Evidence of meeting #24 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was breach.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:15 a.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you, Chair, and thank you both for your attendance today.
Having been around the mulberry bush on this one quite a number of times, I don't have a lot of questions. Most of my questions would come up as a matter of detail when circumstances arise. I may not even need all my seven minutes in this particular round. I know. It will be the second time by the way.
Chair, as much as you'll allow it, and I look to your discretion to guide me, given the fact that on April 14, Bill C-14 was introduced, that was the day of the leak. The chief government whip acknowledged there was a leak and apologized. At least it was reported. The notes say unreservedly, and I take them at face value. When you ask the question, who benefits, it's pretty clear it's the government. Nobody else benefited from this leak. Quite frankly it would be difficult for anybody other than the government to have the information to leak in the first place.
Has the government initiated any kind of a review themselves? It's clear one of their own has leaked this. Can somebody over there give me some kind of an answer, Chair?
11:15 a.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
It's a factual request. Did the government, given the importance of this and the fact that the chief government whip got up right away and acknowledged this is a problem...? I could read Hansard but knowing the individual, I'm sure it was very heartfelt and complete. But it begs the question, if the government is that serious about it, did the government begin an internal investigation to find out who did it, given that the odds are it was a government staffer or member, somebody attached to the government. I think it's a fair question.
Looks as if it's a screaming no.
The chief government whip is right here. I'm sure he'd be glad to help.
Crickets, crickets.
It begs the question. If it's all that important, it's hard to match the words with the action. If the government is that sincere that this really upsets them—I took them at face value that it does—you'd think they would have announced an internal investigation because the likely culprit is someone within their organization. If they're not doing that, I don't know where the heck that leaves us. That's all I have to say.
11:20 a.m.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Mr. Chair, thank you.
We've talked quite a bit about precedent and we've addressed four cases or so from the last couple of decades. I think there is quite a bit of precedent that says that it doesn't need to be a question of privilege. I'll just read from a couple of articles from 2014, for example:
Conservatives to table bill that will reorganize Elections Canada.
The Conservative government will introduce changes to the Elections Act this week that caucus members expect to restructure the office in charge of investigating [elections]....
Conservative sources expect the bill to reorganize...the branch of Elections Canada that investigates and prosecutes electoral crimes.
... “close loopholes to big money, and give law enforcement sharper teeth, a longer reach and a freer hand.”
The bill would remove the Commissioner of Canada Elections, where the investigators work, from Elections Canada and set it up as separate office, sources say.
There are numerous such examples over the last few years, in which specific details of bills were released up to a month in advance, and no question of privilege was raised.
Would you consider this a precedent that we should be looking at?
11:20 a.m.
Acting Clerk, House of Commons
The precedents we look at are those in which the Speaker has had to make a ruling.
11:20 a.m.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
If there is no reason to make a ruling, we shouldn't consider that a precedent at all?
My point is that things like this happen all the time and all of a sudden we're looking at it as a question of privilege. I don't necessarily see it as one. The bill was not released in its own right, but over the years we have had many cases in which details of what may or may not be in a bill have been released. I don't see where we can go with this.
11:20 a.m.
Acting Clerk, House of Commons
Again, Mr. Graham, the House saw fit to send this matter to the committee, and the House has asked the committee to look at it, so the committee is seized with it. That's all I can say.
11:20 a.m.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Hello, Mr. Bosc.
I just want to continue with my colleague's thought.
As a new member, I've been hearing a lot about various government bills on the news, and we continue to hear a lot of information. Even before, as a non-member, I gathered what the government was about to do when the Conservatives had introduced Bill C-24. There was tons of news around that. For the most part, we knew a fair amount of what was going to be in that bill. We knew that they were going to cover the issue of lost Canadians. We knew they were going to cover shorter wait times, and a longer time to qualify for citizenship. There were tons of comments made about dual citizenship and taking away someone's citizenship if terrorism or other acts of criminality had occurred. This was buzzing around in the news for quite some time, and I thought it was quite normal for there to be some buzz in the media, and some talk by members and ministers about introducing certain bills. The Prime Minister had tweeted about Bill C-24, and there were video clips of the minister giving little tidbits of what to expect in that upcoming bill, whether a month or two days prior to the bill.
