Information & Ethics Committee on June 19th, 2008

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Order, please.

This has come up before. I'm glad you've raised it. We are not authorized—it's not within our mandate—to determine any ethical standards of any party. This has to do only with public office-holders and their duties with regard to ethical standards, which are set by the Prime Minister and are also included in the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament, which is included in the Standing Orders. We are not—and I hope everyone understands that—in a position under our mandate or the motion before us, not authorized whatsoever, to opine on a political party and its activities. That is not included in this discussion. The only way it could ever be considered is if the committee specifically wanted to do that, but it does not.

We should not be talking about political parties and what they did. We should be talking about the persons, as outlined in my ruling, named in the findings of Elections Canada, who were involved in certain activities that may have given rise to actions under the standards of ethics.

We have to be very careful. I know it's more exciting to talk about elections and parties and all these other things, but we need to keep it to the mandate and to the motions, and political parties are not going to be examined, by themselves, by this committee. We're not authorized to do that. We're looking at individuals covered under the codes and under the ethical standards expected of public office-holders.

I need to narrow this down. I didn't want to jump in too quickly on relevance; I wanted to explain it first of all. I hope we can move much closer to what's before the committee right now.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Chair, I'm going to accept that, because I don't want to violate and try to overturn your ruling. But I would suggest to you that the Standing Orders are very clear that a chairman has the obligation to allow members as much latitude in the debate as possible.

I'm going to just put on the record here that I will not have my debate focused down to what the chair thinks is of current relevance or is evidence to be submitted. To suggest otherwise, Mr. Chair, would even indicate that you yourself might be in control of the witness list. When we actually get to a point where we want to bring witnesses together, if I want to bring in Monsieur Dion to explain some of the—

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Order. Order.

First of all, the chair does not determine witnesses; the committee does. I think you would agree with that.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

I know. I totally agree.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

So let's not suggest that the chair is controlling the witness list, okay?

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

You've suggested a mandate, Mr. Chair, that's impossible to maintain.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

No. No. The committee will decide on witnesses, should we adopt the matters before us.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

The committee will decide on witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Second, Mr. Goodyear, one of the responsibilities of the chair is to make sure the debate continues being relevant to the motions before us and that repetition be enforced, not so rigorously as to limit the member's opportunity to make a point, but with due caution.

I think you suggested that you're not going to allow me to determine what's relevant, and it's my job. I want you to know that I've been keeping lists of points that have been made in all the meetings through some eight hours of hearings. I very much understand the ruling that I made with regard to the admissibility of the motion and the scope of that motion that I framed in that ruling. I have to abide by it. There may be some matters that are going to push beyond that threshold of what the motion entails. I don't want to speculate on where the committee is going to go with witnesses and stuff like that, but it had better be within the terms of reference of the motion.

I'll give you back the floor, but I hope you understand that I have to do my job.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

I certainly do understand that.

The point I'm trying to make is that the amendment to this motion is an attempt to expand this study into all.... If you don't want me to use the term “political parties” and simply allow the opposite members to use the term “Conservative Party” on a repeated basis, then I won't use the word “party”.

The fact remains that we're on an amendment that attempts to expand the motion. I think the relevance there is that the reason we feel it's absolutely necessary to expand the motion is that we need to determine by comparison; it's the only way to determine whether someone did....

Let's take an example. If you'll allow me, Mr. Chair, I'll drift a little bit and use an analogy.

Malpractice in the medical community is something most members are familiar with. It is determined by comparing the treatment protocols and the behaviours of other local physicians. There was a time when drilling a hole in your head to let the spirits out was perfectly acceptable in the medical profession. That would be considered malpractice today. How would you conclude that? How would a court conclude that? It would be by comparing the behaviours of other professionals who are similar.

Here we have a number of members of Parliament who belong to different political parties. By the matter of numbers, we want to keep the study focused to one individual party. I'm saying that's impossible without the amendments and without the subamendment. It can't be done.

Therein lies my point. Sometimes it takes a little while to get there, but the point is made very clearly that this has to be amended as suggested by my colleagues. There is truth to what my colleagues are saying. The RCMP was invited along. Using such terminologies as “the RCMP raided the place” is absolute proof of political rhetoric. An absolute opinion in any direction can't be made if we're going to study one single party.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

If I may repeat, we are not studying parties; we're studying candidates, and candidates who are public office-holders.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

It's not parties. We should never repeat that again. It's been said too many times in this meeting that we're studying one party versus the others. If you put the subamendment in, it is looking at the candidates--the candidates--of other parties, not just the Conservative Party. It's not studying the parties themselves, and it's only public office-holders.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Who is first?

Go ahead, Mr. Van Kesteren, on a point of order.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Mr. Chair, we are discussing the amendment. The amendment does say “and should the committee find in their investigations similar ethical practices by other parties”. If we are studying the amendment and commenting on it, then we are talking about the practices of other parties.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

We're talking about the candidates of those other parties, because--

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

That's not what the amendment says, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

It will be combined with the motion itself.

If you read the motion itself along with your amendment, we're talking about the ethical activities of individuals, not parties. We're dealing with public office-holders. The only way we can deal with this under our mandate is to deal with public office-holders. Political parties are not public office-holders. No matter what your interpretation may be, no amendment here will authorize us to deal with parties, only public office-holders as they are defined. They are cabinet ministers, secretaries of state, parliamentary secretaries, and order in council appointees, which is not applicable here.

That's our mandate.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Mr. Chair, on that same point—

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

We can't talk about—

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

I have a point of order.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

But the main motion says that.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

I'm up next, Pierre.