Member honestly and justly in conformity with the constitution of Québec.”

This was not an uncontroversial bill. Constitutional experts lined up on either side of a dispute as to whether or not the Quebec legislature could, under authority of section 45 of the Constitution Act, 1982, unilaterally amend the oath of office. Some experts said yes, some said “no, you cannot actually do that without resorting to one of the other amending formula” that require broader consent.

I note that in favour of Quebec having acted constitutionally, we see that, in the literature I was able to consult, Leonid Sirota, Patrick Taillon and Frédéric Bérard all think this was constitutionally warranted. Ian Peach, Emmett Mcfarlane, André Binette, Yan Campagnolo, Errol Mendes, Steve Chaplin and James Bowden feel differently. They think this was not, in fact, constitutionally done.

I recognize that the issues in the Quebec bill and Bill C-347 are not identical. They refer to similar but not identical sections of the Constitution Act, 1982. Nonetheless, they are obviously very similar, and it would be reasonable, in advance of approving this bill at third reading, for some of the experts who weighed in on Quebec's legislation, both for and against, to be invited to testify in committee on Bill C-347.

In the event that the resulting expert testimony does not produce a consensus that it is permissible to make such a change under authority of the unilateral section 44 amending formula, it might make sense to take the additional precaution of submitting a reference question to the Supreme Court of Canada. A reference question is a seeking out of an advisory opinion from the court as to whether a proposed law is in fact constitutionally permissible.

This would not be the first time that a government of the day has sought an advisory opinion from the court as to which amending formula is appropriate to use in this or that circumstance. For example, in 2014, when the government of the day was considering changing the Constitution with regard to how senators are selected, the Supreme Court ruled that in respect of some of the changes that were being proposed, the unilateral section 44 formula would work and in other cases, the formula that requires the consent of seven provinces would be required.

At that time, to be honest, I did not agree with all of the opinions offered by the court in its ruling, but that is not the point. The value of having a Supreme Court is not that the court is always right, it is that the court's opinion is always final. Having rules that are of indisputable authority is the key attribute of the rule of law.

To be sure, it may well be the case that all of this is only of technical importance. One could point out, quite accurately, the fact that some members of Quebec's National Assembly, right now, have been sworn in on the basis of an oath that may have been unconstitutionally adopted but that this does not keep them from carrying out their duties as MNAs and that nobody doubts they are legitimate officeholders. This would, presumably, also be true of MPs swearing the oath that is described in Bill C-347. That these MPs would be legitimate officeholders would remain true even if, at some future date after they are sworn in, the Supreme Court were to rule that Bill C-347 had been enacted by means of the wrong amending formula and therefore their oaths of office had been invalid all along.

How do I know this? Well, I know it because a version of this exact problem actually arose, once upon a time. In 1875, an embarrassed House of Commons discovered that George Turner Orton had been sitting for some time as the member for Wellington Centre, despite having never sworn the oath of office. According to the relevant footnote in the House of Commons Procedure and Practice manual, Mr. Orton explained “that, because he had already sworn the oath, he did not realize that he had to be sworn in again upon his re-election.”

The matter was submitted to a committee, and on March 8, 1875, the committee noted:

that, since neither the Constitution Act, 1867,...nor any other statute provided a penalty in the event a Member omitted to take and subscribe the oath, the Member’s seat was not affected by the oversight. However, the Committee recommended that the votes taken by the Member before he took the oath be struck from the records.

I think life would probably go on as before, even if Bill C-347 were enacted and subsequently found to be invalid because it had been enacted in the wrong manner, and even if the oaths of some sitting MPs were thereby found be likewise invalid.

Canadians are sensible people and we are good at finding ways out of absurd legal conundrums, as we did in 1984 when the Supreme Court found that all laws passed in the Manitoba legislature in English only, for a full century, were invalid and that therefore it was necessary to re-enact them all in a bilingual format. Rather than simply saying there are no laws here, the proposal was made to allow for a staged reformulation of those laws and re-enactment of those laws.