This all seemed to be quite normal. There were no questions of privilege.
I understand that you're saying you only address the question when it occurs in the House, but it seems that a certain standard has been set for a long time now. Whether or not that's right is something this committee has to decide, but I think it is important for us to figure out how we continue from this point.
The way I see it, a lot of bills are discussed, perhaps not in that much detail. To me this seems very similar to what was discussed about Bill C-24, and maybe a lot less than that. That may not be the standard we should look to or adhere to in the future, but certainly I think we need to define more clearly, going forward, what is a question of privilege, when it necessarily arises, and what the responsibilities of members are regarding a bill.
Obviously within caucus and in the House there had been a lot of talk about this and a lot of other bills. What is the defining line? Where do we set the parameters as to what goes outside and is a breach, and what is inside? Is that something you can shed more light on?
11:25 a.m.
Acting Clerk, House of Commons
Again, in the material you received I would draw your attention to the reference to the Speaker's ruling of November 5, 2009. That one is of interest given what you've just said. In that case the Speaker found there was no prima facie case of privilege since—and I'm paraphrasing here—the minister had assured the House that no details of the measures being proposed in the bill were publicly disclosed, and only the broad terms of the policy initiative contained in the bill had been.
That gives you an idea of the kinds of things the Speaker might look at. That's one example.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
11:25 a.m.
Acting Clerk, House of Commons
Yes. In that particular ruling that's what the Speaker referred to.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
From reading some of the snippets of the media reports regarding Bill C-14, we've been talking a lot about not what's in the bill, but what may not be in the bill. Could this be perhaps seen as journalists' speculation at times around talk that has been discussed?
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Okay. I think it's very interesting because all the precedents that we have seen so far have been talking about contents of the bill and not necessarily about what may not be in the bill. That seems to be the case we have before us today. As you were saying previously, we may not have a particular case that can be completely similar in facts, but we have a case before us that's not necessarily talking about contents and that's the standard I've been reading in the previous case law that we have before us.
Thank you for your input. My colleague would like to ask a question.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
Very quickly then, it means that the precedents you look at are only precedents where someone rose in the House and raised a question of privilege, but there could very well be many other precedents where no question of privilege was ever raised that could be similar to this?
May 31st, 2016 / 11:25 a.m.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
To pick up on where Blake ended and build on what David was saying, I think you have to look at the language included in these articles. I think there are very significant differences here. As David Graham mentioned, the article that he cited had the very key words “expected” and “may have” in terms of the point that he was making, but just quoting this Globe and Mail article from April 12 it's basically saying the bill “will exclude those who only experience mental suffering”, “The bill also won’t allow for advance consent”, and “there will be no exceptions for ‘mature minors’”.
Those are very definitive statements.
It may be a different writing style. I doubt it. David's a former journalist and I'm a former journalist and news director, though not to the esteem of my friend here. We have experience in this field. It's showing the writing style is very clear.
When you're writing like this it's basically saying we have information saying this. It is very much a matter of fact and not a guess, not it's expected, it may have, it may consider this.
I think there's something here. I think the committee needs to really study this. I don't think we should just brush this off. There are very clear points that the privilege was violated here. I hope the committee continues to look at that.
Mr. Bosc, do you see any issues of the committee asking the government to respond to what Mr. Christopherson was starting with? Do you see any problem with that? I just want to confirm before we move in this direction.
11:30 a.m.
Acting Clerk, House of Commons
Again, it's up to the committee to decide if it wants to invite witnesses or seek information on the point Mr. Christopherson was making. That's up to the committee. Sure, it could be done.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
Now as we know that, and we're looking at the wording, and Ruby pointed out some other cases, but again the wording that she mentioned was having those key words.... I'm guessing in looking back, if there was an issue it should have been raised. I don't know why, I can't speak to that because I wasn't here, but clearly there must have been something that those in the opposition at the time felt was not a breach. But as I said here, the language in this article as we all read it clearly shows this is a statement of fact, rather than reporters' speculation. I think it goes beyond that.
I know you mentioned, and other people have mentioned, that where we go from here is basically up to the committee, that we can do as we so choose. We can move in the direction we want. I appreciate that.
Looking a couple of steps forward, what would be your advice on how we prevent this kind of thing happening in the future? Can you give us a couple of points where you think it might work?
