Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Sept. 30th, 2014

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Under current law?

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Under current law, as it is on the Senate side.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

What is the difference?

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

What triggers removal in the House is more nuanced than it is on the Senate side.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Okay. I'm not quite there. I want to work this—

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Let me put it this way. How you're removed is different on both sides, but the end result, loss of pension, is the same.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you. That's my segue to the second point.

Your suggestion is that it not be tied to expulsion. My first thought was we had to have a list of all the indictable offences here, all kinds of clauses and overarching this and that, to make sure we're not inadvertently doing anything wrong. Expulsion, arguably, is one of the strongest measures the House can take. If you deny someone the right to take their seat, you've pretty much done what you can. That's a high threshold.

Why wouldn't that trigger it if it's based on wording that it's an indictable offence? The trigger then is being expelled. You didn't feel that was the right trigger to go to, yet my first thought, just off the top of my head, upon hearing your thoughts was that this is an easier way to define when we're getting into this level of severity. Could I have your thoughts on that?

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Sure. I think there are two.

One, I consider a verdict in a court of law to be a very high threshold already, innocence or guilt, particularly of the 19 charges I've laid out here, all indictable, all with penalties of five or more years. These are all what we would call serious crimes. That in effect takes it out of our hands, if you like. It's not up to us to vote on individual cases. If you're found guilty in a court of law, that's it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Dave.

We'll go to Mr. Lukiwski for four minutes.

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

Just to pick up a little of what David was saying, there was an example very recently, and in fact, we'll be discussing a bit of that in the last half of this meeting, that could have resulted potentially in expulsion. One of our colleagues was charged with overspending on his campaign. This has been resolved.

Currently, if someone is found guilty of overspending in his or her election campaign, the penalties are optional, up to the sentencing judge, of course: a fine or up to a year, or I think in some cases up to five years, in prison. If in fact someone is found guilty of deliberately overspending and given jail time, and we have another example right now with Mr. Del Mastro, he would then, I believe, be expelled from the House.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Not necessarily.

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

If you're given jail time?

If someone were expelled, if the House, for example, determined.... If one of the MPs received jail time for some violation and the jail time was less than five years, but the MP was expelled by a vote in the House of Commons, your bill would not have an impact on that.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

That's correct. In fact, the expulsion.... On our web page, being found guilty of a crime in the House of Commons is not necessarily reason enough to expel them.

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

And you're comfortable with that.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

My bill doesn't seek to change that. My bill seeks to—

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

No, I understand that, but you've considered it.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

To be honest with you, Tom, I've not considered that. In the last year I've been dealing with individuals throwing any manner of criminal conviction at me. I have not considered the idea that a conviction should automatically result in a member losing his seat. I can ponder it and get back to you, but I'd rather not give an opinion right now.

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

I'm not being critical of your bill here. I honestly don't know the answer to this myself. I'm just raising the question. If a member were expelled for some reason but not convicted of a punishable crime, an indictable crime, in a court of law, but were expelled because the House believed his offence, or whatever he did, was serious enough to expel him, do you believe in this case that your bill should have provisions to cover that, that the MP should lose his pension?

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

I probably don't, actually, no. First of all, the examples where individuals have been thrown out are rare—Louis Riel, twice, for example, and I think another member for spying against the nation. They are very infrequent to begin with.

Again, the whole point behind this in using the courts is that it doesn't become a political football for us. To throw a member out is so extreme anyway that I don't even think it would come down to a partisan question. The expulsion is secondary to this bill. It really is the crime, and that's where I want to keep the emphasis, not on a decision of the House as to whether we should throw someone out even for a minor crime and should that trigger the loss of a pension.

Now, should this body decide otherwise, fair enough, but I have found in the last year that most members are throwing up red flags. I've tried to come forward with a bill that keeps the spirit of my bill but works in a way that's not going to unduly punish individuals. I mean, individuals really have to take deliberate and consistent actions to be charged by one of these crimes, and that's when a pension would be revoked.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

The analyst is sharing with me that if a member is expelled, it does remove their pension. So to answer your question....

Now, is that removed if the resignation happens before the ultimate expulsion?

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Yes. If the member resigns first, they keep the pension. That goes to the heart of this bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

All right. So the same thing works, but there is an automatic removal of pension if someone is expelled.

We'll go to Mr. MacKenzie, please, for four minutes. I've been very lenient today, but we're trying to keep this within this hour.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

In some ways I look at this as a solution looking for a problem. We don't have a lot of these instances. In some cases, what we've been talking about here, expulsion....

If we went back to something more recent, a former cabinet minister after he left was charged with an offence. Would that apply to him?

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

I believe it would, because the charges came after the tabling of my bill on June 3, 2013.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Okay.

One of the other things, and I think Mr. Reid brought this up, is that if you're not here six years, and you haven't put in the time for pension, as we say, it would have no effect, right? What about the severance or separation pay that someone here less than six years gets?