Information & Ethics Committee on July 16th, 2008

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

I said “my opinion”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Order.

No, Mr. Goodyear, that's not a fair reflection of what happened. The decisions that were taken were decisions of the committee, and illegality and such suggestions are improper, sir. It is improper.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

I sure as heck wouldn't want to insult you, Mr. Chair, outstanding individual that you are. What I would suggest, however, is that at that committee there were names on the list....

Perhaps I could finish, Pat. I remember you talked for some 51 days one time. I don't intend to do that. I'll follow the rules here.

What I'm suggesting, Mr. Chair, is at that June 19 meeting there were members who wished to be heard. I'm challenging anybody to prove me wrong, including you, Mr. Chair. You shut the debate down.

Here's the trick that happened there. It was Monsieur Proulx who immediately challenged your ruling. For folks who are watching, that is a procedural trick. The minute a chair is challenged, debate stops, and it has to go immediately to a vote. Guess what? The majority is in the opposition.

Now, today, guess what? We have the same Liberal trickery when Madame Jennings challenges your decision on this witness list.

Let me summarize what's happening here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Goodyear, I'm going to give the floor back to you, but this suggestion that somehow there's some trickery and your representation that if someone challenges the chair it ceases debate.... Quite frankly, sir, the reality is that when the chair makes a ruling, takes a decision that—and I did, at those meetings—all questions necessary to dispose of the matter before the committee be put now, that is a decision of the chair. That itself stops debate, sir. It's not the challenge of the chair. You are incorrect, and it's misleading. The challenge of the chair is available to members if they disagree or if they're not sure they understood what it meant, and it buys some time. It's not trickery.

Ultimately, if there is no challenge to the chair, the chair's decision simply stands and you move forward with taking the vote. If there's a challenge to the chair, the first thing that happens—to explain the procedure—is that it's not debatable; you have a vote on whether the chair's decision is going to be sustained, and if not, then you carry on with debate. If it is sustained, you move to the vote.

In fact, it's quite the reverse. Challenging the chair and not sustaining the chair continues the debate.

Now we understand how the procedure works. It's not trickery; it actually is part of the authorized procedures of the Standing Orders and the House.

I'll give the floor back to you, Mr. Goodyear.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, because you just proved my point. It's a creative interpretation. The fact remains that if you look at the minutes of that meeting, the second the chair was challenged, a vote was taken. The majority rules. It was over. Then you moved on the vote for the motion. That's true.

That's the same thing as happened today, as soon as we challenged on the witness list. This is just a game that's being played. The bottom line here is that there's no reason why these witnesses shouldn't come before this committee, no justifiable reason, Mr. Chair. If you're in charge and a witness is asked a question that you deem to be out of order, or if a witness goes off in a direction you don't like, isn't going toward whatever mandate you've agreed to follow, then you can shut them down.

At this point in time when you shut down our witness list at this point, I'm just wondering. Do you not see the message that's sending to Canadians, by limiting debate, by consulting with witnesses about which questions can be answered and which questions can't be asked, and then to simply come forward and eliminate not just any witness but every single witness the Conservative Party put forward?

Then of course Madame Jennings tried to soften the potential newspaper print tomorrow by saying, well, let's remove these other folks. Canadians know full well that those folks are being removed for a good reason—Libby Davies—as I've already said.

I don't know whether my argument is going to hold any water whatsoever, because I was very convinced back in April, May, and June that members had clearly made up their minds that there's potentially an election coming in the fall and this is a partisan political photo op, if you want to call it that.

I'm just encouraging members, if there's any possible way we can go back to simply allowing the 11 witnesses that the Conservative Party put forward, and Mr. Martin even suggested, which was quite nice—again trying to soften what's actually happening here—we could add witnesses later. Well, all of us know that's not going to happen. All of us know that whatever motion we put forward will be debated out and then voted down. That's a true story. Again, that's why this should be before the courts. In a courtroom there's a judge who actually knows what he's doing who decides which questions are out of order, and then there are witnesses who can be compelled to respond, and there's some laterality that's allowed.

Anyway, having said that, I don't see the reason these witnesses can't be allowed to testify before this committee with you, Mr. Chair, controlling some of the debate. I think they should be allowed to be here. We don't know what they're going to say; we don't know what they can contribute. I think we should move forward and hear these witnesses. If they decide to go somewhere you don't want them to go, Mr. Chair, shut them down then.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Poilievre, you're next on the list, sir.

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

Thank you, Chair. I'll go whenever you're ready.

I'm sorry, I thought you were asking me to wait until you resolved a procedural problem.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I can hear you. Please carry on.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

When committee members first brought this discussion to this committee, the chairman said at the very outset that the discussion would be limited to the conduct of public office holders only; as such, we would only allow discussion of individuals who held the title of public office holder.

