Finance Committee on July 20th, 2021

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to echo Mr. Ste-Marie's comments. We're addressing something very serious here. I noticed our Liberal friends were making light of this issue, but this is no laughing matter, Ms. O'Connell. This is about defiance of the will of Parliament.

Mr. Dufresne, I'm not going to ask you to make the assumption I'm making, which is that defiance of the will of Parliament by Mr. Trudeau will occur again under this government. This was not an oversight. My real fear is that if he's re-elected he will move again to defy the will of Parliament, not only on this, but on other legislation.

My question to you is, does the government and do finance department officials have any right to delay or refuse to implement legislation that is properly passed by Parliament?

[Philippe Dufresne]

Legislation that is properly passed and that is in force—and that was the issue in this case, where there's no date of coming into force that's later—is in force as of the date of royal assent and becomes law. That is binding on the government and on citizens.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Did any finance officials or the Prime Minister's Office seek your legal opinion before announcing that they did not intend to implement C-208 before amending it?

[Philippe Dufresne]

No, and nor would they, because I am the counsel to the legislative branch, not the executive branch.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Are you at all aware of whether they sought legal counsel before proceeding that way?

[Philippe Dufresne]

I'm not aware. That's not information that I would have.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

All right.

Now, did I hear you say that the Prime Minister could make his proposed November 1 amendments retroactive?

[Philippe Dufresne]

Legislation can be retroactive if Parliament so decides, but Parliament has to express that very clearly.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

You would agree with me that the government has signalled that it wants to make amendments and that they may be retroactive.

[Philippe Dufresne]

The government has signalled its intention to bring amendments. It has described what those would be about and it has talked about some application times in the communiqué, being the later of either November 1, 2021, or the date of publication of the final draft legislation. The communiqué speaks for itself on that.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

There's absolutely no guarantee from this government that it won't totally gut Bill C-208 when it gets around to amending it.

[Philippe Dufresne]

We have the statement and that's what's there. There's no other statement on that at this time.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

My Liberal friends just said there's no guarantee that pigs can't fly. That's the kind of disrespect we have come to expect from our Liberal friends.

I have another question. What remedies do parliamentarians have to redress the government's refusal to implement duly passed legislation that is in force?

[Philippe Dufresne]

One of the roles of the House, as recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada, is holding the government to account. Doing this, such as the committee is doing now or as the House would do when it is sitting, in question period, is to hold the government to account and to ask questions and to require information and explanations.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Dufresne, does Parliament have the right to hold the Prime Minister in contempt if he fails to implement legislation that has been duly passed through the will of Parliament?

[Philippe Dufresne]

The House has disciplinary power over all its members, and it's up to the House to determine whether any situation would warrant using those powers.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

I've been a member of the House for close to 16 years now, and I've never seen a government defy the will of Parliament before. You have said that you have seen no precedent for this kind of action being taken that we saw reflected in the press release of June 30. Am I correct?

[Philippe Dufresne]

The June press release was not something we had seen before.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

It had not ever been seen in history.

[Philippe Dufresne]

Well, we have not seen precedents in recent history, certainly since I've been here.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

That is a very sad comment on our government.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

It's your last question, Ed.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

I'll just leave you with a statement, Mr. Chair. I've been appalled at the willingness of this Prime Minister to defy the will of Parliament and to challenge the supremacy of Parliament. We are going down a very dangerous road.

By the way, this opinion isn't shared by just us Conservatives. It's shared right across the board. I've spoken to Liberals who are appalled that we have a Prime Minister who is prepared to take on the supremacy of Parliament.

That's all I'll say, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

All right. We'll have to leave it at that.

Mr. Dufresne and Mr. Bédard, thank you very much for your advice, number one, to parliamentarians and to this committee, which we often call on you to give. Thank you for providing us with your expertise today on where we're at in terms of the supremacy of Parliament. Thank you for that.

We will suspend for a couple of minutes and bring forward our next panel.

Again, thank you very much to you both.

[Philippe Dufresne]

Thank you.