Evidence of meeting #46 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was mailings.
A video is available from Parliament.
Deputy Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
If I may just add something, Mr. Chair, to the answer to Mr. Butt's question, again, in the MAS section on the large-volume mailing, it says:
Fully assembled (including sealed) printed materials prepared in whole or in part in Members' offices or by an external supplier may be mailed under the conditions outlined above. It is the Member’s responsibility to ensure that these materials comply with the By-laws and policies of the Board of Internal Economy.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you.
We'll move on to Mr. Scott. I'm told it's him this time.
NDP
Craig Scott NDP Toronto—Danforth, ON
It is.
This may come across as kind of a geekie lawyer-to-lawyer question for Monsieur Denis. If in a legal document we were to use the word “deemed” and say that something is deemed to have happened, normally that means that something that is X is actually deemed to be something that is other than X.
For example when it's 6:50 in the House, and we say that we shall see the clock at seven o'clock, we're deeming that. That's the way I understand “deem”.
Would that also be the normal usage of the word “deemed”?
Deputy Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
At the risk of being put on the spot here, I would interpret “deem” as meaning there's a presumption. I'm trained in both common law and civil law—but as we would say in civil law,
a presumption can either be challengeable or unchallengeable.
In other words, presumptions in certain circumstances can be overturned, and that's the case here I would say. It's really a question of context, what you're looking at in the situation. It's hard to answer just like this in general terms.
NDP
Craig Scott NDP Toronto—Danforth, ON
The way you answered it would be one common usage of “deemed”. Okay. Thank you.
If it were the case that for whatever other reasons—everybody always has multiple reasons for doing things—a couple of parties decided that another party needed to be knocked down a peg, and decided it was time to make some decisions on that basis, and they wanted to make those decisions within the BOIE, is there anything about the BOIE process that could absolutely prevent that? Is there anything in the BOIE process for political purposes that prevents that, other than, obviously, the Speaker doing things to try to keep things outside of that realm?
Deputy Clerk of the House of Commons, House of Commons
Mr. Scott, the composition of the board can change over time. At one time, there were five recognized parties in the House. The board composition is determined by law.
Richard can comment on those provisions, but we can't really comment on what might or might not be. What is, is.
NDP
Craig Scott NDP Toronto—Danforth, ON
Yes, what is definitely is. Thank you.
I don't have any more questions.
Unless my colleagues do...?
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Is there anything that would prohibit the Auditor General from coming in and looking at parliamentary expenses as the NDP has been advocating now for over a year, aside from the refusals of the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party to allow the Auditor General in? In other words, if those parties would agree to bring in the Auditor General to monitor all expenses—not just the mailing program but all expenses—do you see any difficulties with that happening if the two old parties would get over their incredible opposition to letting the Auditor General actually come in and look at our expenses?
Conservative
Deputy Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The first issue would be the question of whether or not the Auditor General has jurisdiction to actually look at members' expenses and over the House of Commons. That would be a legal question to be considered.
Next to that would be the question of getting the board's permission. In the past, the only two times when the Auditor General came and did an audit of the House's resources and the expenses of members were on the invitation of the board. That's the history.
Conservative
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Gentlemen, because I know we're getting close to the end of our time, let me say that I want to thank you very much for your appearance here today. You've provided excellent information. You've, I think, provided this committee with the type of information we need to continue this study, because it opens up a lot of doors to areas that we may want to pursue in the future.
One of those I want to talk about is liability. We know that the money owed to the House is $36,309. We also know that the board has recommended that the repayment to Canada Post, however, be in the amount of $1.17 million. We also know, at least if I'm reading correctly the briefing provided to this committee, that 23 members of Parliament for the NDP are listed as the ones who participated in these inappropriate and illegal mailings.
My question to you would be on liability and whether these MPs would be liable jointly, severally...? Would others' budgets—whether it's the House leader's or the House officers'—in the NDP be able to provide repayment? Exactly what would the liability be for these 23 members of Parliament?
These are the ones I would like to confirm again, if I have the information correct. You may have that information and may want to consult your records. We're talking about MPs Hughes, Boivin, Gravelle, Allen, Sitsabaiesan—I know I'm pronouncing it incorrectly, and I apologize for that—Cleary, Boulerice, Groguhé, Blanchette-Lamothe, Caron, Mulcair, Scott, Leslie, Chisholm, Morin, Moore, Freeman, Boutin-Sweet, Toone, Nicholls, and Dubé. Would those 23 individuals be personally liable for that close to $1.2 million if in fact Canada Post decided to pursue repayment? When you add the $1.17 million with the $36,309, that's slightly over $50,000 per member listed.
Chief Financial Officer, House of Commons
Mr. Chair, everything with respect to the bylaws points to the members being entrusted with a personal budget. Therefore, the liability with respect to House resources would be individual and personal. It wouldn't be collective.
I can't speak for the crown corporation. I can't speak for the Department of Transport. I'm not sure how they would assess liability, if any. The obligation of the House was to communicate that information and not necessarily to make any decision of liability per se.
But with respect to the $36,000 for the House, it would be members as individuals. Any recourse in terms of what I talked about earlier—the non-compliance provisions, section 19, and the progressive recourse that we would apply—would apply to members as individuals according to the decisions made by the board for those members as individuals.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
So then just to be crystal clear on this one, if the New Democratic Party said they wanted to provide financial assistance to the members, would that be allowed? Would that be appropriate?
Deputy Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
Mr. Chair, in my opinion, I would say no, because there is no link, really, between the House and the NDP.
Again, House resources are provided to each member individually. That's specifically said in the bylaws. So the recovery, as Mr. Watters explained, would be from members individually.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you, Mr. Lukiwski. I'm going to stop you there.
I'll stop at this point and thank our guests.
There are a couple of questions that were asked today by our members. One was for some sort of report from you about members who have printed outside the House and what the billings for those were.
We've been asked to report back to the board our findings on some of this stuff. There was a request from them to do so.
One of the questions that Mr. Lukiwski asked was whether we can get the report that you submitted to the board.
Is that a request that this committee has to make of the board in order for that to happen, Mr. Bosc?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
So this committee will have to do that.
Monsieur Denis, you suggested that you had a table of comparisons of the old board rules versus the new board rules. That may be very helpful for this committee in its further study also.
Deputy Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
I'll provide that with pleasure, Mr. Chair; no problem.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Okay.
Monsieur Bosc, you also made a suggestion for us, as we're making that report back to the board, about the recommended use of franks, and the respect of it, and what might go forward further on that. This committee will keep that in mind as we're writing back to the board.
I thank you for your time tonight. I apologize for the delay in getting started. You've been more than helpful. You did a great job staying within what you could share with us and what you could not.
Thank you very much.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Colleagues, we are back. We have 10 minutes or so left in our time today, but of course the committee can be its own master on this one.
We have a couple pieces of committee business.
You all received a draft committee report.
At the last meeting, the crackerjack analysts prepared a report for you on the Bezan privilege motion. You all took it away with you from the last meeting. If you want to discuss that, we'll have to go in camera in order to do so.
We also have two or three outstanding motions from Mr. Christopherson.
Did you want to move one today?