Then he was presented with a motion that referred to an investigation of the Conservative Party. He allowed that motion to be in order, even though the Conservative Party is not a public office holder. What he meant was that the discussion would be permitted for public office holders and for one political party.

Obviously we assumed that he meant that former public office holders would be allowed, as has been the case in the past at the ethics committee. But he indicated, no, that this committee only investigates the conduct of current or present-day public office holders—and they have to be in the Conservative Party. That seemed to make little sense, given that Brian Mulroney had been invited to this committee, and he hasn't been a public office holder in about a decade and a half. Clearly a ruling was concocted and designed to draw jagged borders between what was permitted and what was not.

We came here today prepared to undergo the study regardless, and we began questioning the witness. Quickly we found that the questions that the witness found difficult to answer would not be permitted, because the matter was before the courts. Of course, the entire matter is before the courts, but the chair has allowed discussion on it regardless.

Before we move forward, let's examine for a moment the borders that the chairman has drawn. One, you may only ask questions about one political party. Two, for the first time in the history of the committee, you may only ask questions about the conduct of present-day public office holders. Three, if you cannot find problems with the conduct of those public office holders, you are permitted to ask about the conduct of non-public office holders, as long as they are members of the Conservative Party.

So we continued our questioning of the witness, and we found that not only was the content restricted to questions the witness found easy to answer, but also that when things got difficult for the opposition and Elections Canada, the debate was cut short by two hours.

Then we commenced the discussion of the witness list, and we found that every single witness suggested by the Conservative delegates to this committee was disallowed. It is still unclear why they've been disallowed. All we've been told is that their testimony is irrelevant. It's interesting that the chair is able to determine the relevance of testimony that he has not yet heard. He doesn't know if these witnesses, given their prior political experience, might have something to say about the Canada Elections Act. They might have something to say about how it has been applied in the past. And even if they don't talk about the past, perhaps they have something interesting to say about the future.

One thing is for sure: the witness list is not restricted to members of the Conservative Party, nor is it restricted to those who were involved in the electoral campaign of the Conservative Party in 2006, because there are outsiders, regardless of their qualifications, who have been invited here to offer their opinions. I'm sure their opinions will be very interesting. I think all of them should be allowed to testify. We were hoping that others who also have opinions might be permitted to offer testimony, but because they've been part of other political parties and the chair fears they might shed light on the electoral practices of the other political parties, they have been excluded from any inquiry whatsoever.

One gentleman, who according to Mr. Martin is no longer even part of the New Democratic Party but is now a Conservative, was disallowed—that is Mr. Robin Sears—because this gentleman might offer an opinion disagreeable to members of the opposition.

So the sole criterion we now have in place to determine who will be allowed to participate in this discussion is that it should be anyone who would make a good target, who is part of the Conservative Party, and anyone the opposition finds politically advantageous to hear from. Anyone, however, who would shed light on the practices of opposition parties is excluded, and anyone who might express a credible opinion that differs from the opposition's thesis on this dispute is also excluded from any of the discussions.

It really makes one wonder what the opposition has to hide, what the Liberal Party has to hide, or why it is that the Liberal Party felt it so important to twist the chairman's arm and force him to make the statement that he did to exclude so many people from the discussion. If the opposition and the Liberal chair have nothing to hide and are confident in the case that they would make before this committee, then why not just allow all the witnesses to come? And if their testimony is impertinent or irrelevant, then that would quickly become evident to the viewer.

However, they know what we know, which is that these witnesses would show that the Bloc Québécois engaged in the most broad and sweeping in and out program in Canadian history.

That's why everyone calls the leader of the Bloc the Father of In and Out.

They know what we know, which is that the Liberal Party would not want its electoral practices to come under any more scrutiny. They know what we know, which is that even though the biggest electoral fraud in Canadian political history occurred within the last decade and a half—that of course being the Liberal sponsorship scandal—Elections Canada never thought it worthwhile to investigate where all of those millions of dollars were spent and whether or not they might have influenced the outcome of the election or caused overspending to occur.

Imagine, Mr. Chair, if you were at Elections Canada, tasked with ensuring that political candidates make all their filings accurate, that they don't spent more than the limit, and you learned from a commission of public inquiry that one political party funnelled at least $40 million through its campaigns, and that much of that money was in the form of cold, hard, untraceable cash. Can you imagine if you were in that position with Elections Canada and you looked at that and said, “There's nothing here for us to investigate whatsoever; there's no chance that any of that $40 million might have been used as cash election expenses, which may have pushed the party over its spending limit in numerous ridings, which may have evaded reporting requirements”?

