Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 10th, 2016

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

We should take the full two hours for that.

[A voice]

[Inaudible--Editor]

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Is that a yes?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

My understanding is yes. They're going to be proposing a number of recommendations, and I think if we...in the fall, and I think we should use our time wisely to make sure we have influence on those.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

You know what? I don't think there's any reason to avoid May 31. That sounds fine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Is that agreed? We'll see if they're available on May 31 for an hour? Okay.

We're tying up business before we go on. The emergency hours motion I think we should try to get done as quickly as we can.

I saw Andrew; I wrote him a note yesterday in the House, and he went up to talk to the Speaker, Scott, so I think he hadn't done anything until that. I think he went up to talk to the Speaker to set up a time to meet. Hopefully they'll get back to us soon.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

All right. That sounds good.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Yes.

David, did you have something to say?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

No, I'm just drumming the table.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Blake.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I'm okay with May 31. My only concern is that we're then getting to the point where there aren't a lot of meetings left. I do think it's important this gets dealt with.

I understand the committee hasn't made a decision to have the minister, although I believe the committee should be making that decision. We've had some trouble in the past with this committee in getting ministers to come. They indicate their scheduling is difficult.

I would suggest we might want to ask the minister to provisionally set aside some time when one of our meetings might be occurring in June, so we can be sure it would be possible for that to happen should the committee decide to have the minister. I sure would not want to see another one of these excuses that the minister is not available for several months. We can't have that. That'll be unacceptable. I think it would be advisable we do everything we can to prevent that from occurring.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Any comments?

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I don't have a problem with that. [Inaudible--Editor] it's a preparation, that's fine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Sure. We will let her know.

Yes, Scott.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

I would like to invite Laura Stone, the reporter at the Globe and Mail to whom this information was leaked, as a witness as well.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

[Inaudible--Editor] claim journalistic privilege and—

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

There's actually no legal journalistic privilege. That is a convention, and I have no doubt she'll honour that convention.

But it is very hard to believe, reading what's written here, that this was not meant as very much a deliberate strategy that came from the very top. About the information that was leaked, Mr. Chan asserted at a previous meeting that it was purely negative—that is, it only said what wasn't in the bill—but it said so in a very thorough and exhaustive manner.

I'm reading from the article, that says it's “a bill that will exclude those who only experience mental suffering, such as people with psychiatric conditions”. It goes on to say this:

The bill also won’t allow for advance consent, a request to end one’s life in the future, for those suffering with debilitating conditions such as dementia. In addition, there will be no exceptions for “mature minors” who have not yet reached 18 but wish to end their own lives.

These prompted, in the very same story in which this was leaked, a response from Kay Carter's daughter, and that set the tone for all initial discussion of the legislation—which was that such condemnation as occurred, such criticism as occurred, was entirely on the bill not going far enough.

So this was a brilliant exercise, I think a brilliant and very successful exercise, in misdirection of the public debate on what is the most important piece of legislation in the 42nd Parliament. That could not have occurred because some low-level staffer leaked it out. This was very much part of a strategy. My guess is that it came directly out of the Prime Minister's Office. I do not blame the Minister of Justice, per se, for this, although she may or may not have known what was going on.

This deserves a proper investigation. Speaking to the reporter seems a reasonable place to start.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

I think we should wait until we ask Law Clerk the questions before we discuss witnesses, and also decide whether or not we're doing that in public. Is that okay?

So can we suspend for a minute until we get our...?

Yes, David.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I just want to clarify where we are.

Mr. Reid made a recommendation, but it's not a motion. Calling in the reporter is a big deal, I think. I'm not sure we've done that before. That's the direction I was going to go in—

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

I have no idea if we have, to be honest.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Okay. All right. I just wanted to make sure nothing was decided now.

It's all going to be decided later? Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

I think so, yes.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Mr. Chair, I would like to deal with something that Mr. Christopherson didn't say but must be on his mind.

It is not my intention to put the reporter in the kind of position that has occurred in the past, where an assertion is made that if they fail to reveal their source, we're going to take some kind of...they're in contempt of Parliament or something like that. That's not my purpose. My purpose is to try to get more information about how this happened.

This is, I fear, the first of what might become a pattern if it's allowed to go on—that is, not the revelation of all information in the bill in advance but rather of select details that help frame the debate, so as to effectively mislead the public and redirect debate, through the selective release of information, to a body other than Parliament.

There's a reason why bills are introduced in Parliament first, and there's a reason why the entire bill is released, not just the bits the government wants to get out in order to set the stage so they can get the best publicity when dealing with a piece of legislation. That's without reference to the actual content of this bill. I'm trying to be agnostic as to what I think of the bill itself when I make this explanation.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Fair enough, and I appreciate the clarification. It's just that, again, the media does have an independent role. It doesn't mean they can run roughshod over anything any time they want, but, boy, I've been around here a while, as you have, Mr. Reid, and I'm just not aware that this has been done. Virtually every issue of privilege comes here because some reporter reported something, and our issue is the sending of that information, the releasing of that information, not the reporter's side of it, which is kind of the catcher's mitt part of it.

We just want to be very, very careful about starting to haul in reporters as witnesses, because Parliament has an incredible amount of power, and as a committee of Parliament we have that power. We have to be very, very careful about how that power is exercised, especially when we're starting to run into the rights and role of the media in a democracy. That's not to say that we can never go there, but we have to deal with this with the greatest of sensitivity and consideration.