There is a way out of this, but it would be best to actually find out what the law requires of us, what the Constitution requires, and for that reason, I will be urging all of us, if this gets through second reading, to make sure we get a clear indication of the legal authorities prior to going to third reading as to whether this is valid.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, January 29th, 2024]

With regard to federal correctional institutions, since September 1, 2020: (a) which Red Seal apprenticeships are offered in federal correctional institutions; (b) how many inmates have been registered in Red Seal apprenticeships during their incarceration; (c) how many inmates have successfully completed Red Seal apprenticeships during their incarceration; (d) how many inmates have been released while registered in a Red Seal apprenticeship; (e) does Correctional Service Canada track, seek, or otherwise possess data on the completion or non-completion of Red Seal apprenticeships by inmates who were released while registered in a Red Seal apprenticeship; (f) of the inmates who have been registered in Red Seal apprenticeships during their incarceration, what is the breakdown by region, by institution, and by specific type of Red Seal apprenticeship; (g) of the inmates who have successfully completed Red Seal apprenticeships during their incarceration, what is the breakdown by region, by institution, and by specific type of Red Seal apprenticeship; (h) what non-Red Seal apprenticeships are offered in federal correctional institutions; (i) how many inmates have been registered in non-Red Seal apprenticeships during their incarceration; (j) how many inmates have successfully completed non-Red Seal apprenticeships during their incarceration; (k) how many inmates have been released while registered in a non-Red Seal apprenticeship; (l) of the inmates who have been registered in non-Red Seal apprenticeships during their incarceration, what is the breakdown by region, by institution, and by specific type of non-Red Seal apprenticeship; (m) of the inmates who have successfully completed non-Red Seal apprenticeships during their incarceration, what is the breakdown by region, by institution, and by specific type of non-Red Seal apprenticeship; (n) how many vocational training certificates have been issued through CORCAN’s on-the-job training opportunities; and (o) what are the three most common vocational training certificates issued through CORCAN’s on-the-job training opportunities, broken down by number, region, and institution?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, January 29th, 2024]

With regard to all lines of business for Afghans being delivered by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, such as programs, temporary public policies, ministerial instructions, pathways, or other measures, as of December 11, 2023: (a) which lines of business are accepting applications; (b) which lines of business are not accepting applications; (c) which lines of business are processing applications; (d) which lines of business are not processing applications; (e) since August 1, 2021, how many Afghans have been admitted to Canada in total, and broken down by line of business; (f) how many Afghans have been admitted to Canada under lines of business relating to extended family of former Language and Cultural Advisors in total, and broken down by line of business; (g) how many applications have been received through the Permanent Residence for extended family of former Language and Cultural advisors program; (h) how many applications have been approved through the Permanent residence for extended family of former Language and Cultural advisors program; (i) is the Permanent Residence for extended family of former Language and Cultural advisors program accepting applications and, if not, why not; (j) is the Permanent Residence for extended family of former Language and Cultural advisors program processing applications and, if not, why not; and (k) how many Afghans have applications on humanitarian grounds pending acceptance, processing, or decision?

[Christmas Greetings, December 13th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker,

'Tis a week before Christmas, and it's time to state
That our PM is well past his best before date.
After eight years of his rule, it's time to say thanks
For doubling the number of folks using food banks.
After eight years, when our kids nestle snug in their beds,
They're just lucky there is still a roof over their heads,
For on cold winter nights, under snow and the stars,
Many citizens now have to sleep in their cars.
They can protest, of course, but only in small amounts
Lest, like the truckers, he freezes their bank accounts.
He will accuse them of hate based on faith or on race,
Which seems strange from a man caught three times wearing blackface.
He's so quick to say sorry for wrongs from long ago,
But not for when he elbowed Ruth Ellen Brosseau.
So let's quote back to the PM some words of his own:
“Sir, enough is enough. Now, go home and stay home.”
Here is what we would like Santa's elves to administer:
This Christmas, please bring us a brand new prime minister.