All of that stuff was made public, all of it was known, and yet Elections Canada thought nothing of it and chose not to investigate any of it. All that is very interesting and raises a lot of questions about why the agency is conducting itself the way it is right now.

Chair, without further ado, I will be opposing this motion, and I will reiterate my prediction that Conservative MPs and ministers will decide on a very principled basis not to participate in this kangaroo court. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

We'll move on to our next speaker, who is Madame Lavallée.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, I support Mr. Martin's motion. I also agree with Ms. Jennings' amendment. I have no objection to removing the two or three names she suggested. I think that we have at last a balanced list, one that contains all of the categories of people we want to meet with, and this will mean we can do something intellectually rigorous, systematic and intelligent, we can continue and advance the discussion, understand what really happened and learn things, in particular what led to the search at the Conservative Party offices.

As stated in the motion, that will allow us to examine the ethics of the conduct of public office holders. That is our objective. In all sincerity, that is what has to be done.

I completely agree with Ms. Jennings' subamendment dealing with the subpoena. That is in fact an excellent idea. We know that the House does not have to be consulted for issuing subpoenas. This was not a subpoena duces tecum, it was a subpoena that people are ordinarily required to answer to with enthusiasm.

Our Conservative friends complain that none of the names they suggested have been accepted. They are laughing at us. This makes no sense. What kind of names did they suggest? We are examining the ethics of the conduct of public office holders. Why would Lawrence Cannon's name not be on their list? Lawrence Cannon holds public office and was the top campaign organizer in Quebec. If they had been acting scrupulously and in good faith, Lawrence Cannon would have been one of the first names they suggested.

We are talking about examining the ethics of the conduct of public office holders. How could they not have suggested Josée Verner's name? She is a minister, and so a public office holder, who paid $9,000 for an advertisement, while her colleague in the next riding, Sylvie Boucher, who was not even in her advertisement, paid $37,000.

We know now that there are senior officials in the Conservative Party who tried to cheat the system. We can see this from all the documents. I think that a Conservative MP has been cheated by her colleague Josée Verner. The fact is that when we want to examine the ethics of the conduct of public office holders, we have to invite these people. Why is it that you did not put them on the list? Why is it that you did not include people from Elections Canada on your list? Why is it that you did not put Retail Media's partners on your list? Why is it that you did no put your public office holders, your Conservative MPs, your defeated candidates and some experts on the Elections Act on your list? Do you really want to do something intelligent and worthwhile, and examine what really happened? That is the question we have to ask. No, you came here with names that were completely unrelated. None of the people you suggested is directly involved or has any expertise in the subject.

You have only yourselves to blame. You are talking about traps because someone calls for a vote or challenges the decisions of the Chair. Those are not traps. The real trap you have been laying for us for hours is obstructing the debate, using stalling tactics. That is the trap that the Conservatives the Conservatives constantly lay, and everyone can see it. You are talking about the search being leaked, and we are talking about public office holders. Those are the real traps.

I don't know how to do it, because I am not an expert in procedural traps like the Conservatives. But I would simply like us to vote. Would it be possible to ask for that, Mr. Chair, that we do it before 4:00? They are obstructing the process.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you, madame. It's a good way to complete your remarks.

We have other speakers. Mr. Tilson, you're next on the list.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Chair, I'll briefly speak to both the motion and the amendment. I gather that's your decision.

The history of the motion is that we would hear the guests that we've had for the last day and a half, and then there were some motions, some of which were mine, that were referred to throughout, and we were supposed to deal with those today. Then yesterday it was suggested that we concentrate on the witnesses. If the motions had been made—there were three separate ones—the motions would have been debated and voted on. Maybe they would have failed, but we would have had an opportunity to debate each one of those motions properly.

Then it was pointed out that each party would submit a list. It would be consolidated by the clerk, and then the list would be provided to members. That was done. Then we arrive, and you say that before we start you're striking out some names. Every last one of them was a Conservative. This is especially true of the ones on the motions that I made, which I would ordinarily have had an opportunity to debate. You denied me the right to debate why those names should or should not be on.

I understand. You have more votes than we do, and you can do whatever you like, which is what you've done. That's political life—that's okay.

It's a question of fairness. In all fairness, I withdrew my motions. On your representations, Mr. Chairman, I withdrew them. And then, in all fairness, I assumed that by putting the names on the list we would have an opportunity to look at all the names.

The whole thing has been a charade. The whole thing has been a farce.

Then Mr. Martin comes on and says, “Oh, by the way, there's one more name I'd like take off, and that's Bob Rae's former chief of staff.” I find that incredible. I find this whole process incredible.

