Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 18th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Lamoureux.

We'll go to Mr. Lukiwski for a four-minute round, please.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thank you very much.

I just want to follow up a little bit on the conversation Monsieur Denis had with Mr. Lamoureux on the potential non-compliance from NDP members.

I'll address my question to you, Mr. Watters. How would the House go about getting reimbursement for the $36,309 from the 23 NDP members if they chose not to voluntarily repay it? It apparently is the position of the NDP to not repay any moneys. In practical terms, how would the House go about recovering that money?

[Mark G. Watters, Chief Financial Officer, House of Commons]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As the law clerk has explained, the process would be laid out in progressive steps, as per section 19 in the bylaws. The Clerk of the House, under the authority of the board, would first of all give notice to a member that an amount is outstanding. As Mr. Denis suggested, if the situation is not rectified, then the clerk, through the board, may order that the amount of money necessary to rectify the situation be withheld from any budget.

So the board would decide that a budget is to be reduced, or payments are not to be made from a particular budget. Failing that, the budget that is afforded to a member under paragraph 19(c) may be frozen or not made available to a member until such time as the situation is rectified.

There is a series of progressive steps, as the law clerk identified, for correction.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Have you any timetable in mind, Mr. Watters, as to initiating these steps?

[Mark G. Watters]

If we look at section 20 of the bylaws as well, it is the only place where we have a specific timeline in place. It says:

If a Member is 90 days or more in arrears in an amount owed to the House of Commons, the Chief Financial Officer

—which would be me, in this particular case—

may deduct the amount in arrears from any amount to be paid

to the member other than a payment made under the Parliament of Canada Act for sections 55 and 62, which are basically the sessional allowance provisions of the act.

So from any other amounts owing to a member, within 90 days an amount could be reduced in order to satisfy the arrears.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Would that be 90 sitting days or 90 calendar days?

[Mark G. Watters]

It says “90 days”, so I guess absent specification it would be calendar days.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

So the statement of the board of June 12, stating that 23 New Democratic Party members will be directed to personally reimburse a total of $36,309—that is the start date and it is 90 days from then that they have to repay the money. Am I correct in that assumption?

[Mark G. Watters]

Mr. Chair, it would depend on the date that the request was made of a member for reimbursement. If a date was specified—the board would like repayment by such-and-such a date—that is the date from which the 90 days would start to count down.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Okay.

How much time do I have left, Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

You have one minute.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

I'll start my question, and then I'll go back to it in my next round.

I want to go back to the question of the NDP utilizing an outside printer for these mailings. It may be a question that neither one of you gentlemen can answer. It may be something that is best directed towards printing services. But how common is it for members of Parliament, from whatever party, to use outside printers for common mail-outs like ten percenters, householders?

It would seem to me that, generally speaking, if an MP wants to do a mail-out and get reimbursed for that mail-out, they would use in-house printing services. Yet the NDP determined, for whatever reasons—we'll examine that in detail a little later—to use an outside printer.

Do you know if that's a common practice or if that's unusual?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

You'll have to get back to us on the answer, sir.

We'll go to the next questioner.

I'm going to pick Mr. Scott; is that correct?

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To Mr. Julian....

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Yes, I'll be next, Mr. Chair. I appreciate your—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

You need to hold a flag up or something.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Chair, it's interesting. A lot of good questions are coming forward.

I think this might already have been responded to. Other parties have been the subject of complaints made to the House administration about using outside printers. Those were part of the letters directed to the House administration about 15 months ago. So I believe—and you may want to clarify—you already answered that other parties have used an outside printer.

I also wanted to add the issue of the Board of Internal Economy and the secrecy provisions. Of course you know we've been pressing to have the Board of Internal Economy opened up. Do you see any provisions that actually prohibit publicly discussing these issues so that the public can actually see that one party is being investigated and the majority on the BOIE is refusing to let the other parties be investigated for doing things that in my book are much more partisan? Do you see any reason why the BOIE could not meet in public concerning the complaints the NDP has made about partisan mailings by the Conservatives and the Liberal Party?

[Marc Bosc]

Mr. Chairman, I can take the latter part of that question and say simply that it's not for us to comment on how the board should conduct its business or decide to conduct its business.

With regard to the earlier part of your question, I think Mr. Watters is in a position to provide an answer.

[Mark G. Watters]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On the question of outside printers, which I think the member was speaking to, there is a prohibition on asking the House to reimburse for any printing done by an outside printer for over 4,500 copies. As members know, that is clearly laid out in the Members’ Allowances and Services Manual. So if members are having things printed in any amount over 4,500 copies and are not seeking reimbursement from the House, the House would not necessarily be aware of that.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Okay. Thank you. That was certainly our case.

I have one final question before I turn things over to Mr. Scott.

Last fall we had hearings, as you will recall, about replacing the BOIE because it is secretive. At the time there was some discussion that there was still a consensus-based model around that. The Clerk, Audrey O'Brien, and former speakers like Peter Milliken, spoke very eloquently to the importance of maintaining a consensus model in which all parties work together to resolve differences or issues that come up. Although I may disagree with it, that model certainly worked better than what we are seeing now, which is not consensus-based at all.

You may not be able to comment on this, but do you see a problem when consensus-based decision-making within the BOIE is replaced by partisan decision-making?

[Marc Bosc]

Mr. Chairman, very briefly I would say that we believe the consensus model has worked very well historically and has the potential to continue working very well. Without commenting on anything that is taking place at the board, I will say it is a desirable model and we believe it can work very well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Lukiwski.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thank you very much.

I have a comment before my question. In response to Mr. Julian's allegations again that everyone is doing the same thing, clearly that's not the case. If the BOIE wanted to investigate any other specific allegation, it could do so. It doesn't do it on a normal basis because, quite frankly, no other party has sent out mailings for electoral purposes to try to influence a by-election or a federal election and has used franked envelopes to do so.

However, here is my question, specifically to Mr. Watters.

I want to go back to what you said about a prohibition on anyone, any party, or any MP who is sending over 4,500 copies and trying to get reimbursed. Is that correct?

[Mark G. Watters]

In terms of reimbursement, yes, Mr. Lukiwski.