Evidence of meeting #1 for Finance in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
There is a point of privilege, and I gave notice to your office that I would be raising one.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Yes, you gave me notice a little while ago. I have three notices of motions: one from Ms. Dzerowicz, one from Mr. Julian and one from you.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
My point is with regard to the breach of privilege that the government has carried out with respect to the finance committee. I do have the floor, and this is in order.
The Speaker has referred this matter back to the finance committee for it to be dealt with here. This is the proper forum, and privilege is the proper point under which it should be raised. So it is a point of privilege, and that grants me the floor to raise it.
Liberal
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
I will proceed. Points of privilege take precedence over points of order.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
They do take precedence, Ms. Dzerowicz, so we will allow it to go to the point of privilege, I believe.
Liberal
Liberal
Julie Dzerowicz Liberal Davenport, ON
Well can we maybe have the clerk define that, as opposed to the person who is raising the point of privilege?
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
If I may, it's impossible for the clerk to rule on whether it's a point of privilege until the clerk has heard the point of privilege.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
This committee, prior to prorogation, required that the government provide a series of documents in relation to the WE scandal. That request was very specific. It included a long list of items that would be required to fulfill the motion.
The motion specified that it would be the law clerk of the House of Commons who would be responsible for redacting any documents that were necessary to redact as a result of national security, cabinet confidence or any other legitimate purpose.
As you can appreciate, Mr. Chair, members of the committee were extremely disappointed and shocked to see that the documents submitted to the law clerk of the House of Commons were preredacted. Members of the government had covered up hundreds of sentences and at least dozens of pages through redactions, with black ink on page after page after page.
The Prime Minister promptly prorogued Parliament before this matter could be addressed at this committee, preventing me from bringing this motion then. Thus, I am bringing it forward now.
The member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands, Michael Barrett, raised a point of privilege on the floor of the House of Commons in respect of this matter. The Speaker responded by saying that the matter had to be raised at the aggrieved committee, which is this one.
This represents a breach of the privileges of parliamentarians to receive any and all documents that the committee requests. Parliamentary privilege is absolute. The government does not have the right, in our system, to withhold information that Parliament has requested.
I note that the original request was extremely generous towards the government, in that it provided a mechanism for the law clerk, who is bound by solicitor-client privilege, to remove or redact any information that would violate the government's right to cabinet confidence, protection of national security, commercial sensitivity and personal privacy.
We have a respected legal team. We have, simply put, a lawyer for the House of Commons whose job it was to carry out that work. The law clerk has informed the House that the office of the clerk was prevented from doing that job by the government's decision to do the redactions before the documents were ever handed over.
As remedy, I have a motion that I wish to introduce into the record for committee members to vote upon. Let me begin reading it.
That the Chair be instructed to present the following report to the House forthwith, provided that dissenting or supplementary—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Mr. Poilievre, before you go to your motion, I want to have this straight, because if it's a point of privilege, I have to allow it and go to the motion. But your point of privilege, if I understand what you said, is that you're saying the request that the finance committee made for documentation in the last Parliament was not abided by as we had requested that it be abided by. Is that what your point of privilege is?
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Yes, and thus the privilege of committee, which is a privilege of Parliament, was breached. The government breached the privileges of committee, the committee being a creature of Parliament, and thereby breached the privileges of parliamentarians. That is the basis for my point.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Okay, but what I need to know, before I rule for or against the point of privilege, is this: What part of the motion are you saying wasn't adhered to?
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
The documents requested were redacted before they reached the law clerk, and therefore Parliament's unlimited ability to acquire documents from the Government of Canada, or any other entity for that matter, was breached.
Liberal
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Furthermore, my motion actually contains additional evidence that will be read into the record formally, as soon as you allow me to continue.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
No, you can't.
Can we suspend for two minutes? I want to confer with the clerk on this one; I really do.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Well, no, I don't think there is unanimous consent to suspend the meeting.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Well, I can suspend the meeting and confer with the clerk, so I am going to do that. I want to be sure I am on safe ground with where I'm going here. I don't want to deny your motion if it shouldn't be denied, and I want to approve it if it should be approved under the rules.
I am going to suspend for two or three minutes and talk to the clerk.