So I'm opposing the motion of Mr. Martin. I understand he wants to get on with it. We've been fooling around a lot today, I understand that. But on the issue of fairness, it just isn't here. It's all one-sided. From cutting off the questions we had for the witnesses this morning to this whole process today, it's not fair. And anyone who sees this will realize it's not fair. Yes, the opposition is having its way with the government members, and that's life. It's incredible. But there is no fairness.

With respect to Ms. Jennings' amendment, on the deleting of some of the names, her comment that the Conservatives should be happy with this I found a tad condescending. You say this is all done to develop cooperation. No, it was condescending. So I'm not too pleased about that.

I am going to return to one of the points she made with respect to the chair's having the right to submit a subpoena—or perhaps it was a summons—to everyone. This is rather high-handed for a committee. Even courts, really, are nervous about doing this.

A committee may order a witness when the witness doesn't want to appear or doesn't want to comply. You've challenged me on this, but I would like to go through what I believe is the process. This is another reason I'm not opposing the amendment. I think it's rather high-handed. Only the House can force a witness to comply, provided that it agrees with the committee, and the House may not agree with the committee. This committee cannot assume that the House would agree.

The committee normally and usually invites witnesses to appear. That's normally the process: we invite them. We don't subpoena or summons them; we invite them to appear. Most of the time, that follows through. In the last major hearing we had, we asked some people to appear, and they didn't appear. Well, we went on our way.

When a witness refuses to appear, Mr. Chairman, or when the committee is of the opinion that the witness is stonewalling, it would adopt a motion at the committee ordering the witness to appear. Refusal by the witness at this point is grounds for contempt. That's what I understand the process to be.

A member of the committee would then need to raise the matter at committee. If the chairman is of the opinion that the matter touches on contempt, then he or she would enter debate on a motion to report the matter to the House. The report would then describe the facts and the situation, summarize the events, name the individual involved, indicate that contempt may have occurred, and request that the House of Commons take some action.

The House may or may not take action. There would be a debate and there would be a vote. Once the report is tabled in the House, a member could raise the matter as a question of privilege. The Speaker would then consider the question, and if he finds that a prima facie question of privilege exists, he would invite the member to propose a motion asking the House to take some action.

It's at that point that the action takes place. It's up to you to determine whether the amendment is out of order or not, but I submit that the amendment on that particular point is rather high-handed and is not the way we do things around here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you, Mr. Tilson. I think it's a very good summary and I'm very familiar....

And I want to reaffirm to you that in my opinion and from my knowledge and consultations, the amendment before us indeed is in order. As you know, even if the chair were to issue a summons, the person for whom that summons was issued could still not appear, at their choice, and that matter then goes to the House. So there is that second step.

But as far as authority to issue a summons is concerned, the committee has that full authority under Standing Order 108. I'm very sure of that, I want to assure you.

Between the two of us, maybe we'll spend a little time together, at some appropriate time, just to review. Maybe there is a suggestion or two we want to make with regard to changes to the Standing Orders.

Now, colleagues, there are no more speakers, and therefore I am going to put all the questions necessary to dispose of the motion now before us. Madame Jennings has moved that the motion be amended by adding, after the words “Robin Sears”, the names Jean Landry and Lise Vallières; and by adding after the words “August 11, 2008”, the following: “and that the chair be authorized, at his discretion, to summons any witness who may be summonsed who refuses the committee's invitation to appear”.

The first vote is on the amendment, which would delete two more names from the list and authorize the chair, at his discretion, to summons if necessary—if necessary, not all. So I want to put the question on the amendment deleting those two names and giving the authorization to summons at the discretion of the chair.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 6 ; nays 4 )

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

We now move to the main motion as amended. I believe the members are familiar with it: the deletion of three names, the authorization of the chair, at his discretion, to summons witnesses, and authorization of the chair to begin inviting and scheduling witnesses to appear during the week of August 11, 2008. That is the motion now before us. I'm going to put the question, and I would ask the clerk to please call the vote on the motion as amended.

(Motion as amended agreed to: yeas 6; nays 4)

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

That vote being carried, the chair will, as instructed, determine what can be done quickly, and then I will come back to the committee at our next meeting, which I believe will be August 11, with a budget for approval of the committee once we determine how many witnesses we actually could get. I couldn't give you a number today simply because I don't know yet, but at the next available opportunity....

Madame Jennings.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

I move to adjourn.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

You've moved adjournment. The motion to adjourn is not debatable and must be voted on immediately.

[An hon. member]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I gave the floor to Madame Jennings, and she moved adjournment. I must put the question on that.

The members are aware that there is one other item of committee business, which is Mr. Reid's motion. But the motion is to adjourn, and it is the decision of the committee.

[An hon. member]

Unbelievable. I cannot believe this. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Hang your heads in shame.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

The meeting is adjourned.