[Privilege, December 6th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, the first thing I would say with regard to whether a convention of that nature exists is that the man who invented the concept of constitutional convention was Albert Venn Dicey. In his outstanding work, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, which everybody should have at their bedside, by the way, he says that there is a way of testing whether a convention exists, and that is to see whether one watches, in their actions, whether the two major parties in the House are both in agreement. He lived in a time when there were two major parties in the United Kingdom. He points to the confidence convention's development during the period of Disraeli and Gladstone as being the example. Before that, one could lose what we would regard as a confidence vote in the House and carry on.

I think that this is the way one judges whether a convention exists. I would say, based on that and the fact that it was uncontroversial that our House leader was the leader of the party after being speaker, that no convention existed. It might be starting to gel. It is possible.

To answer the question that was specifically asked about what the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs should study, I would say that, among other things, the British practice of having a Speaker shed the partisan energy in the expectation that they can run again and will run again as an independent has some merit.

It was tried here once, by the way, in Canada. As we may know, Speaker Lamoureux did that. I suspect it might have stuck had some other accidental things not come along. It is very much worthwhile to consider that for the future.

[Privilege, December 6th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, actually, in my remarks, I had meant to mention the issue of conflicts of interest and the appearance of a conflict of interest. I was going to say that the Speaker must be impartial and must be seen to be impartial, which is somewhat like a conflict of interest versus the appearance of a conflict of interest.

In this case, I do not think that is what is going on, if we are talking about members of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. I think it would be more accurate to say that there is the appearance of having an opinion.

I cannot think of a subject out there, from professional hockey to astrophysics, on which I do not personally have some kind of opinion. I also hope that I am in a position where I can be convinced by the evidence to think differently at the end of the process than I started out thinking. Sometimes I think that is unlikely, quite frankly, but I do not know how one gets around the fact that everybody has opinions. Some would be more valuable in expressing their opinions than others.

All I can say is that if the member is this concerned, he could suggest to people that they recuse themselves, I suppose, although I have to say that if I were invited to recuse myself by someone from another party, I would probably say, “Thanks, but I am going to stay here.”

[Privilege, December 6th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I was actually thinking of making the exact same observation. Even I am having trouble hearing myself right now.

I was talking about how the Fathers of Confederation tried to incorporate unwritten conventions in a written instrument, or by reference to incorporate them. To understand this instrument, we have to go back and look at what was said at the Quebec Conference at the so-called Confederation debates that took place in the ancestor of this chamber in 1865, 900 pages' worth of which are recorded.

It is interesting that those who ran the Parliament of the Province of Canada thought it was important enough that they, though there was no Hansard in those days, should have a special Hansard recorded of that debate so the general public could read and understand all of the aspects of the constitutional deal they were making that would not be written down. The same kind of rules ought to apply to the internal governance of this place. Those offices have their powers and authority largely due to convention, as well as due, to some degree, to what is written in the Standing Orders. That would be very profitable.

PROC is the master of its own proceedings, within the parameters of the motions presented to it; however, I do not think it is appropriate to start by asking whether the Speaker was aware of exactly where the video would be used, and whether he is therefore guilty in the sense that one is found guilty in a criminal trial. He is not on trial for a crime, so mens rea is not actually a relevant consideration. It is equally possible he could simply have been exercising bad judgment, a sign of an inability to consistently make wise judgments, or of a weakness in the way he chooses to conduct himself, that makes him, although an honourable member and an honourable person, simply an inappropriate occupant of the chair.

The fact is that many people would be inappropriate occupants of the chair. In fact, a majority of the people in this room, I suspect, if asked, would say, “I am not the right occupant for the chair”, for one reason or another. It has nothing to do with their character; it has to do with the fact that they are unilingual or they have to be away from this place because of family considerations, so can participate online, but not here. The Speaker should be here. There is a whole range of reasons; perhaps someone may not have the attention span or the energy they used to have when they were a younger person, and cannot sit for all those hours. One feature of being a Speaker is having a certain degree of stamina. They cannot drift off, and some debates are kind of dull. The Assistant Deputy Speaker even agrees with me.

These are considerations that are relevant to a hearing of this sort. It is really a question of determining what the standards are and doing a reset so we can all be clear that these are the standards we regard as being reasonable and acceptable. We either do or do not think that the incumbent in the role of Speaker is fitting in with those expectations, now that we have had a chance to examine them in more detail.

I hope that, on that basis, we will go forward and decide to vote in favour of the motion, we will trust PROC to make an intelligent report back to us, and we will have a chance to consider its report and to vote on the report in the House of Commons. It would come back to us. I have indicated in the past that I think it is best, when dealing with PROC reports, that we try to do so on a non-partisan basis. I would encourage that to happen here. I do not control that, but I think that at least one committee should be treated as being non-partisan as much as possible, both in its own behaviour and in how the House responds to its reports. That, by the way, was exactly the approach it took when a motion I proposed was considered by PROC a few years ago to change the way the Speaker is elected. I think that was beneficial. I hope we can all do the same thing here.

[Privilege, December 6th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, never has the Kingston part of my riding name been more important than today, as my colleague from Kingston and the Islands and I wrestle over whose riding is home to the illustrious former Speaker of the House Peter Milliken. He is a man who served with great distinction for many years and who will make, if this goes to the procedure and House affairs committee, an excellent witness providing some information as to how we have done things in the past and how Speakers have behaved in the past.

There are many, many parallels to draw upon here. There have been many Speakers in this House and in all of our 10 provincial assemblies over a period of well over a century. There are parallels not only in the Parliament in the United Kingdom but also at the House of Representatives in Australia, in the one in New Zealand, in the various Australian states, in the world's largest democracy in India and in a number of African and Caribbean countries. The parallels here are enormous.

The precedents are significant. If the behaviour of the Speaker is such that it would warrant our judgment that he has been acting inappropriately, or acting outside of what is the normal expectation of the Office of the Speaker, there is no better place to determine that than the procedure and House affairs committee. If the reverse turns out to be true, then there is no better place to establish that than the procedure and House affairs committee as well.

I want to deal with a few of the things that the procedure and House affairs committee ought to consider in its deliberations on this subject. The committee will have limited time, so it will have to structure its sittings with some care. I say all of this as someone who served on the procedure and House affairs committee for 15 years. Although I am no longer on that committee, I believe that still stands as not merely a record for serving on that committee, but for the length of service on any House of Commons committee for any member of Parliament in the course of the 21st century. There is no question that the procedure and House affairs committee is the right place to go. It looks at technical issues.

We think of the procedure and House affairs committee as dealing with, for example, proposed changes to the Standing Orders. That is the right place to consider those changes. It is also the right place to consider and discuss conventions. We sometimes think that conventions or unwritten rules are literally unwritten, that they exist only in the ether, and we have a common understanding that is inchoate and for which there is no language. That is not actually what conventions in the Westminster tradition look like, whether they are the constitutional conventions of the British constitution, which have a reflection in some unwritten parts of our own Constitution. There is the convention, for example, that there is a prime minister, who serves as the voice of the House of Commons to the sovereign, and that cabinet speaks with a single voice. These are conventions, and they are embodied in a few very important words in the preamble of the Constitution Act, 1867, which says “the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick” being desirous of “a Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom”. All that is contained in that wording. If we dig into that word, we find that that “convention” has built out considerably from there and there is a considerable amount of written material that was around at that time that explained exactly what the fathers of Confederation had in mind when they wrote that wording.

I say all of this by way of saying that conventions are the product of usage, but they are also the product of discussion and deliberation and are to be found in places such as committee reports. Therefore, we have an opportunity to deal with some of the issues that are being discussed here. Is it the case, on a go-forward basis for example, that we ought to be looking at some aspects of the U.K.'s practice, in which the Speaker is expected to take a certain course of action upon retiring from the role of Speaker? Where is that not appropriate? In the past, we have not had such a limitation, and the result has been that Speakers have become Governor General and they have become ambassadors. The potential exists, in theory if not in practice, that it can influence how Speakers behave.

It was with exactly this kind of consideration in mind that the Fathers of Confederation, when dealing with the issue of senators, who, they felt, might be subject to similar pressures, had to —